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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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November 5, 2025

Zohran City

The US political story of the week is this: Zohran Mamdani, an ultra-progressive Democrat who calls himself a “democratic socialist,” will be the next mayor of New York City. In the most widely discussed of America’s off-year elections held Tuesday, Mamdani resoundingly bested the established, scandalized former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Republican anti-crime crusader Curtis Sliwa.
 
Does Mamdani’s win tell us something about how Democrats can succeed in the US, nationally? About the dangers of raising taxes on high earners and widely expanding government services? About looming conflict with President Donald Trump, America’s most famous New Yorker?
 
As Fareed heard recently from political journalist Astead Herndon, Mamdani’s success in left-leaning New York City and may not be a broad recipe for Democrats nationwide. Still, Mamdani’s rise reflects a question out-of-power political parties must answer: Is it strategically wiser to tack to the center, or to lean into ideology and excite the base as Mamdani did? 

Much of Mamdani’s success is due to his charisma and hopeful message. “Mamdani won New Yorkers over, in an election with higher turnout than any mayor’s race in fifty years, by suggesting that the city’s politics could look a little less depraved,” writes The New Yorker’s Eric Lach. “At a time when leading figures in the Democratic Party seem practically complicit in the abuses and outrages of the Trump era, Mamdani offered his supporters an unsullied message of hope,” Lach writes. Outsiders have tried to disrupt New York City machine politics in the past, Lach writes, but their efforts usually fade. 
 
Trump, who has mislabeled Mamdani a “communist,” will seek ways to crack down, The Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire expects. “New York City—a Democratic stronghold that soundly spurned Trump—has so far largely been spared the president’s wrath,” Lemire writes. “That’s because Trump has been waiting. So far this year, he has defied mayors’ wishes—and court orders—to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. He has offered various defenses for the deployments—protecting ICE agents and fighting crime being the top ones—but has deliberately held back on doing so in New York. He wanted to see who won the mayor’s race; his advisers have told me. Trump privately made clear to them that, were Mamdani to triumph, he would use that outcome as justification to deploy troops in a city that, he said, would be left inherently unsafe under socialist rule.”
 
Mamdani is not a true socialist. He does not call for public control of the economy. That said, his proposals—which include free buses, city-run supermarkets and a rent freeze for already-regulated apartments—involve expanding services, and Mamdani proudly calls himself a democratic socialist. Needless to say, the right is wary. In a tidy list, Jack Nicastro of the libertarian magazine Reason notes some of the arguments against Mamdani’s policies (for instance, rent has gone up despite decades of rent control). The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board writes: “The people have spoken, for better or worse, and [Mamdani’s] voters were willing to take a risk on his radicalism in the name of change. We’ll soon learn if the 34-year-old Assemblyman has a pragmatic streak or sees his mission as making the city that never sleeps a socialist lab experiment.”

Why the Story of Tuesday’s

US Elections Is Not

(Mainly) About Mamdani

For all the excitement and fear Mamdani has generated, Tuesday’s elections weren’t just about him. As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat points out, every New York City mayoral race gets over-hyped by a partially New York-based national media. It matters relatively little to everyone else who runs America’s largest city; politically, Douthat notes, the New York City mayorship is a “springboard to nowhere” for the politicians who win it. 

To some analysts, equally significant lessons can be learned from Tuesday’s Democratic wins in governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey. There, it was centrist Democrats, not ultra-progressives like Mamdani, who carried the day. Some say two larger factors were at work: Trump’s unpopularity and the high cost of living.

The main takeaway from these elections, according to The Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter, Jessica Taylor, Matthew Klein and Erin Covey, was: “It’s not 2024 anymore. … In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the gubernatorial election by 15 points, while in New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill prevailed by 13 points—a nine point and seven point improvement, respectively, over Vice President Kamala Harris’ showing in those states last year. Democrats’ success in both states was driven by the unpopularity of the president and many of his policies, as well as an overall dissatisfaction with the direction of the country.” In her Insight newsletter, Frida Ghitis points out: “The Democratic sweep was nationwide. In Georgia, for the first time in two decades, Democrats won non-federal statewide races. They took two Public Service Commission seats from Republicans. It was the result of anger at soaring utility rates and frustration with the Trump administration.”
 
