The Mamdani Model
What can (and cannot) be replicated from Zohran’s historic upset?
The Democratic Party has the lowest approval rating in thirty-five years.
Ever since Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris last November, the first Republican to win the popular vote in twenty years, Democrats have been soul-searching with respect to their Party’s future. Amidst this wilderness, several figures have attempted to fill the vacuum and chart a course forward. Bernie Sanders launched the Fight Oligarchy tour, naming the corporate elite as the villains hallowing out the working-class and capturing the political establishment. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson co-authored Abundance, which detailed how well-intentioned liberal regulations have stonewalled public infrastructure, while providing a roadmap for how Democrats can pivot into a Party of builders, drawing rave reviews from the institutional elite. Yet, there were remarkably few “big ideas” coming from top Democrats, let alone innovative recipes on how to win elections in this new era.
Then came Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani, a Muslim democratic socialist from Western Queens, toppled former Governor Andrew Cuomo, the scion of a New York political dynasty. Charismatic and disciplined, Mamdani rose from one-percent in the polls, fusing social media savvy with an unabashedly economic populist message, to realign the Democratic electorate across the five boroughs. In the process, the insurgent weathered thirty-five million dollars in negative advertisements from Real Estate and Pro-Israel forces, ultimately receiving the most votes in the history of New York City primary elections.
However, the reaction to Mamdani’s stunning victory among Democratic Party leaders, particularly those in New York, has been one of distance. Thus far, neither Hakeem Jeffries nor Chuck Schumer — both constituents come January — and the House and Senate Democratic leaders respectively, have not endorsed Mamdani. National Democrats appear intent to cherry-pick elements of Mamdani’s appeal, limiting their praise to “affordability” and relatable vertical-videos. While both were integral to Mamdani’s success, they represent a fraction of his breakthrough. Perhaps the brilliance of Mamdani is that his triumph cannot be attributed to any one “thing,” but a confluence of multiple factors: some replicable, some entirely unique.
Undoubtedly, I am not the first on the scene. The “What can Democrats Learn from Mamdani” article genre is already a saturated and intensely debated market. Each piece is unique and interesting, but none, in my estimation, have captured the totality of Mamdani’s success — much less attempted to differentiate what can and cannot be reproduced.
Here, I will break down my “Mamdani Model” with an eye to how Democrats can build on his success elsewhere. My friends on the left may be disappointed that this piece does not wholeheartedly endorse every aspect of Mamdani’s democratic socialist ideology as the most consequential engine behind his victory; the candidate’s own evolution on policing, necessary and ultimately successful, in service of cultivating greater support from working-class voters is evidence of this. However, for establishment-aligned moderates, there will be harsher lessons: namely the pending alienation of the next generation of Democrats, who are significantly to the left of Party leadership with respect to economic remedies and Palestine. One slick video cannot undo decades of eroded institutional trust. Just ask Andrew Cuomo.
Notably, my blueprint is not solely designed for candidates running in urban Democratic primaries, but those facing competitive General elections well beyond New York City. In the interest of transparency, I will also detail four important factors that I believe are less replicable from Mamdani’s victory: specific to him, his opponents, macro political conditions, and the five boroughs themselves. Lastly, each lesson should not be taken one-by-one. They are complementary, greater than the sum of their parts.
So, what can we learn from the Democratic-nominee so many Party leaders are afraid to endorse?
Table of Contents
Most Replicable
Message: Bread and Butter Economics (“Affordability”)
Ethos: Work Ethic & Affirmative Vision
Dissemination: The Social Network
Trust & Authenticity: The Palestine Answer
Roots: Local Infrastructure
Ambition: Expanding the Electorate
Least Replicable
Attention Economy Hegemony: New York City, off-year election
Macro Political Conditions: Trump 2.0
Candidate Quality: The Generation Talent vs. Scandal-Scarred Status Quo
New York City’s Diversity
Most Replicable
Message: Bread and Butter Economics (“Affordability”)
From the onset of his campaign, Zohran Mamdani relentlessly focused on affordability and costs-of-living: rising rents, expensive groceries, unaffordable childcare.
