The capital of capitalism now has a socialist mayor. Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoral race is the biggest rebuttal to the Trump presidency since he took office. A candidate who promised to freeze rent for two million New Yorkers, create city-run grocery stores and provide free childcare, paid for by a 2 per cent tax on those who earn more than $1 million a year, has beaten Andrew Cuomo and a political dynasty that assumed that power was their right. Mamdani is now a leader of the socialist left not only in America but around the world. A glitzy art deco theatre in downtown Brooklyn was the stage for his triumphant victory speech.
But election day began at 8am in a playground in Queens. One reporter climbed the equipment to get a better view of Mamdani as he entered the park for a press huddle surrounded by a hive of photographers and two burly bodyguards. His hair still looked wet from his morning shower. A campaign which began with Mamdani, an anonymous state assemblyman, polling at less than 1 per cent was drawing to a close.
Mamdani’s campaign did not unite all of New York. His critics pointed to his inexperience and youth. At an intersection in Harlem, one Cuomo canvasser put it like this: “This is not like running the PTA. What if a terrorist attack happened, would Mamdani know what to do?” When asked in the playground whether Mamdani had the experience to manage the largest city in America, he delivered a witticism with a smile: “I get older every day”. As Mamdani got back into his black SUV, the traffic slowed down like they were passing a car crash. One woman shouted out of her window with fangirl pitch, “We love you!”, only for the driver behind to lob a single word out of his window: “Asshole.”
Socialists should embrace the dialectic, I suppose. This election was a battle between young and old, the Democratic establishment and the insurgent left. Mamdani excited a fervour in the electorate: 104,000 volunteers rallied to make him mayor. Expect a mammoth turnout when the final numbers come in. The frontpage of the Daily News on Monday declared an “EPIC VOTING SURGE”. His events possess a vibrancy only found at Trump or Bernie Sanders rallies. Unlike Trump, the left has failed to capitalise on the fertile politics post-2008. Recall that Sanders did not win the 2016 and 2020 nomination for president. Now the left has a figurehead who proved this type of politics is electable – at least, in New York.
But don’t underestimate the impact this will have on Democratic campaigns elsewhere. Mamdani has redefined what a successful politician looks like. His irreverent and charismatic style, fashioned by colourful and sharp social media clips, is closer to Trump’s than that of the Democratic establishment. Campaigning today is about getting attention and holding it long enough for voters to put a cross next to your name. Think of a besuited Mamdani jumping in freezing water to promote his plan to freeze the rent, or Trump’s incessant stream of news-grabbing insults, tirades and pageantry.
It’s not just the language in which a message is couched. Mamdani’s victory marks a change in what the Democratic Party actually offers. He put to one side the invidious obsession with race and gender which has hampered the left for the past decade and instead brought together a multiethnic coalition through a campaign built on a simple message: you can’t afford to live in NYC and I’m going to help you. But this victory was not just one for an American form of municipal socialism. Consider the context of American oligarchy. America is about to endow its first trillionaire. Meanwhile in New York a revolt has taken place against boardroom Democrats and Republicans.
“As [the socialist leader] Eugene Debs once said, I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity,” Mamdani said during his speech. The room let loose a cry of elation. Gushing with the mandate the largest city in America had given him, he said to screams and tears that New Yorkers were “breathing in the air of a city reborn”. To those who “feared we would be condemned to a future of less… hope is alive”.
The room was packed with those who had devoted hours to his election. They were giddy with joy, literally jigging, arms-locked. There were proud chants of “that’s our mayor”. One man in a yellow Mamdani beanie cried up at the ceiling that “there are going to be a lot more socialist parties in the future”. The absence of queues at the bars suggested these socialists are happy in sobriety. A condom packet on the floor suggested they aren’t resigned to chastity.
Their enemies were landlords, billionaires and Trump. Renette Bradley, who told me she starred in one of Mamdani’s’ first clips, said she herself had “got rid of the rent raisers”. “Cuomo can go catch cats and dogs – that’s his new job.”
Everyone wanted to witness the Zohran phenomenon. At the back of the room, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez was hopping from CNN to ABC. The alternative media was out in force, too – something else Mamdani has in common with Trump. Mehdi Hasan, formerly of this parish, who is now the editor-in-chief of Substack-based Zeteo, hosted a live stream in the press pen. The leftwing streamer Hasan Piker, who interviewed Mamdani during the campaign, strode in asking nonchalantly, “Has it started already?”. A testudo of photographers grew around him. He remade the theatre into a socialist red carpet. All the time, his cameraman recorded him for his own live stream, filming him being filmed. Here was the ascendance of the streamers.
I sidled up to Hasan and he said he wanted to grab a drink. He ordered a Johnny Walker Blue at the bar, cracked open his snus – nicotine pouches for the uninitiated – and said that he spoke to “politicians all the time, and they ask, where do we go wrong? What’s the problem? And I have to explain to them that you haven’t centered the working class in your politics. You haven’t centered affordability.”
“I would like to move way further beyond a modest expansion of social safety nets, and hopefully one day we can have a more egalitarian society. But, but, but that is so far in the future, and I think a lot of people need to focus on combating fascism first.”
Mamdani’s victory lies in the shadow of Trump’s administration. He now faces a more difficult test than winning the election. His status as a credible alternative to Trump rests on his ability to deliver. The President is poised to punish New York for electing Mamdani, threatening to withhold federal funds. This battle will turn Mamdani into a dominant leader of the opposition to Trump, filling a vacuum left by his uncharismatic colleagues down in Washington.
[Further reading: The rise and rise of Zohran Mamdani]
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