The successful Democratic candidates Sherrill and Spanberger do have something important in common with Mamdani, The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells writes. Their campaigns “all shared the same theme: that the most important things cost too much. … The most natural campaign for Democrats to run—one that the Party was built to run in the twentieth century—is ordinary people against the rich. Trump is handing it back to them.” 

Maduro’s Maneuver

Trump has dialed up pressure on Venezuelan strongman President Nicolás Maduro, musing about missile strikes and authorizing CIA operations in the country. As US pressure began building in September, what did Maduro do in response?

a) Declared Christmas would come early
b) Promised to end human-rights abuses
c) Declared a national holiday of free food and drink
d) Nominated Trump for a Nobel Prize

To see the answer, scroll to the end of this newsletter. 

Has the US Found a

Thatcherite Ally in Tokyo?

Comparing successful female politicians to Margaret Thatcher can feel uninspired, but in the case of Sanae Takaichi, it fits. Sworn in late last month as Japan’s first-ever female prime minister, Takaichi idolizes Thatcher, as Tinshui Yeung wrote for the BBC. (Unlike the former UK prime minister, Takaichi plays heavy-metal drums.)
 
Takaichi met with Trump during the US president’s recent trip to Asia, and some see a promising alliance. Japan’s long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party elected the conservative Takashi “to regain trust from a public angered by rising prices and drawn to opposition groups promising stimulus and clampdowns on migrants,” Reuters’ Tim Kelly, John Geddie and Satoshi Sugiyama wrote. At the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist blog, Simran Walia writes: “Takaichi’s embrace of the agenda of President Donald Trump gives Washington a more reliable partner in Tokyo. … Takaichi has embraced Trump’s focus on reshoring supply chains, strengthening defence burden-sharing and securing rare-earth minerals. This speaks to a convergence of strategic imperatives. Both leaders recognise that control over critical materials and technologies such as semiconductors, rare earths and energy inputs will further define national power in the decades ahead.”  

News Quiz:

The Answer Is …

Question: As pressure from the US mounted in September, what did Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro do? Answer: He declared Christmas would happen early. 
 
You read that correctly. As the Spanish newspaper El País reported on Sept. 9, Maduro decreed Christmas would be moved up to Oct. 1. The Washington Post’s Ana Vanessa Herrero, Tobi Raji and Matthew Hay Brown write: “‘We’re going to apply the formula from other years, which has worked very well for the economy, for culture, for joy, for happiness,’ President Nicolás Maduro announced last month. … It’s become an annual tradition—and an attempt, critics say, to distract the citizens of this authoritarian socialist state from the crisis of the moment.”

Indeed, Maduro did the same thing last year. 

If the goal is distraction, Venezuela has no shortage of serious problems to distract from. Since 2014, the country has faced a rolling economic and political crisis that has driven nearly 8 million people to flee. The UN has alleged Venezuelan intelligence agencies have committed crimes against humanity, including torture, in service of suppressing dissent. In July 2024, Maduro claimed victory in an election widely considered rigged. (Opposition figure María Corina Machado, who recently was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, was not allowed to run.) Facing international criticism in the wake of last summer’s election, Maduro moved Christmas ahead on the calendar, to Oct. 1. That October, The Guardian’s Tom Phillips and Patricia Torres wrote: “A month after Maduro announced that Christmas 2024 would begin in October, residents of Caracas left home on Tuesday to find the capital’s boulevards and plazas decked with LED light strings and sculptures declaring: ‘Feliz Navidad.’”
 
Today, many wonder if the US will strike Venezuela or seek to oust Maduro. Trump has said he authorized the CIA to conduct operations in the country. The US president has mused about airstrikes on Venezuelan soil, as a next step after the US military’s campaign to strike alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling boats. A US aircraft carrier is reportedly on its way to the Caribbean to join the effort. At New Lines Magazine, Mie Hoejris Dahl writes of daily life in Venezuela nowadays: “While much of the world watches Venezuela in anticipation of military intervention and regime change, the mood inside the South American nation feels more muted. … ‘Right now, we’re in Christmas mood, everything is full of Christmas in Caracas,’ [a Caracas-based] photographer told New Lines. Maduro has used this move in previous years, too, trying to inject cheer and consumer spending into a struggling economy and distract from ongoing crises. A human rights defender in Caracas, who also asked not to be named due to fears of government reprisals, says Maduro’s government is bent on ‘engineering its own reality.’”