Six Lessons from Zohran Mamdani

The results of Tuesday's elections in New York, New Jersey and Virginia should tell us whether a significant change in Democratic politics is underway

New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani will likely have more reasons to smile once the votes are counted. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images)

The New York Times has been busy publishing stories that undercut Zohran Mamdani, the dominant candidate and likely next mayor of New York City. Check out several headlines from recent days: “In a Joint Appearance, Cuomo and Adams Argue Mamdani Isn’t a Real Democrat”…“Cuomo Says Mamdani Could ‘Kill’ New York and Democratic Party if Elected”…”Cuomo’s Pitch as He Claws for Votes: I’m Not the Divider, Mamdani Is”…“Even for Some Mamdani Supporters, His Thin Résumé Is Cause for Concern.”

It’s not hard to grasp what’s happening here. Beyond the journalistic instinct to look critically at a likely winner in an election’s closing days, especially one not well known to many voters, The Times is playing to New York’s corporate business interests and wealthiest residents who are alarmed by Mamdani’s meteoric rise and double-digit lead in most of the polls.

Many worry about the progressive positions of this 34-year-old democratic socialist who talks about taxing billionaires, freezing apartment rents and launching city-run grocery stores in an effort to make the city more affordable for working people. Many Jewish New Yorkers fear his pro-Palestinian views and his assertions that Israel’s government has committed genocide, even as he has pledged to combat antisemitism with concrete actions. In turn, many Mamdani critics are also quick to overlook the increasingly divisive and bigoted campaign of his chief rival, Andrew Cuomo, as well as more than a dozen sexual harassment cases that led the former New York governor to resign in disgrace in 2021.

While the outcome of the New York mayoral race should not be narrowly viewed as a bellwether for the country, it’s important to understand that the qualities and messaging that have made Mamdani such a compelling candidate—despite his limited elective experience as a state assemblyman—represent a genuine change from the kind of corporate politics that have failed to serve the interests of everyday Americans. This may be especially true for young voters who resonate with his candidacy.

And more: Mamdani’s likely victory—along with the potential gubernatorial victories of Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill—will provide important data points on both the level of anger in America toward Donald Trump and his regime and the desire to reject politics-as-usual responses to the growing dangers facing American democracy and economy. Regarding this last point, it’s telling that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries failed to endorse the Democratic candidate for mayor until recent days and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer still has not done so. Both of these men are, of course, New Yorkers, making their hesitancy that much more disappointing at a time when the need for change is clear.

So what is it about Zohran Mamdani, a man who I’d suggest is a generational talent, much like Barack Obama was back when he too was dismissed as inexperienced? It can be summed up in these six ways:

1. People feel that he is an authentic human with a sunny disposition.

2. It’s clear that he actually cares about people and listens to what they say.

3. He possesses a sense of humor.

4. He leans into the issue of inequality and the rising danger of concentration of wealth by a small but powerful class of billionaires.

5. He rejects corporate politics and relies on a campaign fueled by young volunteers.

6. He has developed policy proposals and pursues messaging that is laser-focused on the issue of affordability.

While Cuomo has threatened to flee New York for Florida if he loses—undercutting his claims that he cares about New York—Mamdani can be seen talking to real people in neighborhoods throughout the city. In one recent night, he was visiting taxi cab drivers working late shifts at Laguardia Airport.

While Cuomo rhetorically asked about his opponent at a recent news conference, “Who haven’t you offended?” and refused to criticize his own supporters who have mocked Mamdani and labeled him a Muslim extremist, the Democratic nominee born in Uganda with Indian heritage has embraced his identity. “I will not change who I am, how I eat or the faith that I’m proud to call my own,” he said in an emotional speech outside a Bronx mosque. “But there is one thing that I will change: I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.”

In recent days, Cuomo, running as an independent after losing the primary, bemoaned the success of “extreme-left socialists” like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who are engaged in “a war with the moderate, mainstream Democrats.” Rather than attack Trump who has falsely dismissed Mamdani as “a Communist,” Cuomo blamed moderates like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul who endorsed Mamdani as just trying to “buy peace with the far left” because they fear them. Mamdani’s accurate response: Cuomo sounds like Donald Trump.