The notion, while simple and obvious in hindsight, was a stroke of genius at the time. In the nation’s most expensive city, income inequality has been a potent political message for decades, famously a cornerstone of Bill de Blasio’s “Tale of Two Cities” campaign twelve years ago. During COVID, as crime spiked following a steady, multi-year decline, public safety rose in salience; while costs-of-living (specifically rent), was pushed to the back burner, the consequence of temporary outmigration that momentarily softened the housing market. As New York City’s population rebounded and post-pandemic inflation spiked, those “in-between,” namely the infinitely diverse and increasingly young renter class, were hit the hardest.
On June 24th, this cohort formed the bedrock of the Zohran Coalition.
While one may disagree with the efficacy of Mamdani’s proposed solutions, few can debate the effectiveness of how the democratic socialist packaged his ideas.
Freeze The Rent.
Fast and Free Buses.
Universal Childcare.
Municipal Grocery Stores.
Not only did each plank address the four greatest costs of living (housing, transportation, childcare, food), every slogan — no more than three words — was simple in nature and easy to digest; a far cry from the large policy plans Democrats intro’d during the 2020 Presidential race. So discernible was the Mamdani platform that enthusiastic canvassers could repeat it on command.
Can anyone name a solution that Andrew Cuomo championed during the primary?
An Affirmative Vision
It would have been easy for Zohran Mamdani to fall into the trap of constantly going negative on Andrew Cuomo. After all, there was not a lack of material to draw from.
Yet, while Mamdani occasionally traded barbs with the former Governor, he always did so in contrast, never letting said sparring dilute his own message.
In the final weeks of the campaign, operatives opined that the race, once a referendum on Cuomo, had shifted to a referendum on Mamdani — presenting a last-minute obstacle for the insurgent. However, the more voters saw Zohran Mamdani, the more they liked him.
Why? Because the charismatic assemblyman was not running as solely an anti-Cuomo vessel content to exclusively bash the frontrunner, but an authentic new leader with bold and innovative ideas.
Democrats learned the hard way in 2016 and 2024: merely running against your opponent, no matter how repulsive they are, does not guarantee victory. Constant criticism not only gives the opponent more attention, but simultaneously deprives the candidate of a chance to articulate and build consensus for their own vision.
Mamdani actively practiced joy on the campaign trail — the candidate’s radiant smile, lighthearted laugh, and warm demeanor were a staple of every interaction — while conveying a genuine love of place. Cuomo routinely painted the city as a hell-hole, despite living in the suburbs for thirty years prior, and rarely campaigned upon his return.
Andrew Cuomo played to New Yorkers’ resentments, while Zohran Mamdani appealed to their aspirations. For working-class Americans, each day carries the prospect of stress and anxiety. While today’s news media ecosystem, particularly with respect to politics, feeds off fear and depression, the best candidates inspire hope, rather than despair. The essence of Mamdani’s vision was just that: “let’s address costs-of-living so neighborhoods can endure and all residents — natives, immigrants, and transplants — can remain in their homes.”
Hard Work
The final day of the primary campaign, where temperatures peaked at one hundred degrees, was a metaphor for the entire race. Zohran Mamdani began the day with a sunrise press conference in Astoria Park: “A young man running through the tape, up against an old man paying and pressing people to push his message,” journalist Harry Siegel aptly observed.
Andrew Cuomo did not publicly appear until a little before noon. He voted at his polling location in the tony Manhattan neighborhood of Sutton Place (despite endorsements from Jessica Ramos and Whitney Tilson, the former Governor only ranked himself), before speeding away in his Dodge Charger, not to be seen again until after the polls closed. Amidst the worst heat wave of the year, Mamdani criss-crossed the municipality while Cuomo was sequestered by aides, intent to reduce his exposure and run out the clock.
Even before Mamdani was on the precipice of history, the little-known Assemblyman made a point of showing up everywhere. Quite literally, in a city of almost nine million, that would have been impossible, but where Mamdani could not be present in-person, he multiplied himself digitally, while his volunteer army (exceeding fifty-thousand) filled in the gaps physically.
Dissemination: The Social Network
Zohran Mamdani’s breakout moment was less than 180 seconds.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory last November, Mamdani took to Hillside Avenue in Queens and Fordham Road in the Bronx — two working-class thoroughfares that swung dramatically towards the Republican nominee — to ask several Trump voters WHY.
