Why Chuck Schumer could be the big loser of this election night in New York?

Zohran Mamdani´s victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Mayor of New York city sent shockwaves through the party—not only because it happened in one of the nation’s key liberal strongholds, but also due to the rise of a far-left political figure. While the simplest thing would be to label such a political event as a historic defeat for former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the truth is that the political figure within the Democratic Party who may be most affected and weakened by Mamdani's victory is none other than Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

After all, the triumph of the Muslim-born socialist candidate represents the materialization of the extremist drift that a significant part of the Democratic grassroots has embraced in recent months, and which several important figures within the party seemed to have ignored. Even, a poll recently conducted by Reuters/Ipsos showed certain numbers more than revealing, including a 66% of young Democrats surveyed assuring that their highest priority was the materialization of a Universal Healthcare, this being the reason why a good part of them would be willing to vote for an extremist candidate.

Such a scenario became a reality with the victory of a candidate like Mamdani, who even went so far as to express his sympathies for Chavism when in 2013 he posted on his X account that he did not understand why some criticized that one of the observers for the Zimbabwean presidential elections was a member of the Venezuelan socialist regime, when the latter had demonstrated in its last presidential elections that its electoral system was reliable. "Venezuela's electoral protocol is not so bad, why question their capacity as observers?" wrote Mamdani at the time.

In the new scenario that opens up after the triumph of said extremist, Schumer could see his position as leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate at serious risk, considering that the grassroots are clearly asking for more ideological and confrontational figures. In this context, far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who on several occasions has questioned Schumer's leadership, could have her golden opportunity to unseat him if she decides to openly confront him.

From the point of view of how things played out Tuesday night in New York, the extremists have momentum on their side.