Good morning. A few hours ago, Zohran Mamdani was declared the winner of the New York City mayoral election with more than 50% of the vote on the biggest turnout since the 1960s. A rank outsider when the race started, he will become the city’s first Muslim mayor and its youngest in more than 100 years. And as an avowed socialist who has emerged as a national symbol of opposition to Donald Trump, he has given progressive Democrats something they believe is worth fighting for.

It was a good night all over for Democrats, who won governorships in Virginia and New Jersey and saw voters in California support a redistricting plan designed to counter Republican efforts to redraw the map to their advantage in red states. But Republicans believe Mamdani is a gift for them, too: in frequently racist attacks on his candidacy, they have tarred him as a “Jihadist”, a communist and claimed he represents a new extremity on the left.

Today’s newsletter is about how Mamdani overcame those insults to prevail in the greatest American city – and the debate his victory sets up for the future of Democratic politics. Here are the headlines.

Five big stories

1. NHS | An “ugly” racism reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s has become worryingly commonplace again in modern Britain and NHS staff are bearing the brunt of it, Wes Streeting has warned. Racist abuse now happens so often that it has become “socially acceptable to be racist”, the health secretary said.

2. Productivity | Employers have been told in a landmark government review that fixing Britain’s health-related worklessness crisis will require them to spend £6bn a year. The report said that a drastic expansion in occupational health was needed to help prevent hundreds of thousands of people from falling out of the workforce.

3. US politics | Dick Cheney, the divisive US vice-president under George W Bush who helped lead the country into a disastrous invasion of Iraq, has died aged 84.

4. UK politics | Rachel Reeves is considering slashing funding for more energy-efficient homes to pay for a reduction in energy bills, sources have told the Guardian, as the chancellor looks for ways to ease the cost of living in this month’s budget.

5. US news | A UPS cargo plane has crashed shortly after take off in Kentucky, erupting into a massive fireball that left at least seven dead and 11 injured.

In depth: ‘Hope is alive’

Supporters of Zohran Mamdani cheer at his election night watch party. Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian

At what became Zohran Mamdani’s victory party in Brooklyn, the Guardian’s Anna Betts said, “the atmosphere was jubilant the entire night”. When the result landed, she added, “the crowd went crazy, cheering and erupting in applause”. Then Mamdani took to the stage, and declared: “Hope is alive.”

He acknowledged the rare optimism that his campaign has generated for progressives, saying: “In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light”. And he had a message for Donald Trump: “Since I know you’re watching, I’ve got four words for you: turn the volume up.”

The vaulting optimism of Mamdani’s speech – in sharp contrast to a sour concession from his opponent Andrew Cuomo in Manhattan – followed his campaign: sunny, casting ordinary voters as his partners, and full of conviction that the only way to beat Donald Trump is to challenge the bleak premises of his success. Trump’s reaction on Truth Social suggested his own relish for a new Democratic leader to cast as a threat to America: “AND SO IT BEGINS!”

Who is Zohran Mamdani?

In an excellent June profile, Ed Pilkington followed Mamdani on the campaign trail and explained his remarkable rise to power. Born to parents of Indian descent – the political scientist Mahmood Mamdani and the Oscar-nominated film director Mira Nair – the now 34-year-old came to the US from Uganda aged seven. After an entertaining period dabbling in hip-hop under the name Mr Cardamom, he won a seat in the New York state assembly in 2020.

He began his mayoral campaign last year with 1% name recognition and as a rank outsider for the Democratic nomination; but by the June primary he took a 13-point victory and became the favourite to win the mayoralty.

Much of his campaign has been premised on the idea that Andrew Cuomo, who ran for the party nomination before continuing as an independent, represents Democratic acquiescence to the Trump agenda. “I believe we lost the presidential election because we had left the working class behind a long time ago,” Mamdani said in June. “They were told time and time again that their leaders would fight for them, and those leaders, like Andrew Cuomo, sold them out.”

Why was his campaign so successful?

Much of his victory can be put down to an appetite in New York for a combative approach to Trump, a politician prepared to criticise Israel’s actions in Gaza and a slate of populist policies that appeals in a city where costs for working people are out of control.