Not only did Mamdani’s video go viral (the first of many such instances), an early breakout moment for the unknown underdog, the candidate seldom spoke beyond asking questions — a rarity in politics. Instead of reciting a tired monologue, Mamdani 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 (and attempt to win back) the Trump-curious. “Absolutely,” several replied.
Over the next nine months, Zohran Mamdani and his excellent team (Andrew Epstein, Donald Borenstein, Debbie Saslaw, Olivia Becker and Anthony DiMieri) produced dozens of acclaimed videos, both short and long.
Halalflation. Something Different on the Menu. Freeze The Rent. Will you be my Democrat? Keep the Meter running. Free Mahmoud Khalil. Why we walked the length of Manhattan. Small Business, Big Priority. Zohran x Mero. Indeed, there’s something for everyone, and the list goes on…
While covering a variety of topics, each video naturally fits Mamdani’s personality. Undoubtedly, the thirty-three year old (and his millennial-heavy staff) were native to social media to an extent his opponents were not. The campaign’s paid media strategist, Morris Katz, told New York Magazine: “A lot of times, the consultant approach is you have your playbook and you’re jamming these candidates into your playbook. With Zohran, it’s the other way around… That’s our campaign motto: ‘Let Zohran cook.’” And cook he did.
Slowly but surely, Mamdani’s presence became ubiquitous to young voters, omnipresent on the mediums they frequented for both news and leisure. Mamdani filmed videos in Spanish, Urdu, and Bangla; commensurate with the insurgent’s commitment to reach out to historically-overlooked voting blocs. The force multiplication of such an effort (every retweet, Instagram story, and Whatsapp message) became exponential by the race’s conclusion. One video at a time, Zohran Mamdani not only defined himself to voters, but broadened the electorate in the process; inoculating the democratic socialist from a flurry of attack ads that blanketed the airwaves over the race’s closing weeks.
Ironically, Andrew Cuomo of all people should have internalized the value of maintaining a seen-at-all-times media presence, given the apex of his popularity coincided with his daily pandemic briefings. Five years later, the former Governor was nowhere to be found on the campaign trail.
However, even the slickest social media will be set up to fail if they lack an interesting and potent message. Cuomo, attempting an ill-fated Independent bid ahead of the November Election, is now accompanied by his own film crew, while his New York Post-parody Twitter account has been handed over to a snappy staffer. He will be one of many candidates across the country destined to learn this lesson the hard way.
Yet, perhaps Mamdani’s greatest competitive advantage came from the scores of volunteers (the campaign estimates fifty-thousand plus), who donated their time to knock doors, make phone calls, and speak to their neighbors — over-and-over again. They did so not out of pressure but principle, believing not only in Mamdani, but in the impact of one conversation.
One of Mamdani’s colleagues in Albany told me: “When I ran for office, [my opponent] had one person on his staff who was an incredible campaigner. Knew his positions, knew his bio, was great with people, and fought for every vote on the street. He won a lot of votes for [my opponent]. Zohran had tens of thousands of those people. Cuomo had none.”
In the days of Mario Cuomo, the Democratic Party had real organizations. Precinct captains went from “block-to-block whipping votes, inserted themselves into neighborhood struggles, and ensured their local clubs were packed with volunteers.” Residents wanted to belong to a sort of civic life, and the machines fulfilled that modest wish. Today, “these organizations carry on as phantoms, as after-images of a different age.” In the vacuum of neighborhood, special interests filled the void, bankrolling Andrew Cuomo.
On the contrary, Zohran Mamdani tapped into something far greater than himself. Of course, the fifty-thousand volunteers who flocked to the democratic socialist were animated by class-consciousness and cutting-edge social media, but they returned — day-after-day, week-after-week — to climb those fifth floor walk ups and talk to strangers, because of a sense of belonging, one that has not existed in local politics, at this scale, in a long time. Knocking doors “was not something to be endured,” recounted one senior campaign official. Indeed, volunteers would return from shifts eagerly asking, “when can we do this again?” Mamdani laid claim to a movement that connected people; Cuomo only cared about resuscitating his own career.
Obviously, not every campaign can achieve fifty-thousand volunteers, but the Mamdani Model of (1) an affirmative, solution-driven vision with (2) a relentless focus on costs-of-living that (3) inspires younger generations via new media can build proportional grassroots support.
