Obama, Mamdani, & The Rise and Fall of Movements
How the arc of the 44th President informs New York City's next Mayor
Zohran Mamdani's upset polarized segments of the Democratic Party establishment. Some, quietly impressed for months with the insurgent’s campaign, hopped on the Democratic nominee’s bandwagon, acknowledging the will of the voters. Others, apoplectic and defiant following Andrew Cuomo’s collapse, vowed to fight through the bitter end to November. Most, like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer — both constituents come January — and the House and Senate Democratic leaders, respectively, have resorted to distance. Not Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, who spoke with Mamdani at length after the primary, a previously undisclosed conversation reported by Mara Gay of The New York Times.
David Axelrod, Obama’s chief campaign strategist and senior adviser, offered effusive, on-the-record praise of the campaign’s “determined, upbeat idealism“ before offering a warning to those who “scare the hell out of people to get them to vote for [their] deficient politics.” In the telling of his allies, Mamdani’s ability to inspire young voters, a hallmark of Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, resonated with the former President. Already, the comparison between the two has been echoed by top New York Democrats, including Letitia James and Jerry Nadler. And, while the contours of their conversation are anyone's guess, it is undeniable that Barack Obama and Zohran Mamdani have much in common:
Mamdani, ironically, is what the political right always accused Obama of being: an African-born, Muslim socialist. Both cut their teeth as community organizers, and their respective political odysseys began in urban, working-class neighborhoods. Early defeats shaped their worldviews and, ultimately, set them on the path to power. Amidst their ascendance, both demonstrated unique oratory skills and impressed audiences despite their lack of experience. At the pulpit on Sunday morning, each invoke their father’s story. In victory, Obama and Mamdani laid claim to a political movement — nonetheless years in the making, but in need of a leader.
However, when one reaches the summit, what comes next?
Hard Lessons
Before he turned forty years old, Barack Obama was already a multi-term State Senator in the Illinois Legislature who had been the first Black President… of the Harvard Law Review. A published author (his book was nonetheless out of print) with a background in local community organizing, Obama’s resume was laden with Ivy League acclaim. Itching for political advancement, the professor from Hyde Park set his sights on Congressman Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther representing Chicago’s South Side, reeling following a landslide defeat in the Mayoral race the year prior.
From the beginning of his career, Obama was tapped as a multi-racial coalition builder. Beloved in Hyde Park, the gentrifying neighborhood encompassing the University of Chicago, the law professor encompassed the new and old of the community: a transplant to the South Side, but one who planted roots, raising his own middle-class family. Illinois’ first Congressional District stretched farther south, encompassing low-income, racially-homogenous Black communities. On the campaign trail, the lightskinned professor lectured his prospective constituents about the need to “work with” whites and Hispanics. However, such ideals fell on deaf ears amongst the Black working-class, whose worldview had been shaped by the racial polarization long synonymous with everyday life in Chicago. Rush, a mainstay of Sunday church services and gun violence protests, had accumulated decades of goodwill across the South Side; whereas the Hyde Park interloper did not. Lacking neighborhood relationships and shunned by local institutions, Obama struggled to connect, particularly with seniors. The biracial Obama saw his “blackness” frequently questioned by Rush and his allies, who asserted his college talk lacked utility on South Michigan Avenue.
Everyday for months, Obama woke up knowing defeat was imminent. While his run may have been egotistical and naive, circumstances beyond his control sealed his fate: Rush’s son was murdered months before the primary, prompting an outpouring of support for the grief-stricken incumbent; soon thereafter, Obama missed an important vote on a gun violence bill in the Illinois State Legislature, unable to return home from vacation in Hawaii on time (his youngest daughter was ill). Obama had often charged that the incumbent was ineffective and out-of-touch, but Rush, who once served six months in jail on a weapons charge, had always been respected on gun violence issues. Here, Obama was glaringly absent, while Rush was leading on the South Side’s most important issue. Edward McClelland wrote, “Obama’s path to power went through Columbia and Harvard, Bobby Rush learned politics on the street — his entire life had been a series of escapes from the fates that destroyed so many Black men of his generation.”
Obama lost by thirty percent. He considered retiring from politics altogether.
Zohran Mamdani never faced a comparable failure, but his career was shaped by the defeats of his allies. Raised in Morningside Heights (New York City’s parallel to Hyde Park), Mamdani’s early years were academic-focused: his father was an esteemed professor at Columbia University (where Obama attended undergrad), while the son graduated from Bronx Science, one of the city’s most sought-after specialized public high schools. Mamdani would not pursue law school, but an amateur rap career, before cutting his political teeth on the streets of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and Astoria, Queens: Italian, Irish, and Greek neighborhoods gradually diversifying in the twenty-first century. During his mid-twenties, in-between campaign cycles, Mamdani worked as a community organizer, helping cash-poor homeowners avoid foreclosure.
