WASHINGTON

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday criticized the election of Zohran Mamdani as the mayor of New York City as "the biggest win for socialism" in US history.

"Look what happened in New York City last night," Johnson told reporters at the Capitol.

"For the first time in American history, an avowed openly proclaimed socialist has been elected as the mayor of America's largest city. Zohran Mamdani is without a doubt, the biggest win for socialism in the history of the country and it is the biggest loss for the American people. He is truly a committed Marxist," he added.

Democrats won races for governor Tuesday in the states of New Jersey and Virginia. And Mamdani, the 34-year-old assemblyman, claimed victory in New York City's mayoral contest, defeating former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Johnson downplayed the broader national implications of the off-year elections, saying they were largely predictable.

"What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue.

"We all saw that coming, and no one should read too much into last night's election results. Off-year elections are not indicative of what's to come. That's what history teaches us," he said.

Johnson pointed to voter turnout in New York City as a point of concern.

"By the way, it's worthy of note that Zohran Mamdani himself only, only received a little over a million votes, 1,036,000 votes. There are 8.3 million residents in New York City,” he said.. “So about 12% of the city voted to turn their city over to the communists. We'll see how that works out.”