However, that thesis alone is incomplete without authenticity and trust, and one issue has become the litmus test for both among the youngest generations of Democrats: Palestine.
Trust & Authenticity: The Palestine Answer
During the first debate, each candidate was asked: “What country would you visit first as Mayor?" Several, almost reflexively, said “Israel” or “The Holy Land.” However, Mamdani’s response, “I plan to stay in New York,” rankled both his opponents and the moderators.
Melissa Russo pressed him: “Mr. Mamdani, do you believe Israel has a right to exist?”
“I believe Israel does have a right to exist,” he responded, “as a state with equal rights.”
Mamdani’s response, and the exchange altogether, was a watershed moment in the Democratic Primary.
In the immediate aftermath, the political and pundit class cried foul, contending Mamdani had made a tactical blunder. However, the voting public overwhelmingly sided with Mamdani, as many left the exchange asking themselves: “What does Israel have to do with managing New York City?”
Indeed, the political overton window has shifted so much that Nate Cohn is writing in The New York Times: “[progressives] can criticize Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank with confidence that Democratic primary voters are sympathetic to their views. In doing so, they would put many mainstream Democratic politicians in a difficult spot… Affordability and Israel give them new opportunities and put mainstream Democrats in a challenging spot.”
Public polling has shifted as well. Seventy-eight percent of Democratic Primary voters in New York City believe Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. Looking ahead to the General Election in November, Mamdani enjoys a commanding margin with both “reform and secular” Jews (+33) and Jewish voters under-45, where Mamdani leads with sixty-seven percent of the vote.
The War in Gaza, amidst the backdrop of the Pro-Israel lobby’s influence in Washington, has been the pre-eminent fault line in the Democratic Party since October 7th. For over a year, opposition to arming the Israeli government was confined almost exclusively to the party’s leftmost flank, despite the indiscriminate killing of civilians continuing unabating. However, in recent weeks, as the widespread famine in Gaza reached the tipping point of mass starvation, the Democratic Party’s tone on Israel has shifted. “A vast majority of left-leaning voters under 50 take a dim view of Israel, and that trend will only accelerate in the coming years. The median American liberal sees almost nothing to celebrate with Israel since right-wing parties have dominated the Jewish State’s politics for a generation,” writes Ross Barkan. Two weeks ago, twenty-seven Democratic Senators supported Bernie Sanders’ resolution blocking arms sales to Israel (both New York Senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, voted “no”). Nor is the outrage confined to the Democratic Party, as various factions of the MAGA-verse, most prominently “America First” conservatives (from Thomas Massie to Marjorie Taylor Greene), have become increasingly incensed at what has been, up until recently, the bi-partisan consensus.
Unquestionably, a willingness (or not) to stand up to the Israeli government doubles as a litmus test for a candidate’s integrity and ability to withstand pressure. Even for voters with little opinion on the conflict, a politician caving in the face of stringent opposition from the Pro-Israel lobby signals to the public that other inevitable pressures from special interests would be comparably effective. This issue, perhaps more starkly than any other, pits the whims of the donor class directly against that of the constituents.
As such, it will be almost impossible for any Democrat to win a non-infinitesimal share of young voters in the 2028 Presidential Primary without pledging a radical departure from the US-Israel status quo. Anything less may be an irrevocable liability in the General Election as well, with Gallup finding a majority of Americans disapprove of Israel's actions, with astonishingly low marks among people of color (-53), Independents (-43), high school graduates (-35), and low-income voters (-39), the demographics that experienced the most pronounced shifts toward Donald Trump last November.
Given Zohran Mamdani — who pledged to arrest Netanyahu for war crimes and has consistently asserted the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza — just won the Democratic Primary in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world: what excuse does any politician have for denying the atrocities, funded by US tax dollars, unfolding before our eyes?
The next generation of Democrats are surely taking notice.
Roots: Local Infrastructure
Allow me to be a stubborn New York City native for one second.
The vast majority of Zohran Mamdani’s “Inner Circle” are native or longstanding residents of New York City. Most importantly, the candidate himself was raised in Manhattan, went to high school in the Bronx, ran successive campaigns in Brooklyn, and represents Queens in the State Legislature. Contrast that with the opposition. Melissa DeRosa lives in Warren County, while Rich Azzopardi resides in Albany. Andrew Cuomo was a resident of Westchester County and Albany for the three decades prior to his campaign. More than one hundred and seventy-five thousand primary voters were not born the last time Cuomo resided in New York City.
