What can Democrats learn from Mamdani’s personality-led victory?
However you look at it, Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York is a marvel. A 33-year-old state assemblyman with barely four years in office handily defeated Andrew Cuomo, a former three-term governor who was discussed as a formidable presidential contender just five years ago. Cuomo had much of New York’s Democratic party establishment in his corner, while Mamdani had the city’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter in his. Many prominent billionaires, including former mayor Mike Bloomberg, paid for advertisements attacking Mamdani. Cuomo’s allies spent, at last count, $36m (€30.7m) on the race; Mamdani’s just $9m (€7.6m).
How Mamdani managed to pull it off is no mystery. The Uganda-born son of a Columbia University professor and an Oscar-nominated filmmaker monomaniacally focused his message on the ways that the largest US city had become unaffordable for working-class people. Mamdani’s platform consisted of a handful of bold if fanciful policy promises – free buses, a rent freeze, city-run supermarkets – that he said would bring down costs. It was a pitch that Mamdani made in unconventional venues, such as on podcasts with sceptical hosts, alongside a charming social-media campaign that didn’t look like anything else in politics. A 90-second video in which Mamdani interviewed food-truck operators about why they had increased the prices of their meat-and-rice plates – a type of “halalflation” – became an instant classic of the form. The candidate suggested that the problem could be fixed by loosening regulations.
Mamdani turned most of Cuomo’s advantages against him. Backing from big business demonstrated that the former governor had picked the wrong side in a populist conflict. Endorsements from other politicians (including Bill Clinton) became evidence of unimaginative establishment-style thinking; his decades in government were suddenly an albatross around his neck. The contrast between Cuomo – who departed the governor’s mansion amid scandal in 2021 – and the upstart half his age was best captured in a Murray Kempton line that John Lindsay, another young, dashing mayoral candidate, put on his campaign posters in 1965: “He is fresh and everyone else is tired.”
For Democrats beyond New York thrashing about for a new direction after the Biden-Harris debacle of 2024, Mamdani’s success offers plenty to mull over. Should they move further to the left or lean into class-war politics? Perhaps a focus on cost-of-living and pocketbook issues is the way forward? As they seek candidates for 2026 and 2028, should they look past traditional credentials and connections, and instead recruit outsiders unsaddled with the baggage of the party’s previous leaders? Is the most valuable communication skill not the ability to give a speech or navigate a debate but fluency in the language of Tiktok and podcasts?
There is plenty to study and probably only so much that can be learned. If Mamdani ends up beating incumbent Eric Adams in November, the spotlight will not be his alone. The likely winners of the year’s two other big races – for governor of Virginia and New Jersey – will cut a very different profile. And what works in the politics of the Empire City famously does not travel well. There is a reason that it has been more than 150 years since a former New York mayor went on to win another office.
As Democrats dive into localised neighbourhood data in a bid to forensically analyse Mamdani’s unlikely path to victory, they shouldn’t overintellectualise the nature of his appeal. A winning personality goes a long way.
Issenberg is Monocle’s US politics correspondent. For more insights into Mamdani and the New York mayoral race, click here.
