With every passing day, it looks more likely that democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani will be New York City’s next mayor.
The prospect is thrilling for the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), of which I am a member and from whose ranks Mamdani rose, and for the US left broadly. Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary against former governor Andrew Cuomo and his gigantic AIPAC-funded war chest demonstrates the potential of an ambitious left-wing economic pitch and the waning influence of the pro-Israel lobby.
If Mamdani does win in November, his program holds out the promise of breaking with the austerity and corruption of the Eric Adams administration. It also has the potential to expand the popular imagination when it comes to what the public sector can do to improve ordinary people’s lives. Yet a Mamdani mayoralty would face daunting challenges: from the hostility of the city’s economic elite, to opposition to his agenda by the Democratic state government, to the threat of federal funding cuts or worse from the Trump administration.
As many writers have emphasized, to have any hope of passing his agenda, Mamdani will need a groundswell of grassroots mobilization. His supporters in DSA, unions like AFSCME DC 37 and UAW Region 9A, and other groups that helped him win the election will need to organize to show their support for the mayor’s agenda and put public pressure on elected officials and moneyed interests who stand in the way.
Mobilization of Mamdani’s existing activist or supporter base won’t be enough, however. The campaign says that it had fifty thousand people volunteer during the primary, and he won about 570,000 votes. For context, there were 4.7 million registered voters in New…
Auteur: Nick French