Yet, it was in the heat of political battle where Mamdani demonstrated a wisdom beyond his years. Under the tutelage of Khader El-Yateem, paternally known as “Father K,” Mamdani not only found his voice, but made a lasting impact on others. A voracious door knocker with a charismatic and easygoing demeanor, he would training the other canvassers in no time. Against a more well-funded and politically connected opponent, Mamdani saw how the campaign’s “field” program, predicated on enthusiastic volunteers talking to voters over-and-over again, helped the insurgent effort keep pace. Here, the aspiring leftist was introduced to NYC-DSA, the rapidly-growing socialist organization that would be the engine of his election to the state legislature (and, eventually, the Mayoralty). While Mamdani excelled at connecting with voters, his kinship with El-Yateem — a Palestinian Lutheran minister born in the West Bank, whose parish on 4th Avenue doubled as a conduit for Arab Christian refugees — was special. Mamdani, whose upbringing in New York City coincided with increased discrimination and unchecked surveillance against Muslim and Arab communities following September 11th, saw himself in El-Yateem: “He gave me a sense of belonging in a city that I had always loved, but one in which I had not known if my politics had a clear place.”
Mamdani left the campaign with many believers. Among them was Ross Barkan, a journalist who had taken note of the insurgency that was the talk of his neighborhood. “Who was organizing the canvassers that always came to my door?” the lifelong Brooklynite mused while plotting his own run for office, “I should hire them.” The two formed an instant bond: Mamdani the talented upstart eager to experience life beyond the urban core, Barkan the outer borough striver trying to secure his big break. Their division of labor was simple, Barkan handled comms (pitching articles, raising money, and writing emails), while Mamdani drove the field program (recruiting volunteers). There was little “down time” between the duo: mornings were spent soliciting strangers at subway stations, evenings were spent knocking doors (in three to four hour shifts), with phone calls to volunteers, prospective small dollar donors, and allies sandwiched in the middle. Absent institutional support, Mamdani’s talent for “getting the most out of people,” proved invaluable. In search of votes, they criss-crossed Southern Brooklyn together, knocking doors in Russian-dominated Manhattan Beach, Italian and Irish Marine Park, and Arab Christian northern Bay Ridge. Here, Mamdani learned the importance of showing up everywhere. But sweat stained shirts and worn out sneakers could not alone guarantee victory. Under Mamdani’s guidance, Barkan’s campaign struggled to keep pace financially. Nor did Mamdani send mail, a critical error in a district dominated by seniors. He invested in an alternative to NGP VAN, the standard Democratic Party voter file, that proved unreliable and rife with bugs. Mamdani’s innovative spirit and relentless work ethic was always there, but required some troubleshooting. Most notably, they failed to win an endorsement from NYC-DSA, who instead channeled their organizing muscle into Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Julia Salazar, both victorious. Hard work and field organizing, without a movement campaign, had their limits. Yet, even in defeat, Barkan extolled Mamdani’s future: “I had no doubt he would eventually run for office.”
But where? Mamdani set his sights on Astoria, Queens — a neighborhood similar in aesthetic to Bay Ridge, whose population trends (more young professionals, fewer older white ethnics) were fifteen years ahead, owed to greater proximity to Manhattan. Promptly, he threw himself into the next DSA campaign: a longshot challenge for Queens District Attorney. Mamdani worked on behalf of Tiffany Cabán, a public defender from Richmond Hill who embraced ending cash bail in the mold of reformer Larry Krasner. Her opponent, Borough President Melinda Katz, was the hand-pick of the once-vaunted, but now reeling “Queens Machine.” If elected, Cabán promised that she would decline to prosecute marijuana cases, turnstile jumping, prostitution, trespassing, disorderly conduct, loitering, drug possession, and welfare fraud. For months, the campaign struggled to attract the sort of viral attention that would become synonymous with Mamdani’s Mayoral bid, while churning through staff due to a lack of fundraising. Nonetheless, armed with “a large number of young people who, for the right candidate, would be willing to work very hard for free,” they possessed an invaluable competitive advantage. Mamdani was one of those young people hustling in the shadows. During the final month, the ground began to shift in Cabán’s favor. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, five months into her first term, endorsed the insurgent in late May. The Working Families Party, less labor-oriented and more ideological, helped Cabán expand her staff. It was the first campaign where AOC, DSA and WFP, the three pillars of progressive organizing, were united behind the same candidate. “This coalition could remake politics in New York City,” Mamdani thought. In a lower turnout, split-primary field (several more moderate candidates were also running, eating into Katz’s margins in homeowner-heavy Eastern Queens), the enthusiasm gap would play a deciding role. If the electorate was expanded enough, Cabán would win. On Election Night, it appeared Cabán had pulled off an improbable upset.