Crucially, Mamdani has made attempts to describe him as a frightening extremist – often with an implicitly racist depiction of him as somehow “other” – implausible. This Saturday Night Live debate sketch starring Ramy Youssef captures his relentlessly cheerful campaign: Youssef as Mamdani seeks to soothe those frightened of a socialist Muslim by “smiling after every answer in a way that physically hurts my face”.

His campaign also capitalised on his natural facility with social media. Explaining his rent freeze policy, for example, he took a January dip in the Atlantic Ocean off Coney Island in a suit and tie. “Let’s plunge into the details,” he said.

But to focus too much on such moments risks missing what cut through with voters, as Bhaskar Sunkara argues in this panel of reaction. “[Mamdani’s victory] was built on knocking on doors, talking about rent, wages, and the everyday costs that define people’s lives,” he wrote. “It was a reminder that the left wins when it shows that democratic socialists are laser-focused on meeting human needs, not fighting culture wars.”

At the victory party, Anna said, the supporters she spoke to were much more focused on what he could bring the city than a view of him as an anti-Trump figure. Kathy Cutler, a volunteer for the campaign since January, told her: “To get people coming up to me so excited about the future for New York has been really amazing … it’s the best day to live in New York.”

What does his victory mean for New York?

While Mamdani has been portrayed as an extremist, much of his policy platform is fairly middle-of-the-road social democratic stuff: he wants to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour, increase taxes on the highest earners, make bus transit free, offer universal childcare and increase affordable housing provision.

His boldest proposals are probably a rent freeze for two million people living in housing where rent stabilisation laws barring excessive rises are already in place, and a plan to establish city-owned grocery stores with price controls.

The question now is how much of that platform he can put into practice. This Vital City piece has a useful guide to which policies he can enact on his own, and which would require cooperation from other stakeholders. And this New York Times piece sets out the costs, noting his plan to raise about $10bn in additional revenue each year.

How will the Trump administration respond?

By portraying Mamdani as a bogeyman in much the same way it has previously caricatured other leftwing Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Donald Trump has repeatedly (and ludicrously) described the new mayor as a communist; on Monday he said that in the event of a Mamdani victory, he would withhold federal funds from New York City because “I don’t want to send, as president, good money after bad”.

That is part of a broader pattern of vilifying Democrat-run cities. Trump might also attempt to send national guard troops into New York in a purported attempt to tackle crime, as he already has in other Democrat-run cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.

Many of the Republican attacks on Mamdani appear straightforwardly racist: Trump allies in the House of Representatives have called for investigations into Mamdani’s naturalisation as an American citizen, while there have also been calls for his deportation. Cuomo used a similar playbook during the campaign, laughing in apparent agreement at a radio host’s suggestion that Mamdani would “be cheering” another 9/11.

Does Mamdani’s success offer a new path for the Democrats?

In this excellent episode of Today in Focus, Mehdi Hasan tells Nosheen Iqbal that Mamdani’s campaign provides “a model of resistance against Trump that other Democratic politicians could adopt.” And, he argues, even those who don’t agree with him on everything find him a compelling figure. “This is a man who’s comfortable in his own skin, who speaks with authenticity. You don’t have to agree with him, but you get a sense that what he says is what he believes.”

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Against that analysis is the view of many in the Democratic establishment – that the Republicans’ attempts to smear Mamdani as a communist will stick, and make it harder for middle of the road Democrats to get elected in swing states. In June, Matt Bennett of the centrist Democratic group Third Way told the Associated Press that while Mamdani’s communication skills were a good model for others, “his ideas are bad … And his affiliation with the DSA [Democratic Socialists of America] is very dangerous. It’s already being weaponised by the Republicans.”

There’s another view between these poles: that what Mamdani shows is that the party must be broad enough to stretch from his avowedly socialist politics to anti-abortion, pro-gun figures in Trump country. Ezra Klein of the New York Times made that case in an essay published on Sunday. To win, he wrote, the goal should be “not moderation. Not progressivism. But, in the older political sense of the term, representation.”