A top adviser and strategist for Mamdani, a 26-year-old New Yorker named Morris Katz, was more vivid about the problem with Cuomo and much of Democratic politics. “I don’t want to just defeat Andrew Cuomo,” Katz told Vanity Fair contributing editor Chris Smith, adding:

I want, in every race I do, anywhere, to defeat the politics of Andrew Cuomo. He embodies the smallness and the pettiness and this desperation for power that is willing to sell anyone out, to fuck anyone over, to get it. He’s a warped example, but it’s a rot that’s at the core of everything that’s wrong with our politics and the party.

Katz also summarized the thinking behind both the campaign of Mamdani and Graham Platner, the controversial candidate running for the U.S. Senate in Maine, which he is also advising. (Platner’s main primary opponent is 77-year-old Janet Mills, the Maine governor who Chuck Schumer recruited.) “If we’re not talking about affordability, if we are not talking about the villains who have rigged this economy and the corrupt politicians, then what are we doing here? We should all go home,” Katz said.

You can hear this kind of defiance in the remarks of Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, whose campaign has been roiled by troubling comments made on social media years ago and a small tattoo that resembles a Nazi symbol (which he says he got as a young solider not knowing its meaning and has since covered up). In her Platner profile last week, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, who originally considered not meeting the candidate after these problems surfaced, described him as “magnetic” and his crowds “electric.” Clearly, he was tapping into what people are feeling.

“I am asking you for your time,” he told one crowd. “I am asking you for your labor. I am asking you for your discomfort.” To organize successfully, he said, “you have to have conversations with people you know you disagree with, and you need to remain open and compassionate and empathetic.”

But he wasn’t saying that he would go along to get along. “I firmly believe that a politics that is willing to sell anyone out will eventually sell everyone out,” he told the crowd. Because, as he said to Goldberg, “What is motivating Mainers is people are disgusted with the current state of American politics and they want it to be something different.”

Over the weekend, former President Barack Obama campaigned for both Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey. While both three-term congresswomen are leading in the polls, Sherrill’s race with Trump-endorsed Jack Ciattarelli has tightened to an advantage of just a few points. Both races offer a window into whether voters’ anger toward the Trump regime’s reckless destruction will still lead them to get out and vote for moderate, bipartisan-minded candidates.

Obama’s comments were a reminder of the power of combining clear-sighted alarm with humor. “It’s hard to know where to start because every day this White House offers up a fresh batch of lawlessness and carelessness and mean-spiritedness and just plain old craziness,” he told a Norfolk, Virginia crowd.

And in Newark, New Jersey, Obama continued:

They have devoted enormous energy to…punishing their enemies, enriching their friends, silencing their critics…deporting people and targeting transgender folks. They never miss a chance to scapegoat minorities and blame DEI for every problem under the sun. You got a flat tire? Must be DEI. Your wife kicked you out? DEI. Who knew?

The crowd could be heard laughing. But let’s not doubt that people in both of these rallies grasped how deadly serious this moment is and why Democratic leadership is so crucial to resist the deepening dangers. But the question is whether Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor, will succeed by attracting suburban moderates, swing voters and a healthy majority of female voters with a message of “ruthless competence.”

Over the weekend, she made clear that her election is a referendum on Trump and particularly his corruption and failed economic policies. “We’re looking at a president of the United States that’s destroying jobs, who’s destroying our economy, who’s running a worldwide extortion racket so he can charge us all more money while he pockets billions of dollars,” she said on Saturday. “That’s not the way we want to run New Jersey…It’s not too much to ask to invest in workers. It’s not too much to ask to get a good wage.”

Tuesday and the coming year leading up to the midterms will reveal whether moderate candidates remain the best approach in states that traditionally elect both Democrats and Republicans. New Jersey is not New York City—and there are not many candidates with the charisma of a Zohran Mamdani—but I believe the rising fury felt across the country will demand that moderate candidates push harder to tap into the fierce emotion and the growing desire for real change.

That may be tough for traditional politicians, but we are not living in normal times. Victory comes to the courageous, not those who are reluctant to lay out a progressive vision for the future and tell the truth about the Trump wrecking ball that endangers us all.

Becoming a paid subscriber to America, America—for $50 a year or just $5 a month—helps sustain our work, keeps nearly all the content free for everyone and gives you full access to our dynamic community conversations. It also represents your commitment to fearless and independent journalism.