As an image makeover, I suppose it was instant.

I swear we saw a vision of Zohran Mamdani watching Sky Sports News transfer deadline day coverage, top on, texting the group chat about late medicals and beating his chest, still, about Thierry Henry to Barcelona.

Yes, New York’s new mayor is an Arsenal supporter. He told me as much when I introduced myself from Sky News.

He said in his youth he’d been a viewer of Sky’s transfer deadline day, when fans watch live coverage of their club’s transfer activity.

In a “morning after” news conference, it was pleasant chat – evidence of the everyman anti-politician who’d sold personality with the politics. If it’s a game they all play, some do it better than others.

Image:
Mamdani, an Arsenal fan, has plenty of reasons to smile right now. Pic: AP

But then there was my question to him. What message did his victory send to his own Democratic Party, members of which have been cool on his left-wing politics?

Also, what did it mean to Donald Trump? He bit on the Trump part of the question but dodged the other bit that alluded to a reluctant Democratic old guard.

It is a pressing issue for a party clutching for a strategy to beat Trump, and yet pushing away the left-wing Mamdani, one of their own, who found the formula in New York.

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Mamdani: ‘Victory a lesson for Trump’

Democrats have a big square to circle

Clearly, it isn’t a party discussion to be aired publicly, which means there’s no coherent strategy.

Privately, however, it’s a circle they must surely square: how to harness the strategy and success of a leftist agenda that landed in New York, and make it work across America.

Mamdani’s victory will build influence on the left of the movement – and its tangible success to counter a party establishment dismissing its progressive wing as toxic to the brand.

Mamdani held his victory news conference in the shadow of the “Unisphere”, a representation of the Earth in Flushing, Queens.

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The caption encouraged by his handlers was, presumably, something to do with the “world at his feet”. “World of difficulty” would be an alternative that might not find an argument.

For the Arsenal supporter at the heart of US politics, there is no easy win – even in the home games.