This text is an episode of the Queerletter, EL PAÍS’s LGTBIQ+ newsletter, coordinated by Pablo León. Sign up here to receive it.
Zohran Mamdani just won the mayoral election of New York. His victory over Andrew Cuomo is a sign that voters – especially young people and LGTBIQ+ people (more than 80% of the latter supported him, according to exit polls) – have seen through his opponents’ desperate attempt to link Mamdani with a “radical magnet” to sow fear. In the final stretch of the campaign, Cuomo (who lost the Democratic primary to the mayor-elect and ran as an independent with the support of Republican Donald Trump) took advantage of a photo of Mamdani with imam Siraj Wahhaj to insinuate that the young socialist harbored, by association, animosity towards the LGTBIQ+ community, as well as fomenting Islamophobia.
It’s a tried-and-true strategy in the culture war playbook: Link your opponent to a controversial or unpopular figure and let the stigma do the dirty work. As political scientists who have studied such strategies, we argue that this link, this “reputation chain,” only works when it seems authentic. The result of the campaign for mayor of New York in 2025 has just shown that this was not the case.
Our research with Douglas Page on reputation attachment – the strategy of deliberately and selfishly associating local political actors with discredited figures – shows that this tactic can be effective. Furthermore, the key is credibility. In several European elections, we found that associating local politicians with unpopular figures (in our case, associating a local leader’s homophobic rhetoric with that of Vladimir Putin) shifted support against them. In those cases, the connection was maintained because the messenger (Putin) carried considerable moral weight for that citizenry, and because local leaders echoed the anti-LGTBIQ+ discourse with conviction (and a similar narrative to the Russian president). Authenticity, and not connection as an end in itself, proved essential.
Cuomo’s move lacked this authenticity. First, Mamdani has not resorted to “rainbow-washing,” the use of LGTBIQ+ rights to whiten his image. Therefore, he campaigned alongside LGTBIQ+ organisations, marched in Pride and placed trans rights at the center of his agenda consistently and throughout his campaign. Voters saw how he made these commitments in a genuine, non-opportunistic way. These actions, together with the support of many influencers queer from the political sphere, including Matt Bernstein, have built a foundation of trust.
It is difficult to credibly portray someone as anti-LGTBIQ+ when their coalition plans demonstrations as part of Gay for Zohran or a visit to iconic Brooklyn space Papi Juice during one of its parties. Voters know the difference between an opportunistic photo and a real agenda that connects with them.
A discredited messenger
The success of the reputational bond depends on a widely recognized figure, whose moral authority is already in question. Cuomo attempted to have Imam Wahhaj fill that role, highlighting past statements and ties. However, the New York electorate he was addressing – voters interested in and concerned about LGTBIQ+ rights – is alert to the politics of defamation, especially when Islamophobia is also on the menu. Thus, Cuomo’s laughter as an announcer on the radio declared that Mamdani “would celebrate another 9/11” highlighted his strategy: it revealed to voters more about Cuomo’s political calculations than the alleged danger Mamdani posed.
Worse yet for Cuomo, he himself has become the discredited messenger that our research shows is so crucial to the reputational bond. Another example is an AI video he released, which included crude stereotypes, such as a thief wearing a keffiyeh.
The reputational link depends on the moral conflict. And it’s difficult to present yourself as a defender of New York pluralism while simultaneously spreading racist and polarizing content. This harms the attempt to connect to the source itself, as well as highlights something that New York voters have little tolerance for: a politician who talks about dignity while practicing contempt.
There is a broader lesson here. Attachment to reputation works when it helps audiences connect rhetoric to something they already consider objectionable or illegitimate, such as a foreign dictator’s war or a long history of repression. Therefore, according to our research, linking LGBTI-phobic campaign messages in Poland with Putin caused a movement in votes: it revealed a moral coherence that people rejected.
On the other hand, trying to shackle a progressive and visibly pro-LGTBIQ+ candidate with a controversial magnet, while resorting to the use of racist clichés, has completely ignored the essential mechanism that makes this reputational bond work.
The political risk of Cuomo’s campaign against Mamdani was not imaginary. Some New Yorkers surely saw the photo with the imam and confused Islam with extremism. Despite this, the segment of the New York population that promoted the new mayor’s campaign is a young and multiracial coalition that has lived with the visibility queer and post-9/11 Islamophobia. A group of voters frustrated by vain attempts to break down the intersectional discrimination they perceive or to decide which injustices deserve their empathy.
Many young voters see silence in the face of racism, anti-immigration attacks using a supposed defense of the rights of women and LGTBIQ+ people, or Palestinian suffering as moral relativism.
Mamdani spoke about Gaza with the same clarity and consistency with which he supported the LGTBIQ+ community, which made Cuomo’s attack even more out of place. We observed the following dynamic: After Cuomo’s comments, Mamdani unapologetically defended his Muslim identity in an emotional speech outside a Bronx mosque, a commitment to authenticity that neutralized those attacks and brought the focus back to real inclusion.
If we look more generally at the election results (also considering the Democratic victory in the New Jersey or Virginia votes), the pattern is even clearer: campaigns that resorted to transphobic panic and racism performed worse than candidates who combined political credibility and tangible proposals with real support for minorities. As pointed out The lawyer In his post-election analysis, Democratic victories in the United States were also a rejection of transphobia as a strategy.
The conclusion confirmed by the polls is that “guilt by association” only works when it reveals a genuine moral alignment that voters already distrust. In this case the connection did not work. Mamdani’s LGTBIQ+ credentials and appeal among young people complicated the strategy. At the same time, Cuomo’s tactics have eroded his own moral authority.
In a city where communities overlap and identities are complex, authenticity isn’t just a virtue: it’s a strategy. And the opportunism is noticeable. This is a lesson, not just from this election, but for Democrats in general: In the politics of 2025, authenticity trumps alarmism.
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