What else we’ve been reading

Dick Cheney. Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPA

• After the death of Dick Cheney, Robert Tait reflects on his unapologetic advocacy for the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq – and how, despite his later estrangement from the Republican party, he laid the groundwork for Donald Trump. Archie

• Zoe Williams has a straight-talking interview with Dutch actor Famke Janssen, who has spent decades of her career seeking to avoid being typecast as “a foreigner who was bad” while also dealing with the sexism and misogyny that seems ingrained in the movie and modelling worlds. Martin

• Tarpley Hitt has a gripping and unsettling investigation of how a porn studio turned copyright law into a cash machine – suing tens of thousands of viewers over alleged downloads, and banking on their shame to secure their submission. Archie

• I’ve always enjoyed the idea of chess-boxing being the strangest of crossover sports, but Sinéad Campbell introduces us to another intriguing chess mashup: chess clubs aimed at a younger crowd that have the vibes of a nightclub, with cocktails included. Not so much checkmate as “Cheers, mate!” Martin

• It’s a rare zero star review from Lucy Mangan for Kim Kardashian’s divorce drama All’s Fair: “Terrible. Fascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible.” Archie

Sport

Alexis Mac Allister races away in delight after heading Liverpool’s winner. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images/Reuters

Football | Alexis Mac Allister headed Liverpool to a 1-0 victory over Real Madrid in the Champions League as Trent Alexander-Arnold was booed on his Anfield return. Arsenal took the lead through a Bukayo Saka penalty after a VAR review for handball before Mikel Merino’s two goals made it 3-0 against Slavia Prague. Brennan Johnson scored the opener and was later sent off in Tottenham’s 4-0 home win against Cogenhagen.

Golf | LIV Golf has surprisingly backtracked on one of its founding principles by announcing tournaments in the fourth season of the Saudi Arabian-backed league will be played over 72 holes. The shift is believed to have come after pressure from the players.

Cricket | Ben Stokes has signalled his desire to play in the 2027 Ashes at home after signing a new two-year central contract with England.

The front pages

The Guardian leads with “NHS bearing brunt of ‘ugly’ racism, warns Streeting”. The Financial Times has “Reeves paves way to break promise on income taxes” and there’s an earthworks theme in the other Times too: “Reeves lays ground for 1970s-style tax increase”. “Make it fair, Rachel” – the Mirror says unions want the chancellor to target those better off.

The i paper runs with “Reeves poised to raise income tax and break 50-year taboo”. The Express quotes Kemi Badenoch with “Reeves is just ‘blaming everyone else’ for chaos”. “Heads ‘should roll over BBC bias’” – nothing would please the Telegraph more; while the top story in the Mail is “Labour dumbs down schools”. “Brave Sam’s always been our hero” – that’s the Metro on the Cambridgeshire train stabbings and a rail worker who stepped in.

Today in Focus

Photograph: Anna Gordon/The Guardian

On the ground in the refugee and asylum capital of Britain

Helen Pidd heads to Crawley, West Sussex, the place in the UK with the highest number of asylum seekers and supported refugees relative to its population.

Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings

Illustration: Ben Jennings/The Guardian

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Saad Eddine Said, New Art Exchange chief executive and artistic director, left, and executive director Adam Roe in front of part of the gallery’s Beyond the Wall Project, which commissioned murals to adorn surrounding buildings and walls.
Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian

Nottingham’s New Art Exchange (NAE) claims to be the first cultural institution globally to be led by a permanent citizens’ assembly. Forty people, representing a diverse community speaking 52 languages, determine the gallery’s events, spending, and exhibited artists. Nursing student Felix said: “I used to see this place but didn’t know what was here, I didn’t even know it was an art gallery. And now I’m here shaping its future.”

Citizens’ assemblies, traditionally used in local democracy and public policy for gauging opinion, have expanded into other sectors, with cultural institutions the latest adopters. Adam Roe, the gallery’s executive director, said: “Collectively, we’ve got so much more knowledge. Some of the artists and performers we work with now we probably would never have known about.”

Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.