Such euphoria was premature, as mail-in-ballots undid the insurgent, who lost by a meager fifty-five votes. Yet, amidst the disappointment, there was reason to believe the future was bright. NYC-DSA was ascendant, especially in Astoria. In fact, Cabán won more than seventy-five percent in Mamdani’s Assembly District. The base had rallied for a sleepy, off-year election — imagine what could be done in a larger, macro-political moment?
As Mamdani reviewed the results, the democratic socialist saw avenues for improvement. Bangladeshis in Jamaica Hills. Punjabi Indians and Indo Caribbeans in Richmond Hill. Muslims in Jackson Heights. Over the years, he had met many folks like this, slowly getting to know their neighborhoods. Mamdani knew that these communities, particularly intra-generational renter households, would be receptive to an anti-establishment, left-leaning message centering economics. Overlooked by the political class, Mamdani sensed an opportunity to expand the electorate with some of the fastest growing immigrant populations in New York City. In Astoria, Muslim and South Asian voter turnout was half that of the overall electorate.
The revolution must reach them too.
The Juice
In diagnosing his thirty-point blowout to Bobby Rush, Obama learned his natural constituency “was not inner-city Blacks but well-educated eggheads of all races.” He had considered Congress a stepping stone to becoming Mayor of Chicago, where Obama aspired to build a multi-racial coalition in the vein of Harold Washington. Now, his standing with the Black community on the South Side was damaged, the professor’s ego humbled.
Obama set his sights on the United States Senate, a statewide election where he could credibly compete for the votes of urban Blacks, suburban liberals, and rural whites. Television advertising, provided the State Senator could raise the requisite funds, would highlight Obama’s capacity to inspire. Most importantly, the talented upstart would not be facing off against a local institution like Rush, nor competing across a handful of neighborhoods well-traveled by the incumbent. In an open primary, the diversity and breadth of Illinois would help Obama construct the coalition he had always envisioned.
Interestingly, the man who would soon redefine fundraising in the Democratic Party was broke. Lacking a grassroots small dollar donor base, Obama turned to Chicago’s business community — first Black professionals, then white liberals. He cultivated an alliance with the Speaker of the Illinois Legislature, who redistricted his Senate seat, at Obama’s direction, to include the affluent Lakefront neighborhoods, while shedding lower-income Black communities. Oprah Winfrey was now a constituent of State Senator Obama, eventually becoming an invaluable surrogate during the Presidential election. He overhauled his stump speech: fewer local issues, more inspirational rhetoric. A friend recounted the Archbishop of Boston once telling John F. Kennedy to be “more Irish and less Harvard.” Obama took the story to heart.
White liberals, enthralled with Obama’s early stand against the Iraq War, were already on board early. The Black political class, while unhappy with Obama’s campaign versus Rush, recognized his unique coalition-building potential, in the mold of Harold Washington, and desperately wanted one of their own in the United States Senate. Atop the pulpit, Obama shed the professor’s robe and donned the preacher’s gown: “the new Obama had studied his audience—hardworking, churchgoing Blacks—studied their aspirations, and the way they liked to hear those aspirations expressed every Sunday morning. This was going to be a sermon, not a lecture. It was going to quote Jesus, not the Brookings Institute," wrote McClelland. On the South Side of Chicago, Obama practiced the lines he would eventually deliver as the keynote speaker at the Democratic convention. Every Sunday, he visited a minimum of five churches.
The quality (or lack thereof) of Obama’s opponents aided him greatly. Blair Hull was poised to be the leading contender — an anti-corporate progressive, veteran, and card-carrying union member (who outspent the entire field) — before imploding after his divorce records were publicized, revealing a history of domestic violence. That left only Dan Hynes, the uninspiring and colorless State Comptroller, a nepo baby whose father was a powerful ward boss. His ties to the nascent political machine were no match for Obama’s compelling personal narrative. “Hynes represented Chicago’s provincial past—political dynasties, ethnic loyalties, unadulterated Irishness, precinct captains ringing doorbells for a kid from the neighborhood. Obama reflected the modern Chicago, a cosmopolitan city made so by migrants like himself“ wrote McClelland. Over the final six weeks, Obama surged. His rallies were getting larger and louder, as more and more politicians, sensing the momentum, jumped on the bandwagon. His closing advertisement, fittingly titled “Hope,” reflected the multi-racial coalition Obama strived to build, featuring clips of the late Paul Simon (a liberal icon) and Harold Washington (Chicago’s first Black Mayor). On Election Day, Barack Obama did just that.
