How Zohran Mamdani shocked the world — and what it means

The NYC mayoral primary could presage huge changes to the Democratic Party

Welcome to a Tuesday night edition of Progress Report.

We knew there was a strong possibility that Zohran Mamdani could win the NYC mayoral primary, but the broad assumption was that it would happen after the ranked choice votes were tabulated next week. Instead, he blew away the field to score a historic victory and force New York journalists such as myself to burn the midnight oil to write about his victory a full week early.

Not that I’m complaining — tonight, we’ll examine how this happened and the critically important lessons that should be taken from the election, with inside insights from my work in this mayoral election.

Remember, you can check out my deep dive into the election with journalist and political strategist Michael Lange right here.

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Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani has defeated disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and will be the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City.

The 33-year-old Democratic Socialist’s decisive victory is without precedent in modern Democratic politics, both for what he represents and the forces that he vanquished during his campaign.

Mamdani began the race as a little-known legislator with virtually zero support outside of Astoria and young DSA organizers, and for many observers, he was the afterthought in a field filled with New York political stalwarts. In the end, he survived a bombardment of attack ads and cheap shots in the media, riding a wave of excitement above the slings and arrows flung by an old guard of sclerotic power brokers and billionaires.

And in so many ways, this win validates what we’ve been arguing here for years and years. Here are some lessons that Democrats, pundits, and journalists should take away from this unbelievable upset:

Voters have firmly rejected Democratic gerontocracy and corruption

When party insiders have their meltdowns over this election, it won’t be because they’re worried about the Democratic Party’s future. It’ll be entirely because they’re terrified for their own futures now that voters have rejected them.

These people did everything they could to sabotage Mamdani, no matter how organically popular his campaign grew or how many solutions it offered to the Democratic Party’s existential crisis. Cuomo’s Super PAC produced racist mailers, accusations of anti-Semitism were irresponsibly hurled by lawmakers and pundits, relics like James Clyburn and Bill Clinton threw their vastly diminished weight behind Cuomo, and dozens of New York Democrats who once called for his resignation during his sexual harassment scandal lined up behind him. North of $20 million in anti-Mamdani TV ads blanketed the city.

But none of it worked because New Yorkers would not be bamboozled into forgiving an unrepentant retread who dripped corruption and contempt for voters. They ignored tired canards about the electorate being afraid of ambitious ideas and fearful of real change, because they knew that they were the electorate. The desperate need for change is obvious, but the people who run the Democratic Party have been trying to ignore that to maintain their own power.

This is a seismic shock to the system, even if Democratic leaders try to downplay it. Watch them quickly abandon Cuomo and say that he was a particularly flawed candidate, though that didn’t stop them from jumping behind his campaign. There will be months and months of sniping about Mamdani in the press, accusing him of not being organized or alienating big donors. There will be stories about conservative Democrats fleeing the party. The playbook is clear.

But this victory will only embolden progressive lawmakers and outsiders to run for office, both in open races and primary challenges against antiquated, corrupt, and cowardly Democrats who now suddenly seem more vulnerable than ever. In New York City alone, there already murmurs that Torres and Rep. Dan Goldman could see challenges from Michael Blake and Brad Lander, two mayoral contenders who earned public admiration during this race.

Dedication to a simple, hopeful message

Mamdani won over New Yorkers with charming, innovative campaign videos that focused on his plans to tame the cost of living crisis gripping the city. That message, repeated relentlessly and with an earnest optimism, really came down to a few simple, easy-to-understand promises, including free and fast busses, freezing the rent on rent-stabilized apartments, and city-run grocery stores.

While you can quibble with some of the specifics — the city will have to ask Gov. Kathy Hochul for money to cover the cost of the bus scheme — the reality is that voters are not wonks and they gravitate toward candidates who offer simple, digestible, and material solutions that will tangibly improve their lives. It’s the exact opposite of what Democrats so often do, which is pitch invisible tax credits and programs that take years and years to roll out.

As I’ve repeated for years, campaigns have to give people a reason to leave the house and cast their ballots, especially in dangerously hot weather. Mamdani’s campaign created a clear picture of what his New York could look like; Cuomo offered little beyond vague talk about “getting things done” and half-assed (and ChatGPT-written!) policy papers.

It’s also worth noting that Mamdani made the time to work on these videos, even if they took him to far reaches of the city or took up half a day. Many candidates are really unwilling to do that, whether it’s out of arrogance, ignorance, or a need to focus on fundraising. Mamdani’s relationship with DSA made raising small dollars so easy that he didn’t have to work the phones begging prospective donors for cash all day, which allowed him to make these videos and raise even more money.

Cuomo ran a dour campaign that depicted the city as a crime-ridden hellhole, arguing that only a strongman with his decades of experience — no matter how much damage he caused people — could fix it. How he’d do it, and for whom, was always unclear.

I’m a New Yorker, and Andrew Cuomo’s campaign made me feel depressed about the city’s prospects, even under his watch. He was offering a triage, not a future. Even if you were willing to ignore his litany of personal scandals and the number of grandparents he helped kill, nothing he said during his campaign was at all motivating, and it led to a collapse in support once another option seemed possible.

