Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Drouk. There are just five days remaining

in New York City's mayoral primaries, and then non-New York listeners, you will surely never have

to hear about New York again. Of course, I'm kidding. But as I mentioned earlier this month,

part of the reason we are covering this race is that it serves as a big test of ideas within the

Democratic Party. New York has lots of Democrats and specifically lots of different styles of

Democrats, and a city is choosing someone to solve a laundry list of challenges as it emerges

from the pandemic. Also, as we've discussed, further left Democrats have been struggling to break

through. For much of the race, various moderate candidates have been dominating in the polls,

and we've seen a similar dynamic play out in some races beyond New York this year as well.

Today, we're going to hear from two people involved in progressive movements in New York

about their thoughts on what's happening in the race and how progressivism is shaping politics

more broadly. Here with me today is political science professor at John J. College of Criminal

Justice, Susan King. She's a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and volunteered

on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Congressional Campaign in 2018. Welcome, Susan.

Hi, thanks for having me. Also here with us is Ross Barcan, a writer and columnist for the

Socialist magazine Jacobin and the Guardian. He ran for New York State Senate in 2018,

and he's the author of the new book, The Prince and Rukwomo coronavirus and the Fall of New York.

Welcome, Ross. Thank you for having me. Very excited to be here. Awesome. So there are

plenty of details that I want to get into, but just to start off, would you agree with how I've

described this race that progressives and the left in general have struggled to break through in

this mayoral race? I would say so. Right now there are four candidates who exist in the top tier,

and three of them have positioned themselves in some ways as moderates. Of course, it's more

...