This was reflected in each campaign’s attitude towards New York City.
The former Governor painted the subways as unsafe, the streets overrun by the mentally-ill and homeless, and the wealthy tax base fleeing en masse. Cuomo’s characterization of New York City felt akin to suburban scolding; more commensurate with a purple district reactionary from Nassau County than someone auditioning to lead the infinitely-nuanced five borough mosaic. Whereas Mamdani was cast as the “Happy Warrior,” celebrating the city for its virtues, while consistently playing to the viewer's curiosity about their own backyard (re: visiting City Island). This intuition was best embodied by Mamdani’s seventeen mile walk of Manhattan, which took place the Friday before the Primary. As Mamdani strode down Amsterdam and Broadway — cars rolled down their windows and honked their horns, while passersby stopped for photos on almost every block — the scene was reminiscent of those which accompanied beloved Mayors of old, such as liberal reformer John Lindsay and the Little Flower himself, Fiorello Laguardia.
A tepid connection to New York City, rooted in a bygone era, made the Cuomo campaign more reliant on political institutions whose trust was eroding and influence waning. Cuomo advisor Chris Coffey told CNN: “Had we run a perfect campaign, I’m not sure the outcome would have been different… the senior leadership team helped bring on board most big unions, electeds, every business group, top-notch donors and supporters like Mike Bloomberg, mended fences with and turned out Hasidic Jews, helped every editorial board to be for us or against our opposition.” Indeed, such was the traditional playbook — financial elite, labor unions, elected endorsements — for success in New York City’s municipal elections.
However, with each passing decade, those respective institutions were gradually losing their foothold within the Democratic electorate, the consequence of neglect and macro political forces. Avowedly left-leaning movements, most notably NYC-DSA, filled the vacuum; appealing directly to the next generation of Democrats, and consistently expanding their influence and infrastructure since 2016. The Working Families Party has been battling Cuomo for years, and helped to cohere the non-Cuomo candidates into a pseudo non-aggression pact. DRUM Beats (Desis Rising Up and Moving) backed Mamdani from Day #1, contributing invaluable organizing and expertise across the city’s countless South Asian enclaves. D-R-E-A-M (“Don’t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor”) became an effective guerrilla communications campaign that was borne of these movements. Said mass-member organizations are not only capable of marshalling hundreds of volunteers to knock on doors, a significant competitive advantage in any downballot campaign, but also serve as year-round hubs for aspiring and talented organizers, many of whom had known Mamdani for years and subsequently worked on his campaign.
Against the financial largess of Andrew Cuomo’s Super PAC, which enjoyed unchecked hegemony on the airwaves during the race’s final weeks, Mamdani’s local infrastructure — pounding the pavement, blanketing the algorithm — helped inoculate the insurgent from the onslaught of attacks. Most importantly, said infrastructure was not explicitly political, taking on a social aspect as well; force multiplied through every tweet, Instagram story, and Whatsapp text. While the youngest generations of New Yorkers may have lacked a discernible connection to the political institutions of yore, their social networks proved invaluable in disseminating Mamdani’s message directly to the masses, organically building enthusiasm and virality.
Across the country, institutional trust has reached an all-time nadir, further compromising the political infrastructure of the past. Big money, while still a Goliath capable of buying attention on television, sees diminishing returns in high-salience campaigns (President, New York City Mayor, Battleground Senate), particularly with civically-engaged partisans and younger voters.
Of course, Zohran Mamdani rewrote the playbook, but he took advantage of trends already in place.
Ambition: Expanding The Electorate
Through all of the above, Zohran Mamdani changed the Democratic electorate in New York City.
That was not an accident, but the culmination of a well-executed, multi-month plan by the Mamdani campaign. Nor was it easy, requiring early resource investment (volunteers, money) in segments of the electorate written off by the political class, given their historically lower turnout.
Mamdani staked his campaign on mobilizing progressive young voters, rent stabilized tenants, South Asians and Muslims like never before — betting they would flock to the polls if given something to vote for. The gamble paid off handsomely, and foregrounds the importance of viewing the electorate as malleable and ever-evolving, rather than set in stone.
