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--:-- John Bickley: The Democratic Party finds itself even further divided following a shock primary in New York City last week that saw a radical socialist candidate wipe the floor with the establishment frontrunner. Will the party fully embrace its far left wing as embodied by Zoran Mamdani or attempt to reverse course? In this episode, we sit down with Ryan Gerdusky, host of the It's a Numbers Game podcast, to discuss what the New York election says about the state of the Democratic Party and where it goes from here.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Thursday, July 3rd, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire. Life doesn't happen biweekly, so why should Payday? The money you earn can be in your hands today with Earning. Earning is an app that provides early access to your earned wages, allowing you to withdraw up to $150 per day with a max of $750 between paydays. After downloading the app and verifying your paycheck, you can access your earnings as you work and choose to leave an optional tip.
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--:-- John Bickley: Joining us now to discuss the state of the Democratic Party following the recent bombshell primary in New York is Ryan Gerdusky, host of the It's a Numbers Game podcast. Ryan, thanks for coming on.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: Thank you for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, we've begun to see some fallout among Democrats over Mamdani's win last week. Some are touting him as the model for how they should run. Others say he could be leading the party off the cliff. Is his brand of politics the future of the party?
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: So I think we have to just take a step back and look at New York City, right? Because it's very specific to New York. He didn't get a majority, right? So I don't know if in a head-to-head combat he could have one if there was one person. And he was challenging a very problematic figure being Andrew Cuomo, who had to resign in disgrace. And he was not considered an ally of progressives. And a lot of other people didn't like him because of the COVID response.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: Had he faced a woman named Catherine Garcia, I don't know if he would have had the same level of traction. But if you look in New York in the last year, from February 2024 to February 2025, Republicans have registered more new voters than Democrats in three of New York's five boroughs, in Staten Island, the Bronx, and Queens. There is an increasing number of people who live without a five-mile radius or eight-mile radius of Manhattan who are aligning themselves increasing with the Republican party Donald Trump got over 35 in Queens County He got 35 citywide He got close to 25 in the Bronx These are astronomical numbers for a Republican especially a Republican that had no support as far as a ground game or commercials or anything It is completely organic and it is really happening.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: So who then in the two boroughs that were Democrats are registering more new voters than Republicans, who are still registering Democrats? It's people who see AOC, who have seen Bernie Sanders, who have seen these kinds of identity-based neo-Marxists and saying, this is my kind of party. So the party has changed on its face because the amount of people that were there even four years ago, let alone eight years ago, that could outnumber far-left progressives have either moved, died, or become independent or Republican. And the new registered voters have outnumbered them.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: That is the recipe for a lot of parts of our country. Is it everywhere? I don't know. There's parts of New Mexico, New Mexico as well, Democrats, there's parts of Nevada. There's other parts where centrists can win, lots of parts of Illinois. But in these urban areas where organization, especially around high propensity voting, college educated, mostly white, uber progressives, when they can coalesce, they vote like it is their religion, mostly because they don't have one.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: And also these districts, these areas have become sponges. If you have purple hair and 36 genders and you don't know if you're a boy or a girl, why would you stay in Long Island for? Why would you stay in Tennessee? Why would you stay in Ohio? You come to New York. You come to Chicago. You come to Boston. You come to places with these like-minded people who all look like creatures of the night together. That is where these places may elect more of those kinds of people. It's not everywhere, but where these people are surging in population, you are seeing it.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: And then one other point where you're seeing high densities of ethnic minorities who, it's not like you have a black neighbor or an Asian neighbor, and we are all basically alike because you have all assimilated into one culture. When it's 99% Arab, 99% Chinese, whatever the case is, that demands ethnic representation, proportional ethnic representation. representation.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: So because we have mass immigration still even under Trump, but especially under Biden, more demographics as they become, more minorities as they become more politically active will demand elected officials cater to them. Now, that could be a good thing in some capacity, but when you're doing it solely based on left-wing identitarian politics, you will almost surely get people who are more like Ilhan Omar and AOC and Cori Bush and all the rest of them. That's where you're likely to see that growth from.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: What did we learn in New York about the demographics within the Democratic Party that are most heavily endorsing this more radical branch of it? Certainly people who are college-educated millennials and Gen Zers. That is definitely a very large part of the base. It is often correlated that it is among white college-educated liberals, and that's definitely true for a lot of them.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: A big part of it is also black women. Black women are increasingly identity-driven, far-left radicals. Look at the cast at MSNBC. None of them can read, and it doesn't matter because they're driving on identity basis. And everything is about how to drive that. It has to be for a woman, it has to be for a black woman, over and over and over and over and over. And all the causes in all the cancer society are because of whiteness.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: Black Black women are a major part of that, and certain immigrant groups, certain recent immigrant groups. You know we paint the pan of like just saying the words like Hispanic or whatever but within the microcosm of Hispanic neighborhoods we seen Puerto Ricans are much more susceptible to socialist candidates than Venezuelans or Dominicans So there are certain pockets within different ethnicity groups that have been more appealing to democratic socialism.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: The three groups that are the most prone to not only supporting Democrats, but supporting democratic socialists would be white progressives, black women, and Southeast Asian immigrants, specifically Pakistanis, Bangladeshis. Those communities are very far left, very hard left. And the children of those people usually assimilate very well because they all go to college, but they assimilate to, pardon my French, but shit-lib behavior. And that is where they're going to.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, former President Bill Clinton, who is a traditional moderate Democrat, he congratulated Mondani and said he hopes he'll bring New Yorkers together and shape a stronger, fairer future, etc. Are we seeing more endorsements like this for this radical wing or are there more, you know, sort of rejections of him publicly?
