New York City’s primary elections just delivered a stark, undeniable message: New Yorkers stayed home. With early voting for the June 2024 primaries wrapping up on June 22nd, a dismal 6-8% turnout citywide isn’t just a statistic; it’s a political earthquake. For progressives like Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who is busy attacking AIPAC, the real story here isn’t his political posturing – it’s the ghost towns at the ballot boxes.
Ghost Towns at the Ballot Box
The numbers are abysmal, plain and simple. Early voting concluded with a mere 6-8% of eligible voters bothering to cast a ballot, half the engagement seen in some previous cycles.
Forget a ripple; this is barely a puddle for progressive campaigns. Their entire strategy hinges on mobilizing a dedicated base, but New Yorkers are simply not showing up.
Mamdani’s Hail Mary
Amidst this electoral silence, Assemblymember Mamdani (D-Astoria) has been intensifying his critique of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). He’s been out there, across social media and on every available soapbox, accusing the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group of funneling “dark money” into Democratic primaries to silence progressive voices. On June 21st, he posted:
“AIPAC’s dark money has no place in our Democratic primaries. They are trying to buy our elections and silence progressive voices. We must stand strong against their attempts to undermine our movement.”
This isn’t new territory for Mamdani, a long-time critic of AIPAC’s influence. But the timing of his escalated rhetoric is telling. With early voter turnout in the toilet, it looks less like a principled stand and more like a desperate attempt to energize a base that is staying home.
It’s a calculated gamble to highlight a perceived external threat, hoping to galvanize what little enthusiasm remains. But is anyone listening?
AIPAC, for its part, maintains it’s simply supporting pro-Israel candidates from both parties, with transparent filings. They see their involvement as legitimate participation in the democratic process. Moderate Democrats, however, are likely rolling their eyes, wishing the focus would remain on pressing local issues instead of national ideological purity tests, especially when the local electorate can’t even be bothered to vote.
Mamdani’s renewed attacks on AIPAC, while loud, are a symptom of a far deeper problem: progressive campaigns are failing to get their voters to the polls. When only 6-8% of eligible voters show up, every dollar from an outside group like AIPAC becomes disproportionately powerful.
This isn’t just about “dark money” buying elections; it’s about a glaring absence of *any* money or motivation on the other side. If your voters aren’t there to back you up, you’re just yelling into the void.
The real hypocrisy isn’t AIPAC’s spending; it’s the progressive movement’s inability to mobilize its own base. This leaves the field wide open for the very forces they claim to fight.
What good are impassioned speeches if the people meant to hear them are nowhere near the ballot box? The real battle isn’t against external forces; it’s within the movement itself, a battle for the very souls of its voters.
Right now, that battle is being lost on the empty streets of New York’s polling places.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (query: AIPAC primaries)
Source: Google News