As extensively detailed by Aaron Fernando, this effort began with the creation of the voter “universe,” the collection of Democrats the campaign focuses on talking to, which centered on those four aforementioned blocs. While “progressive” precincts and voter ages are relatively easy to identify, the infinite nuance of ethnic enclaves are less so, particularly given that campaign databases are severely lacking on this front. Thus, the Mamdani campaign undertook a rigorous last name analysis of every Democratic voter in the city, to ensure no prospective voter was missed. Traditionally in Democratic Primaries, the universe skews heavily towards “triple prime” voters, shorthand for those who have voted in the three most recent primary elections; come hell or high water, these folks can be counted on to show up at the polls. However, the Mamdani campaign eschewed this orthodoxy: “Our final universe was equal parts triple prime and zero prime, with large numbers of Muslim and South Asian voters in addition to recent registrants.”
This targeted ground game, when combined with Mamdani’s social media prowess — the candidate spoke Spanish, Bangla, and Urdu — proved to be remarkably effective. The video recorded days before the registration deadline for the Democratic Primary (which neatly coincided with Valentine's Day) inspired thirty-five thousand additional registrants; presumably motivated solely by a desire to eventually cast a ballot for Mamdani. Four days before the Primary, campaign volunteers visited an eye-popping 135 mosques across the five boroughs for Friday Prayers; whereas Cuomo, when asked by Erroll Louis why, during his more decade-long tenure as Governor, he had failed to publicly visit a mosque, unconvincingly responded, “I believe I have,” though he “couldn’t remember where, when, or with whom.”
Mamdani won many neighborhoods where his campaign never canvassed, a testament to this layered outreach. Not only did the insurgent harness mediums whose reach his opponents failed to understand, he courted voting blocs they overlooked; multiplying his support where it was already strong, and building name recognition where he was previously unknown.
The results are hard to dispute. Zohran Mamdani not only expanded the electorate in key progressive areas, the democratic socialist coalesced an unprecedented level of support, routinely crushing Cuomo by between forty and sixty percent across several neighborhoods spanning the now-infamous Commie Corridor. In the Palestinian precincts of Bay Ridge, Bangladeshi blocks of Kensington and Jamaica Hills, and Muslim enclaves of Brighton Beach and Westchester Square, Mamdani thoroughly routed the competition. In working-class neighborhoods where the left had previously failed, many of which swung dramatically towards Donald Trump last November, Mamdani broke through. And, while the insurgent lost Black voters overall (the lone racial demographic Cuomo won), in the handful of neighborhoods with a large share of Black Millennials (Bed-Stuy, Flatbush, Crown Heights), Mamdani blew the doors off Cuomo. All told, a record number of young and “low propensity” voters had participated in the Democratic Primary — spurred by the charismatic underdog they had come to believe in.
When the results came in, Andrew Cuomo had won more votes than Eric Adams four years prior. He lost by one-hundred and thirty thousand ballots.
Least Replicable
Zohran Mamdani was the right candidate in the right place at the right time.
Attention Economy Hegemony: New York City, off-year election
Undoubtedly, Zohran Mamdani was aided by the where and when of his campaign.
Indeed, Mamdani was running for Mayor of the largest city in America; at the heart of both capitalism (Wall Street) and elite media (The New York Times). Furthermore, the political calendar, following last November’s Presidential election, was relatively bare of competition: the sole other Democratic Primary of note was in neighboring New Jersey (where Rep. Mickie Sherill routed her opponents). While national Democrats opined about the Party’s future, Zohran Mamdani stepped into the Attention Economy vacuum.
On this front, Mamdani also benefited from the shortcomings of his opponents. His chief foil, Andrew Cuomo, was not only anonymous on the campaign trail, but lacked any presence whatsoever on the internet; content to inundate cable news and broadcast television. Brad Lander, the left-liberal Comptroller who allied with Mamdani in the race’s final days, also tried his hand at videos following Mamdani’s successes, but his efforts came across as less organic and more copycat. Indeed, the importance of playing to the candidate’s strength, and finding the appropriate medium to convey their message, cannot be overlooked. As such, Mamdani enjoyed attention hegemony among younger voters due to his ubiquitous presence on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok:
“If you’re online, he seems to be the only candidate with Wi-Fi.”