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: Bill Clinton also said his last public appearance for a campaign thing was going to be the Kamala Harris, you know, convention. So I don't know who wrote this. Maybe some assistant did. I don't know if Bill Clinton's on Twitter very much at almost 80 years old. If you look at who has made an announcement, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries did not do a big giant hug. The Democrats out on Long Island openly said this was a mistake.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: Look at the center powers of Democratic politics in the United States. They're all urban. Chuck Schumer lives in New York City. Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, who represented San Francisco. It's areas like Baltimore. It's the senator who's now retiring, Dick Durbin, lived in Chicago. They're all going to be primaried out of this machine. And there used to be parameters that kept them in power, the black vote, unions, senior citizens, certain Jewish coalitions. Those are becoming, one, less powerful, and two, less organized.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: And the population centers, as I said before, that are sponging together the most progressive activists who would otherwise live in a place like Kentucky, their numbers are being dwindled. And they thought that it was manageable. But if the mayor of New York City is Mandani, Chuck Schumer is looking at the end of his political career. Hakeem Jeffries is looking at being challenged. The governor is looking at being challenged. They're all sitting there saying, crying, you know, it's like the movie Gremlin. When they look cute when there's just one of them, but when they're in water and eating at night and there's thousands of them and they're demonic, you have a real issue on your hands.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: And they have an unquenchable appetite for socialism. There's no end point in their mind. So I think that they're genuinely worried. And I think that there's definitely Democratic politicians and political operatives and donors behind the scenes as of right now saying, how do we either get Cuomo or Eric Adams to run the general and how do we stop this guy now?
--:-- John Bickley: So what happens next as it relates to the general election? What's going to happen with, say, Adams and Cuomo?
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: So Cuomo is on the ballot in the general. So is Eric Adams. If either one of them announced that they are moving out of state, they can give up their line. Same thing with Curtis Sliwa. And the party then can nominate somebody else. Although because Adams and Cuomo are both running as independents there is no party to take over Sliwa would have to sit there and move out of state for that to happen Eric Adams allegedly lives out of state already Let look to see if any of them sit there and say, I'm bowing out of this. I'm going to go to my place in Florida or New Jersey for a while.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: Let's see what money starts rolling in on the Stop Zendani thing. I mean, the Stop Mindani movement. And let's see if there's any Democratic power players, not elected officials, but unions, organizers, religious people, especially within the black church or the Hispanic church, that are saying, let's stop this train right now. And they start organizing around it. Once you see a few dominoes fall, they will all fall together, the people who are making these phone calls behind the scenes.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: I will say they're not worried about Bill Clinton. and they're worried about the future, not the past.
--:-- John Bickley: Final question. We recently talked to Brent Buchanan from Signal Polling. He gave us a sense of approval ratings for Democrats. They're not good, historically bad. There's been a lot of talk about whether or not this is sort of the death throes of the Democratic Party. Maybe that's overstated. What do you think we're witnessing here right now? Is this the rebirth, rebranding of a party, or the death of a party?
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: Well, I think it's absolutely the splintering of a party, and it bodes for the 2026 midterm elections. Andrew Cuomo won more assembly districts. There were 65 assembly districts in New York City. The ultra-progressive, mostly white areas that surround Manhattan gave Mandani 33% of his votes. There's only 10 assembly districts. There's 65. So 14% of the population gave 33% of the vote total to Mandani.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: Those people who vote frequently, vote often, vote all the time, they are not the majority of this country in any way, but they vote the most frequently. And going into the 2026 midterms, the working class, the less college educated, the less active, who are increasingly Republican are not as energized to vote. It's just not part of them, and that's the way they've always been.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: If I was a Republican right now and they had unlimited monies, what they should be doing right now is organizing to somehow figure out how to get non-college educated, no high school degree people out to vote early. It is the most essential thing. It's the only way to counter this very active, very strong minority of the population, but a majority of the voting base.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: And that is what we're going to see around the entire Democratic Party is how they can sit there and cater to them. What we're seeing in the Democratic Party is kind of like the BLM riots where they would put signs in front of their stores saying, don't smash this store, black female business owner. One by one, all these politicians will say, don't smash this politician. I salute, you know, Lenin, whatever the case is. That's going to be much of what we see.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, as we said, a really bombshell primary last week that's really opened a lot of people's eyes about the direction of the Democratic Party. Thanks so much for coming on, Ryan.
--:-- Ryan Gerdusky: Thank you so much.
--:-- John Bickley: That was Ryan Gerdusky, and this has been a special edition of Morning Wire. If your razor company celebrates every country except America, it's time to switch to Jeremy's Razors. Five stainless steel blades that destroy stubble and corporate pandering. A precision trimmer for clean lines and tight corners and a lubricating aloe strip. Plus, don't forget about Jeremy's hair and body care essentials made without sulfates or parabens. In honor of this Independence Day, you can restore your daily ritual to its former glory for 25% off. Head over to jeremysrazors.com. Again, that's jeremysrazors.com today.
