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Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, votes in the New York City mayoral election at a polling site at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High School in Astoria, Queens borough of New York City, USA, on November 4, 2025.
What We’re Watching: Some Americans head to the polls, German U-turn on Syrian asylum policy, Russia may have to find new oil buyers
It’s Election Day in the United States
It’s the first Tuesday after Nov. 1, which means it’s US election day. Key ballots to watch include the mayoral race in New York City, where democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani is poised to pull off an upset that will echo into national level politics, as well as state Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania, and ballot initiatives on gerrymandering in California. Don’t forget about the New Jersey governor election either, where GOP nominee Jack Ciattarelli is looking to eke out a victory against Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill. New Jersey was once reliably blue but has been getting more purple in recent years: in 2020 Joe Biden won it by 17 points, but Donald Trump lost by just four last year.
Germany to end asylum for Syrians
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says Syrians no longer have grounds for political asylum in his country now that the Syrian civil war is over. Merz called for a repatriation program to ease burdens on Germany and accelerate the rebuilding of Syria, though the United Nations warns Syria still isn’t ready to absorb a large population of returnees. It was exactly ten years ago that Chancellor Angela Merkel declared “Wir schaffen das” (we can do it), establishing a generous asylum policy that welcomed in more than a million Syrians fleeing their country’s horrific civil war. A decade later, with the war over and the far right surging on anti-immigrant backlash, Merz is now saying, “Wir schaffen das nicht.”
Is India buying less Russian oil?
Last month, Trump announced sanctions on Russia’s top two oil companies, in a bid to squeeze the Kremlin’s war effort by scaring off major crude buyers like India and China. Is it working? Preliminary data show India’s imports of Russian oil actually increased slightly in October compared to September. But wait, there’s more: India’s purchases in the second half of October plummeted compared to the first half. That may have something to do with the fact that Trump announced the sanctions on Oct. 23. They don’t take effect until later this month, so we’ll be watching to see what the November data tell us. With Chinese firms now also reportedly exploring alternative sources of oil, Russia may in fact start feeling the effects of US sanctions (for more on this, and whether it would change his approach to Ukraine, read here).
Democratic mayoral candidates Andrew Cuomo, left, shakes hands with Zohran Mamdani, center, as Whitney Tilson reacts after participating in a Democratic mayoral primary debate, on June 4, 2025, in New York City.
How Israel made it onto the ballot in the NYC mayoral race
New York City residents head to the polls today to vote in the Democratic primary election for mayor, and while housing affordability, street safety, and public transit are the key issues motivating voters, another issue has come into the limelight in recent weeks, from nearly 6,000 miles away.
The candidates views’ of Israel have become, if not a decisive factor, a huge flash point in a city that is home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel, becoming a major topic of discussion at the two televised debates.
The race has now come down to two candidates: Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist politician of South Asian descent who once tried to become a rapper, and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, an establishment centrist who resigned from his previous role after facing accusations of sexual harassment. Other candidates like hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander are still in the running but face long odds – they have endorsed Cuomo and Mamdani, respectively.
The race is on a knife edge. Polls show a surprisingly close race: Most had shown Cuomo ahead, but an Emerson College survey from last week found Mamdani edging out his rival in the final round. In a city that is as heavily Democratic as the Big Apple, the Democratic primary winner will be the firm favorite to win the general election on November 4.
Where do the candidates stand on Israel? Mamdani is an avowed critic. At the first televised debate, he affirmed Israel’s right to exist, but not as a “Jewish state.” He has also defended the use of the controversial call to “Globalize the Intifada,” drawing backlash from several Jewish groups who view it as antisemitic hate speech. But he has also said that he wishes to “meet Jewish New Yorkers where they are” and focus on the issues that they care about in the Big Apple.
“The New York City mayor does not make foreign policy, of course,” Tilson told GZERO Media last week. But Mamdani’s views on Israel, he said, are “absolutely motivating Jewish voters in the city.”
Cuomo, on the other hand, has been wholly supportive of Israel – he’s always seen wearing a yellow ribbon on his lapel in solidarity with Israelis held hostage in Gaza. Yet he has faced criticism, too. Lander, who is Jewish, accused him of “weaponizing antisemitism to score political points.”
How did this become such an issue? New York City is home to 1.4 million Jewish people, accounting for roughly 12% of the city’s population. While Israel is often a higher priority for Jewish voters than others, it’s especially high now among Jewish New Yorkers due to Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, the backlash against it at institutions like Columbia University, and the rise of antisemitic violence across the United States.