However, Democrats across the country should not expect to replicate Mamdani’s chokehold on attention, the scarcest and most valuable resource in politics. As the vertical video era commences, candidates will inevitably oversaturate the internet in midterm and presidential election years, making it difficult for those outside large media markets without significant pre-existing social media followings to break out from the crowded pack.
So what’s the best hope of differentiating oneself? Message Quality.
Fertile Macro Political Conditions: Trump 2.0
How would the race for New York City Mayor have changed if Kamala Harris was President?
The return of Donald Trump to power fundamentally destabilized the Democratic Party establishment. As the latter’s approval eroded in the early days of Trump 2.0, the ground for insurgency, barren during the Biden administration, was fertile once again. With the Party increasingly defined by the “Fighter vs. Folder” axis, rather than explicitly ideological lines, the insurgent bid of Zohran Mamdani benefited. Andrew Cuomo — an acolyte of the Clinton family felled by sexual harassment scandals — neatly embodied the status quo Democrats have come to revile. Mamdani not only represented a clean break from the past, but an affirmative vision for the future: bringing down costs-of-living, fighting for human rights, showing up everywhere.
While macro political conditions are fleeting, their impact is too often overlooked in post-election analysis. Over the next three years — peaking with federal elections next year, before culminating in the 2028 Presidential Primary — I do not anticipate the appetite for significant change (which can take on many forms) at the core of the Democratic Party will abate.
Strike while the iron is hot.
Candidate Quality Gap:
The Generation Talent vs. The Scandal-Scarred Status Quo
Zohran Mamdani, in every sense of the word, is a generational political talent. The son of a famous filmmaker and renowned academic, he is not only telegenic and brilliant, but personable and charismatic. Having cut his teeth on underdog campaigns in the outer boroughs, Mamdani possesses a deep understanding of not only New York City, but electoral politics. Crucially, his curiosity extends beyond insular political class chatter, or the boundaries of his own district. While Mamdani has the cerebral mind to remember important data, he maintains the limbic instincts to not get bogged down in numbers. Mamdani’s meta analysis of the five borough zeitgeist proved proficient. He did not tail opinion polling or elite opinion, which dictated that progressives were doomed on public safety and that support for Palestine was an electoral liability; rather, the democratic socialist stuck to his principles, framed the race around economic issues, and helped shift public opinion. Politics is emotional, voters want to feel heard by those vying to represent them. Zohran understands that as well as anyone I’ve ever met.
Mamdani’s youth and relative inexperience, derided as negatives by his corny opponents, were ultimately his greatest asset. The thirty-three year old was not only native to the countless mediums where young people consume the news, but understood the political appetite of his peers: left-leaning economics and a clear-break from the status quo. Having been in the Assembly for only four years, Mamdani had more institutional knowledge than the median insurgent, but retained enough distance from the establishment that he could diagnose their weaknesses. In the dead of winter polling at one-percent, Mamdani hustled as he would in June on the precipice of a historic upset — relentlessly. The manner in which Robert Caro described Lyndon Johnson, whose boundless energy helped carry the Hill Country-native to the Oval Office, was how I felt watching Zohran Mamdani campaign.
Whereas Caro’s words about Robert Moses proved a more apt comparison for Andrew Cuomo.
Amidst ever-worsening costs of living and an increasingly polarized national environment, the Cuomo campaign remained flat-footed and overly cautious, intent to stick to a bygone twentieth century script that never came close to meeting the political moment. While Mamdani rewrote the playbook altogether, Cuomo outsourced his paid media and field organizing to an allied Super PAC, whose coffers were filled by Real Estate and Pro-Israel megadonors. Having been forced to resign following thirteen allegations of sexual harassment and multiple investigations into a potential coverup of nursing home deaths by his administration, Cuomo was persona non grata to vast swaths of the Democratic electorate. Afraid of being asked about his scandal-scarred history, the former Governor was a ghost on the trail, rarely making public appearances (beyond a weekly appearance at a Black church) or speaking to journalists; despite said “Rose Garden” strategy hurting both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The notion that young people would support Andrew Cuomo was inconceivable.
