MIAMI—President Donald Trump criticized democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race while speaking at a business forum on Nov. 5, one day after Democrats won elections in multiple states.

“We lost a little bit of sovereignty last night in New York, but we'll take care of it,” Trump said.

“Don’t worry, we rescued our economy, regained our country, on that magnificent night, 365 days ago,” he said, referring to the 2024 presidential election.

The president traveled to Miami for the America Business Forum on the afternoon of Nov. 5 after meeting with Republican senators earlier in the morning.

Following the previous evening’s election results, in which Democrats won gubernatorial, mayoral, and attorney general races in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City, Trump urged Republican senators to toss the filibuster—the Senate’s 60-vote threshold—to end the government shutdown.

He said the ongoing shutdown and the lack of his name on the ballot are to blame for the Democratic Party’s performance and for voters in several states approving several left-leaning ballot measures.

The contests also included a California ballot measure to approve a congressional redistricting plan that would benefit Democrats, following Texas’s redrawing of its districts mid-cycle to gain a GOP advantage in the midterm elections.

Although Trump focused on the economy, he also targeted the New York City mayoral race, in which Mamdani won with more than 50 percent of the vote. The president accused Democrats of supporting communism in light of the race’s results.

“If you want to see what congressional Democrats wish to do to America, just look at the result of yesterday’s election in New York, where their party installed a communist as the mayor of the largest city in the nation,” Trump said.

Trump had previously threatened to cut off federal support to New York City if voters elected Mamdani, but on Wednesday the president had softened his stance.

He said the “Marxist socialists and globalists” had their chance in America’s largest city and that it led to “disaster,” but that his administration will still help out New Yorkers.

“We’re going to see how that works out,” the president said. “We‘ll help them. We want New York to be successful. We’ll help them a little bit.”

As the president settled into his speech to an audience of business leaders and advocates in South Florida, he also highlighted his economic policies and said the U.S. economy is strong and rebounding.

“The stock market has set 40 all-time record highs. ... GDP growth in the second quarter was an amazing almost 4 percent,” Trump said.

“We have the greatest economy right now. A lot of people don’t see that, but if you look at what’s happening with all the factories, AI, auto plants all over the country, being built.”

While the president has noted the surging stock market and that inflation rates have ticked up a bit slower than some economists predicted earlier this year, Democrats interpreted the Nov. 4 election results as a referendum on the president’s economic agenda.

“This is about Democrats fighting to lower costs for families. Donald Trump and the Republicans have raised the cost of utilities, raised the cost of groceries, raised the cost of housing, and they’re trying to push the cost of health care through the stratosphere,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told The Epoch Times. “Democrats are fighting back on behalf of families.”

Some also noted that Mamdani outperformed expectations to defeat a former New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, and become mayor-elect of New York City, largely on a platform of affordability.

A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted in late October and released a day before the election found that 71 percent of Americans say they are now paying more for groceries than they were a year ago, including 52 percent of Republicans.

Roughly 59 percent of Americans said they are paying more for utilities, which have risen by 12 percent over the past year.

The poll found that roughly six in 10 Americans blame Trump “a great deal” or “a good amount” for the current rate of inflation and rising prices.

Former 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a key Trump ally, urged Republicans in a video posted to social media on election night to focus more on affordability after Democrats swept the Nov. 4 races.

“Make the American dream affordable, bring down prices, electric costs, grocery costs, health care costs, and housing costs, and lay out how we’re gonna do it,” Ramaswamy said.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has introduced a bill in the Senate to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funded during the current government shutdown, said his party needs to do more for working Americans.

“I do think, at the end of the day, Republicans gotta deliver for working people. That means we need to deliver to working people where they are,” Hawley told The Epoch Times.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) highlighted several policies that Republicans have advanced to help working families, like no taxes on tips, overtime, or Social Security, but said his party needs to communicate more effectively a message of affordability to voters.

“Have we been able to break through the clutter and communicate to the American people? No,” he told The Epoch Times.

“We need to have a dramatically more message of affordability to say, ‘Hey, by the way, car prices went way up during the Biden years. That’s a problem. We brought them down. Housing prices became outrageous. Today, the average [homeowner] age is 40 now, which is crazy. That’s a huge problem,’” Moreno said.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said the Nov. 4 election results were largely expected.

“I think most people think that these are just blue states and blue races, and nobody expected a Republican to win in New York City, and nobody really expected a Republican to win in New Jersey,” he told The Epoch Times.

Trump also suggested in his speech that he’s working to make prices more affordable for Americans as prices on eggs and beef remain high.

“Day by day, we’re making America affordable again. It’s going to be affordable again at a really record pace,” he said.

The America Business Forum, hosted in Miami on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6, features a lineup of global leaders and prominent figures from business, sports, and entertainment speaking on commerce and related topics.

Attendees include Argentine President Javier Milei, Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

Other notable attendees include soccer player Lionel Messi and tennis player Rafael Nadal.

Emel Akan contributed to this report.