New York Jewish voters, reflecting the broader community in the US, are hardly a monolith. While support for Israel is generally strong, there is a diversity of opinion about the war in Gaza and the Palestinian cause. That may in part be why a recent poll shows Jewish voters in New York are actually split among the top candidates, Cuomo at 31%, Mamdani at 20%, and Lander, who is Jewish himself, at 18%.
Reality check. Housing affordability and the economy remain the top issue for voters: Three in 10 New Yorkers put housing costs as their top issue, and another two in 10 said it was the economy, per an Emerson College poll from May. Fewer than 1% of voters said their top issue was foreign policy.
Yet Israel specifically remains an issue, one that can’t be captured in the nebulous “foreign policy” bracket, says Tilson, whose wife and daughters are Jewish. What this is really about, he said, is Jewish people’s perception of safety – over three-quarters of all American Jews said they feel less safe in the United States following Hamas’ attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, per an American Jewish Committee report. In New York City, antisemitic attacks increased more than 100% between 2022 and 2023, according to the local offices of the Anti-Defamation League.
“You’re defining it too narrowly by saying foreign policy. It is [about] keeping the Jewish community safe,” said Tilson. “And there has been a dramatic decline in the feeling of [safety among New York Jews].”
What We're Watching: France's regional elections, the Taliban's gains, Sweden's government falls, NYC goes to the polls
Le Pen and Macron falter in regional elections: This weekend's regional elections across France were a massive blow for both President Emmanuel Macron and his La République En Marche party (LREM), as well as for his rival Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally party. Le Pen, who has been soaring in the polls in recent months ahead of presidential elections in May 2022, was hoping her party would win a state-wide race for the first time, but National Rally failed to pull through even in conservative regions like Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, where exit polls suggest that the center-right Republicans party, which has been almost irrelevant in recent years, will likely come out on top. Macron's LREM also performed terribly, taking just 10 percent of the vote nationwide. Macron and Le Pen tried to nationalize the regional polls by focusing on country-wide issues like COVID and immigration, but extremely low voter turnout makes it hard to draw broader conclusions. A second round of voting will take place next Sunday (two rounds of voting are conducted unless parties win more than 50 percent of the vote) and the National Rally is hoping for a comeback.
The Taliban's making moves: As the US prepares for a full withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban is already swooping in to reclaim territory that it previously lost to US-backed Afghan security forces. After seizing nearly two dozen districts this weekend alone, they've now taken over about 60 out of 387 of Afghanistan's districts, over the past two months. Amid a growing perception that a Taliban takeover is inevitable after the full US withdrawal in September, reports suggest local leaders are racing to engage with the insurgents in hopes of getting better deals with them. President Ashraf Ghani said on Sunday that his government would arrest local leaders and Afghan security forces who broker deals with the Taliban, but can he enforce that? Ghani has also appointed a new defense minister, army chief and a new minister of interior to oversee the police. But so far, his warnings seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Ghani and the chairman of Afghanistan's High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abduallah, who have a power-sharing government, will meet with President Biden at the White House on Friday. But the US already has one foot out the door — 50 percent of its personnel and equipment are already gone — is it too late to stop the dominoes from falling the Taliban's way?
Sweden's government collapses: For the first time ever, Sweden's government has lost a no-confidence vote, forcing Social Democrat Prime Minister Stefan Lovfen to either resign or call snap elections. Lovfen's minority coalition government with the Green party was already on fragile footing, but the final straw came in a dispute over rent controls. In a bid to placate conservative opposition parties, Lofven — who actually supports the controls — said he'd look into the possibility of removing them for new homes. That triggered a backlash from the Left party, which withdrew from the government and called the no-confidence vote, which rightwing opposition parties supported. Rent control is a big issue in Sweden: close to 90 percent of the country's municipalities report housing shortages, as new construction has failed to keep pace with a growing and highly-urbanized population.
Gotham goes to the polls: A little more than a year after New York City became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, New Yorkers will vote on Tuesday for the person they want to lead them out of the worst economic and public health crisis to hit the city in a century. Strictly speaking, the vote is just a Democratic Party primary, but given the party's lock on the city, the winner is all but assured to win the general election this fall. Whoever that is will take over the world's largest urban economy amid massive challenges: unemployment in New York City is double the national average, violent crime is rising, and gaping socioeconomic and racial inequalities have been laid bare by the pandemic. After a nasty and contentious campaign, the frontrunners are the Black former police officer and current Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams, former presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, and former Sanitation Department head Kathryn Garcia, all of whom are centrists. But progressive candidates including former city hall adviser Maya Wiley and city comptroller Scott Stringer are in the hunt as well, particularly since the election will use a ranked-choice system whereby voters rank their top five candidates and runoffs are calculated automatically until one candidate has more than 50 percent of the vote. For superb coverage, check out the online local NYC paper The City.