New York City’s election is global

Millions of New Yorkers head to the polls today (Tuesday) for Democratic primaries that’ll shape who ends up helming America’s biggest city and the world’s financial capital.

The frontrunners include… 

• Andrew Cuomo, New York’s hard-charging establishment governor who resigned in 2021 amid Covid inquiries and #metoo allegations
• Zohran Mamdani, the state assembly’s democratic socialist who’s shot to fame on a savvy social media game and Bernie-style policies like rent freezes, and
• Eric Adams, the sitting mayor who’s not on today’s ballot but (after a foreign corruption scandal) is now running as an independent in November.

Given the city’s heavily Democratic vibes, today’s primary winner typically goes on to beat the Republican nominee to become New York’s next mayor.

But… why are ex-diplomats even covering this? Here are four reasons:

First, New York is big. If the city were a country, its economy would be the world’s ninth-largest — that’s bigger than (say) Russia, Brazil, or Mexico. The city’s police department even has a bigger budget than all UN peacekeeping.

Second, New York is global. Sure, there’s the obvious stuff like the UN headquarters, and the world’s largest capital markets (more than half the world’s stock market cap sits in the NYSE and NASDAQ). But foreign governments also contribute to the world’s largest concentration of consulates there because almost half the city’s population is foreign-born, speaking 800+ languages every day. That’s alotta passports.

Third, these candidates are global. Some quick factoids by way of example…

• Staunchly pro-Israel Cuomo is part of the legal team defending Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu against ICC war crime charges
• Meanwhile, staunchly pro-Palestinian Mamdani has called for Netanyahu’s arrest (and was born in Uganda to Indian parents btw), and
• Staunchly hilarious Adams got indicted for acting as Turkey’s unregistered foreign agent last year, with a 57-page allegation that he took perks like Turkish Airlines upgrades in return for approving a non-compliant Turkish consulate in Manhattan! (prosecutors dropped the case in April amid White House pressure)

And fourth, the city’s influence is global. Everyone knows its yuuuuge role in (say) US presidential election fundraising. But it’s also, for example, a hub for espionage — many of those consulates provide legal cover for spies, leveraging the city’s open vibes, easy access to elites, crowded surveillance context, and strategic importance. Eg…

• Soviet and later SVR (Russia’s CIA) spooks have used New York City to handle famous recruits like the CIA’s Aldrich Ames and the FBI’s Robert Hanssen, while
• SVR intelligence officers like Evgeny Buryakov have recently posed as NYC bankers to spy on US sanctions and energy sectors, and Anya Kushchenko posed as a real estate agent while trying to infiltrate US policymaking circles.

Anyway, who’s gonna win? Limited polling suggests today could be a photo finish between Cuomo and Mamdani. But even if Cuomo loses, he’s flagged he will (like Mayor Adams) fight on as an independent through to November, which could get interesting.

But all that to say sure, the gyros are fresh, the cocktails are fire, and the pulse is unmistakable. But New York City’s primaries will also ripple globally.

Intrigue’s Take

You know what? It’s not just New York City that makes global waves right now. Arguably, it’s simply the most prominent among a trend that’s been playing out for years now.

Back in 2017, for example, Los Angeles became America’s first city to appoint a deputy mayor focused entirely on international engagement — the first appointee was actually a former US ambassador to ASEAN. Other global cities have similar posts. Why?

It started out as a way for cities to leverage their global status to drive more tourism, trade, and investment. But as our world retreats inwards, those same cities are doubling down on their global strategies:

• Cross-border hubs like LA feel a need to nuance some of the messaging out of DC given its potential impact on the port and visitor numbers LA needs
• Cities often also have the expertise our world needs to solve shared problems, whether it’s around urbanisation or transport infrastructure, and
• Cities have also sought to charge ahead where countries have hit a road-block — take the C40 network of ~100 cities now leveraging their influence over 700 million residents and 25% of global GDP to tackle climate change, for example.