Overnight, Obama became a political celebrity of the highest order. National reporters flew into Chicago to profile the future of the Democratic Party. Four years earlier, when Obama arrived at the Democratic National Convention, he was broke. When he tried to rent a car, his credit card declined. Unable to get a floor pass (“sorry, we’re getting a lot of requests”), he watched the proceeding from the concourse. Defeated, he returned home early, before Al Gore was nominated. Now, Obama would deliver the keynote address in primetime. “They would give me an African name, believing in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success,” Obama said of his parents. The lines Obama first spoke at Black churches on the South Side of Chicago were now broadcasted into the homes of millions of Americans.
“He walked onto the stage as a State Senator, and walked off the next President of the United States.”
When it was Zohran Mamdani’s time to run for office, he was ready.
Three campaigns in as many years had given him the tools to turn his ambition into reality. On a brisk morning in mid-October, Mamdani (who celebrated his birthday the day prior) and friends launched his campaign in Queensbridge Park, the site of a twenty-thousand person comeback rally for Bernie Sanders, who had been off the campaign trail recovering from a heart attack. As Sanders implored the audience, in his trademark Brooklyn accent, to “fight for someone you don’t know,” Mamdani canvassed the crowd, urging the smallest of donations to his own campaign. “I’m running on Bernie’s platform in Astoria,” he said with a smile. Watching Sanders, flanked by Ocasio-Cortez and Cabán, the emotional momentum was palpable. Over the holidays, Mamdani went to Iowa to knock on doors for Sanders. When he returned to Queens, the insurgent carried the same energy through the winter, and appeared destined to knock off Aravella Simotas, the inoffensive left-liberal incumbent. Mamdani’s commitment to expanding the electorate was evident even then: the campaign knocked on the doors of Muslim Independent voters in an effort to re-register them as Democrats so they could eventually vote for one of their own. "Bringing forth Bernie Sanders' vision,” Mamdani said, “means not only fighting for a political revolution but transforming the electorate.” Everything was going according to plan.
“My campaign has knocked on the doors of voters that a consultant would say, ‘don’t waste your time, they haven’t voted since 2010.’” — Zohran Mamdani
Until the pandemic. Within an instant, life in New York City was upended. In Queens, “the epicenter of the epicenter,” all campaigning was forced inside. Mamdani’s greatest assets, volunteer door knocking and in-person interaction, were eliminated per public health guidance. Now, instead of dispatching dozens of canvassers from the office to knock on doors, masked volunteers, one-by-one, would pick up mutual aid for socially distanced distribution. By Ramadan, the campaign was distributing six hundred meals every day. Amidst months of sequester, the campaign stepped up their online presence: Mamdani filmed several savvily produced direct-to-camera videos in Astoria Park, where one can see echoes of the future. Every Sunday afternoon, he went live on Instagram: talking to guests, clipping videos, and posting them on Twitter. Establishing a clear-contrast with Simotas, an inoffensive incumbent who had been hailed for her work combatting sexual harassment, was a difficult endeavor. City & State published an article, which included some laundered opposition research against Mamdani, with the subtitle: “Aravella Simotas and DSA-backed Zohran Mamdani compete over the same platform in Astoria.” However, it was here where the painful lessons— shortcomings that had prevented El-Yateem, Barkan, and Cabán from crossing the finish line — were honed by Mamdani and his team, some of whom had gone through those battles alongside him. The campaign methodically worked to draw distinctions. Every thread of Simotas' relationship to the increasingly-unpopular “Queens Machine” was pulled. No vote taken, on the state budget or otherwise, dating as far back as a decade, was safe. As progressive backlash to law enforcement crested in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Mamdani highlighted his opponents’ contributions from police unions, taking a victory lap when Simotas returned the money. Mamdani would Defund The Police; his opponent would not. Nonetheless, the insurgent’s closing argument foreshadowed what was to come: “They said staying home would save lives, but you can’t stay home if you don’t have one.”
The final result was not known until July, given the closeness of the Election Day vote and the prohibitive volume of absentee ballots which needed processing via the Board of Elections. On the steps of Queens Borough Hall, Mamdani was pronounced victorious — by a margin of 423 votes.
