Left-wing commentator Van Jones was among those raising alarm at Democratic socialist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s fiery victory speech, noting what he called an instant “character switch” as soon as the election was called.
A roaring Mamdani wasted no time in claiming a mandate for his progressive agenda and taunting President Trump as he rallied supporters Tuesday night, the New York Post reported.
Jones told CNN that the 34-year-old’s tone was a stark departure from the calm and collected image he showed on the campaign trail.
“I think he missed an opportunity. I think the Mamdani that we saw in the campaign trail, who was a lot more calm, who was a lot warmer, who was a lot more embracing, was not present in that speech,” Jones said on a post-election panel.
“I think his tone was sharp. I think he was using the microphone in a way that he was almost yelling. That’s not the Mamdani that we’ve seen on TikTok and the great interviews and stuff like that.”
“I felt like it was a little bit of a character switch here,” he continued. “That warm, open, embracing guy was not there tonight.”
Jones, who served as an adviser in the Obama administration, said Mamdani would have been wiser to reach out to voters still wary of his far-left platform.
“There are a lot of people trying to figure out, ‘Can I get on this train with him or not? Is he going to include me? Is he going to be more of a class warrior even in office?’” Jones said. “I think he missed a chance tonight to open up and bring more people into the tent.”
“He’s very young and he just pulled off something very, very difficult. I wouldn’t write him off, but I think he missed an opportunity to open himself up tonight and I think that that will probably cost him going forward.”
Mamdani declared victory roughly two hours after polls closed.
With nearly 98 percent of precincts reporting, Mamdani led with 50.4 percent of the vote to independent candidate Andrew Cuomo’s 42 percent, according to the city Board of Elections.
“The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this,” Mamdani said in his 20-minute victory speech.
“New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change, a mandate for a new kind of politics, a mandate for a city that we can afford and a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that.”
Just the News has reportedly obtained internal documents from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) outlining how the group’s New York City chapter, to which Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani belongs, plans to pressure him into implementing sweeping anti-Israel policies throughout city governance and public life.
During the mayoral race, Mamdani attempted to downplay his ties to the group’s more radical and revolutionary platform — and, according to Politico, the NYC DSA branch actively helped him do so by providing public cover to make his campaign appear more moderate than it truly was.
According to the “Socialists in Office” website, the group is composed of “DSA-endorsed elected officials who work together in the New York State Legislature to advance a socialist vision for working-class people across our state” — and among those featured is Mamdani.
A resurfaced video from 2023 shows Mamdani delivering the keynote address at the DSA’s national conference, where he declared “when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it has been laced by the IDF.” The remark drew sharp criticism at the time and underscored his alignment with the DSA’s radical anti-Israel rhetoric — a stance he notably tried to soften during his mayoral campaign.