While Mamdani was actively expanding the electorate, reaching “non-prime” voters written off by the consultant class; Cuomo was relying on nothing fundamentally changing from four years prior, seemingly unable to comprehend that each candidate had an obligation to motivate their respective supporters. As such, Mamdani’s base (young voters of all races and classes, white-collar professionals, South and East Asians, Muslims) voted at significantly higher rates than four years ago; whereas Cuomo’s support, compared to Eric Adams, either declined or plateaued. The pronounced enthusiasm gap was evidenced by thousands of excited canvassers pounding the pavement for Zohran Mamdani compared to halfhearted union workers forced by leadership to attend Andrew Cuomo’s rallies.
Zohran Mamdani was an excellent new-age candidate with a well-oiled machine behind him; inversely, Andrew Cuomo was a flawed avatar of the past buoyed by an out-of-touch operation.
New York City’s Diversity
The Democratic Primary electorate in New York City is uniquely diverse (White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters each exceed ten-percent), college-educated (over half the electorate), and young (fifty-one percent of primary voters were under-50).
Compare the five boroughs with the national Democratic Primary electorate and differences become stark: New England is heavily indexed towards upper-middle class, predominantly white suburbs and rurals; Black voters are a decided majority in the South; the Rust Belt is heavily-unionized with a significant white working-class population; the Sun Belt is increasingly young with a growing Hispanic population. In fact, only a handful of states (California, Illinois, New Jersey) can match New York’s diversity. Nationally, the Democratic Party is anchored by Black voters in the rural South and urban North combined with white, college-educated suburbanites. Indeed, one cannot win a Presidential Primary without a majority of support from either group. The cosmopolitan class, for which the Party’s brand is so closely associated due to their stranglehold on elite media and institutions, has little electoral foothold outside a handful of white-collar neighborhoods on each coast. While Mamdani was forced to navigate the politics of all three contingents (suburban, swing-district Democrats have kept him at arms length; Black voters broke decisively for Cuomo; as did the elite upper-crust), his path to victory was paved through the Sleeping Giant of New York City’s mosaic: an overlapping combination of young people, renters, Muslims and South Asians. While Mamdani performed well among white voters (+5), his best numbers came with Hispanic (+8) and Asian (+18) voters, enough for a thirteen point rout of Andrew Cuomo, despite the former Governor’s advantage with Black voters (+16).
Indeed, the uniqueness of Mamdani’s coalition does not lend itself to a simple copy-paste.
The United States as a whole remains relatively segregated by race. In the Democratic Primary, Mamdani performed well in the most “integrated” and multi-racial precincts, while Andrew Cuomo did best in the most racially homogenous election districts (either 90%+ Black or White). Housing was a preeminent factor in the election: Mamdani dominated among middle-income tenants, those most squeezed by rising rents; while Cuomo performed best with the homeowner class, more insulated from market-rate increases. According to The New York Times, renters were approximately seventy-percent of the electorate, and won by Zohran Mamdani by fourteen percent. However, outside of a select few urban areas, renters seldom outnumber homeowners by forty-percent in any electorate, given the stability afforded by the latter is historically commensurate with increased civic participation. Yet, as the housing market continues to contract across the Northeast Corridor, the permanent renter class is growing by the day.
Hence, the million dollar question: would the result of the Primary have changed were the setting different? Was Mamdani’s historic triumph solely a function of New York City? Or is democratic socialism coming to a district near you? The answer lies somewhere in-between.
I will leave you with an insightful quote from esteemed CUNY professor John Mollenkopf, a leading scholar on demographics, sociology, and urban politics:
“[New York City] represents what the United States will be like once native-born, non-Hispanic whites are no longer a majority of the population or even the potentially eligible electorate. We have significant representations of every constituency that is present across the country.”
Perhaps sooner than we think, the United States will look more and more like New York City.
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An additional point on having an affirmative message: the "rest of field" candidates (Myrie, Lander, Stringer, Adrienne Adams, Ramos)spent the bulk of their campaigns framing themselves as "not Adams" and then "not Cuomo". As a consequence, none of them stood out as different (for better or worse) than the other choices.
This is probably the best takeaway from the stunning Mamdani victory. Democrats need to not demonize socialism but see its appeal. And the winning formula of big labor, big business and democratic elites no longer… wins! But having a hyper local focus and good organization is actually a winning strategy even against money and media hype . I’m very disappointed that too many mainstream Dems like Schumer are not embracing him