Amidst the narrative of a political tug-of-war between the young, college-educated renters and their white ethnic, homeowning counterparts — a crucial piece of Astoria’s fabric was left out. Since the 1970s, thousands of Arabs and Muslims had immigrated to the neighborhood, establishing a commercial corridor along Steinway Street, the same street where the NYPD illegally surveilled Muslims on the basis of their faith after September 11th. When Mamdani prevailed with a razor-thin margin, his best precinct, which delivered the Muslim democratic socialist more than two-thirds of the vote, included the “Little Egypt” blocks of Steinway Street.
Young People. Renters. Muslims. South Asians. Five years later, those would be the building blocks for Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for Mayor.
Movement versus Machines
2008 was the consummate change election. The Democratic Party, after almost eight years of the Bush administration, was desperate to turn the page. The base was fired up, particularly as the Iraq War further metastasized, but there remained a discernible appetite for bipartisanship and “uniting the country.” Such optimism was scant during the early months of 2025 — Trump’s return to power — as the Democratic rank-and-file were not only steaming mad at the President, but their own Party’s lack of leadership. Each produced a stunning referendum on the status quo.
To dethrone a vaunted political machine, a talented principal is not enough. Without a steady and complimentary right-hand guiding the most important campaign of their respective lives, victory would have eluded Barack Obama and Zohran Mamdani. Luckily for both, they had just that — and then some. During his Senate race, Obama enlisted David Axelrod, a former journalist turned well-known consultant. Unlike the big wigs of Washington D.C. and New York City, Axelrod was based in Chicago. He took an immediate liking to the ambitious Obama, “those who worked with both men considered them equals in discipline, intelligence, and temperament.” Unlike Axelrod, who worked on multiple Presidential campaigns and was an industry staple, Elle Bisgaard-Church had never been a campaign manager — let alone steered a Mayoral race in the nation’s largest city. Whip smart and even-keeled, Bisgaard-Church was hired as Mamdani’s Chief of Staff when he was elected to the state legislature. A policy wonk at heart with a keen eye for detail, Elle was the perfect compliment to Zohran, capable of translating his ideas into action. Despite her perceived campaign inexperience, Mamdani and Bisgaard-Church shared the most important intangibles: trust and work ethic.
Both Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo were tapped as fallible, but nonetheless formidable frontrunners. More dreadnought than juggernaut, they filled the proverbial vacuum with “experience,” decades of institutional support, and a vast network of wealthy donors. Much rested on the double-edged sword of “inevitability” combined with a notorious streak of revenge, fear which kept Party insiders in line. However, there was fatigue: Hillary had high negatives, and the Clinton White House (following the Monica Lewinsky affair) ended on a sour note; Cuomo was forced to resign as Governor following thirteen substantiated allegations of sexual harassment, and was long regarded as a cruel bully. Both supported increasingly unpopular foreign wars: Clinton voted in favor of invading Iraq; Cuomo parroted Benjamin Netanyahu’s talking points with respect to Gaza. On the outside, their “machine” appeared almost-invincible — on the inside, they were rife with dysfunction and dissent. Neither were keen on apologizing, ever. “People want to be brought together and unified, yet we are seen as polarizing. They crave authenticity, but we are seen as plastic,” warned an internal Clinton memo as Obama crept up in the polls. The same could have been said for Andrew Cuomo, seventeen years later. When Obama spoke to Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader regaled him with a story about a young boxer who had once defied long odds, concluding “you can get people motivated, especially young people, minorities, even middle-of-the-road people.” The author, in a piece published months before the election (when Cuomo appeared almost inevitable), unknowingly offered the same comparison: recounting the story of how Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammed Ali) had miraculously felled the over-confident (and hobbled) heavyweight champion, Sonny Liston. In the case of both Clinton and Cuomo, personal hubris and decades of intra-party polarization proved to be an especially damning combination. This collective desire to forsake the status quo was harnessed to build a far wider coalition than Obama and Mamdani had ever anticipated.
Barack Obama, already a best-selling author, well-known United States Senator, whose viral keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention earned him acclaim across the country, was not the underdog Zohran Mamdani, a three-term state legislator who began at one-percent in the polls, largely unknown beyond the political class and cadre network of left-leaning organizations, was. Nonetheless, flush with scores of young people inspired by the prospect of change, both turned to the grassroots to bridge the institutional gap: thousands of volunteers knocked doors, made phone calls, and gave small dollar donations. The youthful age of their supporters was derided by opponents; a Clinton aide quipped, “they look like Facebook,” in reference to Obama’s increasingly enthusiastic (and large) crowds.