People love being a part of something

The most successful political campaigns have been more like movements: Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and yes, even Donald Trump have animated people in ways that transcended politics. Supporters were more than voters, they were evangelists who dedicated their time and energy and resources to those campaigns, where they met people who were similarly devoted to the cause.

Being a significant figure within New York’s DSA chapter gave Mamdani a nice head start on that front, but it took a special talent and staff to inspire army that swelled to more than 50,000 volunteers. From the beginning, Mamdani integrated his supporters into his campaign videos — something I urged Jessica Ramos to do even before Mamdani entered the race — and embraced the memes produced by fans without ever trying to co-opt them or silence supporters who they could have viewed as liabilities.

Trump’s campaigns have been nasty and divisive, but they’ve also always treated his supporters as part of the larger team. Backing Trump, especially early on, meant being a member of a kind of upstart rebel army, and MAGA obsessives reveled in every harsh tweet and triggered liberal. Their politics and personalities are total opposites, but Mamdani’s supporters similarly experienced a kind of validation every time he posted a great video or ripped off a good line in a debate.

On that note, Mamdani never tried to triangulate or shrink from his beliefs, no matter how much money and press attention was focused on cynically attacking them. Most prominently was his support for the Palestinian people, which earned him relentless accusations of antisemitism. He defended himself from those allegations, but he never apologized for his beliefs. Democratic voters are so used to being thrown under the bus by their candidates and leaders that Mamdani’s decision to stick to his guns was a kind of validation that inspired further buy-in and loyalty.

Incidents like his screaming at Trump border czar Tom Homan in Albany went viral, further underscoring his willingness to fight. People want to be part of that fight and feel galvanized by that kind of moment.

Last Friday night’s walk down the length of Manhattan was the entire thesis of the Mamdani campaign in action: a small group of political optimists invited New Yorkers to join them in a joyous march through a cross-section of a working class city, growing with each neighborhood until it became a diverse parade of supporters and people who’d joined to be a part of something bigger.

He proactively built a real coalition

Young voters quickly gravitated toward him, giving Mamdani an advantage in parts of North Brooklyn and his home turf in western Queens, but that’s hardly enough to be competitive in an election, let alone win it outright against a former governor with near-universal name recognition.

Instead of assuming cultural affinities would help him with certain demographics, Mamdani was proactive in courting diverse communities across the five boroughs, sending his volunteer army to canvass neighborhoods that were previously thin on voters. First generation citizens gravitated toward him as he spoke to their concerns and cut a warm, aspirational figure, and he emphasized as many languages as possible.

Compare that to Cuomo, who had zero ground game (he depended on the Super PAC) and really only ever showed up at orthodox synagogues and Black churches at the invitation of their leaders, who usually owed him favors.

The obvious solution to the dude problem — if they want it

A sports metaphor for you: In January, the Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Doncic, the 26-year-old global superstar who figured to be their anchor for the next decade, to the LA Lakers in exchange for an injury-prone center and some role players. The trade was instantly greeted as one of the worst in NBA history and led to dramatic protests by irate and heartbroken fans.

Then, this spring, the Mavericks rode ultra-slim odds to an improbable victory in the NBA draft lottery, giving them the opportunity to draft Cooper Flagg, a generational talent out of Duke who has been tapped as the Next Big Thing.

It was a miraculous twist of good fortune for an organization that was in absolute disarray after making a disastrous mistake, an unearned solution that has quieted fan revolt and gotten them excited for the future once again.

After their catastrophic loss in November, Democrats were a lot like the Dallas Mavericks brass, being raked over the coals for a series of screw ups that collapsed the party’s support among young men and seemed to doom them to perennial drubbings. And then, like Cooper Flagg falling into the Mavs’ lap, Mamdani’s sudden emergence felt like a divine intervention: an affable 33-year-old former hobby rapper who loves sports, enthusiastically quotes pop culture, and regularly challenges authority — running as not only a Democrat, but a peace-loving, oligarchy-rejecting populist.

Mamdani went on the Chapo Trap House podcast early in his campaign and ultimately assembled a coalition of left-leaning dude celebrity supporters — comedians, podcasters, TV hosts — that resembled the orbit of influencers that backed Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020 but were chased away by the Democratic establishment. It was an even more natural fit; he spoke their language, had the same cultural references, and experienced the same millennial economic uncertainty.

While we won’t get a demographic breakdown of the electorate for a while, the Emerson poll released on Monday found Mamdani way ahead among men, so it’s almost assured that they were key to his victory.

This is probably the least surprising aspect of what will forever be seen as a shocking and unexpected upset. Since early last year I’ve been writing about the reasons behind Democrats’ obvious trouble with young men, as well as possible solutions, and my thesis has consistently been that politics is downstream from culture, meaning that progressivism has to be slipped into conversations about sports, movies, music, internet culture, and whatever else people are into. Mamdani’s ability to talk about the Knicks and affordable housing policy at the same time is a manifestation of that.

None of this should be mind-blowing; I’ve been prescribing the solution since before Democrats would admit it’s a problem. The issue is that when party leaders say that they want to find a “liberal” Joe Rogan or build up media that can reach young and diverse voters, what they really mean is that they want to find people who will willingly parrot their sanitized message. What they need to do instead is find compelling candidates with their own authentic points of view and get them in front of independent creators, hosts, and journalists who have real connections with audiences, whether that’s local or cultural, and let them cook.

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