Republican leaders hope the ascent of the NYC mayoral candidate, a democratic socialist, will help them paint the Democrats as a far-left party.

Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor of New York on a campaign to freeze the rent, provide free buses and establish city-owned grocery stores. Critics scoffed at the 33-year-old democratic socialist’s pie-in-the-sky agenda. And then he trounced everyone.

Mamdani, 33, a two-term Queens assemblyman, replicated on a citywide scale what fellow socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accomplished in one congressional district when she toppled former Congressman Joe Crowley in the 2018 Democratic primary, with a new coalition that included younger voters.