In the Iowa Caucuses, Obama famously expanded the electorate, more than doubling voter turnout from four years prior, primarily from “lower propensity,” younger voters. Mamdani did the same in New York City, spurring a record number of Gen-Z and Millennial voters to the polls. Both eschewed traditional campaign orthodoxy in creating their respective “voter universes.” Obama not only focused on young people, but courted Independents and Republicans, eligible to vote under Caucus rules; Mamdani reached out to South Asians and Muslim voters, cohering voting blocs the political class had overlooked. A willingness to engage, take risks, and appear everywhere became a hallmark of each insurgent campaign.
Both saw their racial and ethnic backgrounds (Obama as a Black man, Mamdani as a Muslim) targeted by right-wing media and the Democratic Party establishment: Cuomo’s Super PAC darkened Mamdani’s skin and lengthened his beard, while Senator Kirsten Gillibrand went on an unhinged and Islamophobic rant following his victory; Bill Clinton sought to diminish Obama by comparing his victory in South Carolina to that of Jesse Jackson, and constantly complained to the press that the Obama campaign was “playing the race card.”
However, Obama chose not to focus on socio-economic class to the extent Mamdani did: the former built an unprecedented small dollar-donor network, but still relied upon the Billionaire class for campaign contributions; whereas the latter, benefiting from a generous matching funds program, eschewed the backing of real estate developers and corporations. Mamdani explicitly spoke of the need to decrease costs-of-living, and introduced several policy proposals to do just that; Obama invoked the need for generational change, but was nonetheless embraced by the institutional and financial elite.
Their respective victories lacked strong support from core voting blocs once considered a prerequisite to prevail in the Democratic Primary: Obama struggled with white working-class voters; whereas Mamdani lost the Black vote by double-digits. Nonetheless, each over-performed with the fastest growing demographics within the electorate. Obama's "Coalition of the Ascendant" relied upon racial minorities, millennials and college-educated women; whereas Mamdani's "Coalition of the In-Between" fused millennials (now older, but still confined to the renter class), Muslims, and college-educated liberals. In both, the Democratic Party’s educational realignment is evident, yet the preeminent thread that binds them is historical support from younger and lower-propensity voters.
But what became of Obama’s movement?
A historic landslide ushered in Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. In the mold of Abraham Lincoln, Obama assembled a “Team of Rivals” cabinet, eager to usher in the post-partisan era he had promised. The Affordable Care Act was passed, Wall Street recovered, and Main Street slowly bled out. Talk of unity fell flat, polarization deepened, and Obama’s appeals to decency lacked any utility when dealing with the modern GOP. Without the President on the ballot, Democrats were annihilated in the midterm elections, instantly rendering Obama's agenda dead on arrival over his final six years. Despite many of the fundamentals being tilted against him, Obama was re-elected in 2012, once more earning an outright majority of the popular vote. The “Coalition of the Ascendant” carried the day, as Obama dominated amongst younger voters, Hispanics, and Asians — the fastest growing demographics in the United States, particularly in the Southwest. His support in the Black community was almost unanimous (one election district in Bedford Stuyvesant cast 612 votes for Obama and 0 for Romney). The Republican Party entered a period of soul-searching that culminated in Donald Trump’s hostile takeover. John McCain, Obama’s opponent in 2008, announced he would cast a write-in ballot because of Trump’s “locker room talk.” Nevermind that the President could not convince Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire or confirm Antonin Scalia’s replacement due to the GOP-controlled Senate; for Obama’s hand-picked successor, Hillary Clinton, would surely win. However, amidst a tidal wave of white working-class backlash, she did not. Obama had withstood these very currents, embodied by the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus, because of his singular political talent, but many of his contemporaries in the Democratic Party, Clinton included, were not so lucky. The real estate mogul whom the President had gleefully roasted at the White House Correspondents Dinner would inherit the Oval Office. The working-class of Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania who had twice voted for Barack Hussein Obama as an avatar of change saw Donald Trump in a similar vein. In some of the poorest counties in America, many crossed over or stayed home.
As Obama left the White House, there was little infrastructure to rebuild from. It didn’t have to be this way. Organizing for America, a small-dollar donor magnet, supplanted the moribund DNC as Obama’s primary campaign apparatus during his Presidency: “Obama reasoned that he could become the party, his dynamic and charismatic personality carrying it at the national level.” However, the Democratic Party shed one thousand seats across the country during Obama’s Presidency. Four years later, the shadow of the former President loomed large over the Democratic Primary field. Every candidate met with Obama multiple times, who dabbled between party elder and power broker, content to step back and let the process play out. At least, until Bernie Sanders emerged as the favorite to capture the nomination.
The Millennial Generation, more so than any other, was indelibly linked to Obama: packing his rallies, knocking doors in Iowa, and anchoring the largest volunteer network in American history, proving fundamental to his insurgent victory in 2008 and his re-election in 2012. However, over time, disillusionment crept in. Obama, personally, would always be revered, but his platitudes and trust of institutions could only deliver so much, especially as income inequality deepened following the financial crisis. The cost of college, owed to administrative bloat, ballooned. The Affordable Care Act, while impactful (particularly for those on their parent’s insurance), felt like a drop in the bucket as the healthcare insurance industry banked record profits. Homeownership, the quintessential American building block, was rendered out-of-reach for the youngest generation. In debt and permanently confined to the renter class, fewer Millennials started families. Bernie Sanders understood this malaise, so much so that he briefly mulled a primary challenge to the sitting President. After Obama left office, despite his wishes to the contrary, Millennials gravitated to more class-based, unabashedly progressive candidates. In both 2016 and 2020, they flocked to the Vermont Independent. The salience of Sanders revealed an appetite for the Democratic Party to do more than simply return to the pre-Trump status quo; an implicit judgement of the Obama era, an admission that all was not well, and what came next was not an accident.
Sanders had been surging, earning the most votes in Iowa, winning New Hampshire, and delivering a landslide in Nevada. Cable news pundits were apoplectic. Were Sanders to win South Carolina, the nomination would be sewn up. However, the democratic socialist stumbled with the Palmetto State’s predominantly Black electorate; Joe Biden, on the ropes following a disastrous run in the first three states, dominated, owed in large part to his close relationship with the first Black President. With blood in the water and Biden’s fortunes resurrected, Obama, thus far reluctant to engage in the Primary, pushed in his chips, nudging Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar out of the race, consolidating support for his Vice President. In one week, Sanders went from the favorite to win the nomination to stumbling into Super Tuesday. Unable to broker a deal with Senator Elizabeth Warren, Sanders failed to court the liberal left and routinely excoriated the mainstream press. “That was the rub with Sanders,” observers mused, “he can’t build broad coalitions.” In every state with a significant Black population, Sanders was crushed. Like Obama, Sanders had created a movement, but failed to build a lasting organization that went beyond himself.
In spite of his victory in November, Obama’s original doubts about Biden eventually proved correct. Determined to run for re-election despite a majority of Americans opining, repeatedly, that he was too old, Biden eschewed the torch passing he had once promised. Democratic over-performance in the midterm elections — fallout from Dobbs, atrocious GOP candidates, and the Party’s realignment towards higher-propensity voters — proved to be a mirage, insulating Biden from calls to not run for re-election. Despite slagging approval ratings, the incumbent went virtually unchallenged in the Democratic Primary, as a declining Biden hurtled towards the first Presidential debate. Biden’s performance, a ninety minute livestream of senility, was so disastrous that the Democratic Party did something unprecedented: force out the incumbent President on the eve of an election, rather than face a catastrophic wipeout in November. Some of Obama’s top allies (George Clooney, Pod Save America) were among the first to sound the alarm, and the former President did little to pacify the mounting public pressure. Biden, mortally wounded, stepped aside weeks later. In keeping with Obama era tradition, the torch was passed to the Vice President. However, Obama was also skeptical of Kamala Harris, reportedly preferred a ticket of Gretchen Whitmer and Wes Moore, but was disarmed by Biden’s endorsement, which preceded an onslaught of institutional support. So it was that Harris, the former prosecutor and early supporter of Obama, who ran for President already and flopped, would be tasked with preserving his coalition.
Harris campaigned alongside Liz Cheney, playing to the bi-partisan themes of Obama’s first campaign. She elevated Mark Cuban as a top surrogate, despite his hostility towards Lina Khan for insufficiently placating the business community during her tenure as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Most importantly, the Vice President refused to distance herself (in any respect) from the unpopular President. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote easily, only losing because of the Comey letter. Her defeat had been a fluke. Joe Biden won the most votes in the history of the United States. Kamala Harris was not Donald Trump, and that would be enough. Until it wasn’t.
Harris lost all seven swing states. The multi-racial coalition was in tatters, as Hispanics and Asians defected to Trump in droves. Young men had not only abandoned the Democratic Party, but rebuked it. It was not just the white working-class in the industrial Midwest, but the black and brown working poor in the Bronx and Queens. A movement — one that had elevated Obama to two terms, anointed Clinton his successor, resurrected Biden, and spawned Harris — had been reduced to ashes, if it ever existed at all.
As it was all slipping away, Obama appeared at Harris’s campaign office in Pittsburgh. Her slagging poll numbers among Black voters, specifically the working-class urban dwellers Obama had once intimately known from his days as a community organizer, was top of mind. “I’m going to speak some truths, if you don’t mind.” Black enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for Harris, seemed “to be more pronounced with the brothas.” With only weeks left to salvage the operation, time was of the essence. Obama chided Black men for making “excuses,” insinuating their reticence to support Harris was solely based on her gender: “part of it makes me think that you just aren’t feeling having a woman President.” At that moment, Obama did not sound like the first Black President who had inspired millions, but rather the lecturing professor from Hyde Park, struggling to connect with his working-class audience on the South Side of Chicago. Gone was the soaring, post-partisan rhetoric of the past. No hope and change, only accusations and shame.
In stark contrast was Zohran Mamdani, the thirty-three year old State Assemblyman from Queens, who emerged from the algorithmic abyss as the Democratic Party contemplated its future. The longshot Mayoral candidate took to Hillside Avenue and Fordham Road in the wake of Trump’s victory — two working-class thoroughfares that swung dramatically towards the Republican nominee — to ask voters why. The political unknown seldom spoke beyond asking questions. Instead of reciting a tired monologue, he listened to the concerns of each voter before sharing his own policy prescriptions for addressing costs-of-living. “Are these policies you would vote for,” he closed, providing a real-time model for how Democrats should approach the Trump-curious. “Absolutely,” several replied. In the Democratic Primary, many immigrant-heavy neighborhoods did just that.
Mamdani, who earned the most votes in the history of New York City primary elections, is still enjoying the honeymoon phase. On pace to win the General Election convincingly, the Democratic nominee will campaign for two more months before setting his sights on transitioning to City Hall. The Constitution forbids Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, from serving as President of the United States, a blessing in disguise. At age thirty-four, Mamdani will have no higher office to angle for. Nor will he be marooned in the swampland of Washington DC, forced to answer pedantic questions everyday about twenty-twenty-eight. Instead, Mamdani can focus on governing, and leave it to others to learn the many lessons of his campaign.
What happens to Mamdani’s coalition will define his legacy. While the youth movement was years in the making — forged in the hyper-politicized era of Obama, Sanders and Trump — Mamdani harnessed their energy better than any one of his contemporaries. Instead of “generational change” platitudes, he spoke directly to the costs of living crisis. Many of his Millennial supporters tell me this: “I first canvassed for Obama and felt so moved, but I quickly grew disillusioned. He ran as anti-war and anti-establishment, but closed the door when he became President.” Now, they look to Mamdani for hope and change, and so much more. The democratic socialist has also built bridges to the liberal-left, winning the enthusiastic support of Brad Lander and Micah Lasher, in a way Bernie Sanders never could (or seemed interested in doing). Most importantly, the Zohran Coalition went beyond one man.
Mamdani will enter City Hall with a smorgasburg of left-leaning organizations eager to help. Many, like NYC-DSA (the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America) and Drum Beats (Desis Rising Up and Moving), have been in Mamdani’s corner since the beginning, and were tantamount to expanding the electorate. The Working Families Party, owed to their ballot line, is bound by separate (and more lenient) campaign finance regulations, and has become the local left’s counterweight in the Super PAC era. Of course, Mamdani’s victory strengthened these organizations — increasing membership, spurring donations, creating earned media — but each had already been building power, independent of the candidate, for years. These are not the infamous “groups” oft-invoked by the pundit class, but civic minded local institutions whose views are well-represented within the electorate. Nevertheless, they still comprise a fraction of Mamdani’s volunteer base (NYC-DSA has ten-thousand members, Mamdani has sixty-thousand volunteers). The Democratic nominee’s ability to consistently engage the fifty thousand volunteers not tethered to any year-round organizing apparatus will be tantamount to his success.
Some may be tempted to ask: what if the fickle youth, with their limited attention spans, eventually discard Mayor Mamdani, a TikTok trend that has run its course, particularly if he struggles to deliver on his ambitious agenda? Perhaps, after an adulthood spent being kicked in the teeth by politicians, young people are just grateful that someone, finally, is at least trying. The tens of thousands of volunteers who flocked to the Mamdani campaign were animated by class-consciousness and cutting-edge social media, but they returned — day-after-day, week-after-week — to climb fifth floor walk ups and talk to strangers, because of a sense of belonging.
“In Obama’s telling, external pressures—the Republicans, the press—always nudge him toward loneliness. The salve—in many ways, the theme of his story—is comradeship.” (The New Yorker)
Without a doubt, Zohran Mamdani has that in spades.
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Forgive my cynicism here, but if I think that Barack Obama's "arc" was "photogenic Great Communicator with huge grassroots following" --> "underwhelming Great Compromiser centrist president" --> "washed up whitewater rafting enthusiast," one might look at Mamdani and think, "hey, I've seen this movie before..."