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AT A BLEAK POLITICAL MOMENT, ZOHRAN MAMDANI OFFERS HOPE  
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Liza Featherstone
June 25, 2025
Jacobin
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_ Zohran Mamdani’s victory last night was a straightforward triumph
of people over money, the kind capitalist elites try so hard to
convince us is impossible. Cuomo’s campaign was bankrolled by $25
million from some of the worst actors in American life _

New York mayoral candidate, State Rep. Zohran Mamdani and NYC
Comptroller and Mayoral Candidate Brad Lander speak with members of
the press as they greet voters on Broadway June 24, 2025 in New York
City., Photo: ABC News

 

Zohran Kwame Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral primary last night.
The socialist began this election with almost no name recognition.
After his campaign left everything on the field, prepared for weeks of
uncertainty and vote-counting complexity, Mamdani won so decisively
last night that his main opponent, former governor Andrew Cuomo, a man
who famously does not take no for an answer, conceded the race before
11 p.m.

Mamdani has moved quickly from candidate to historic phenomenon. His
campaign and personality give New Yorkers hope. Speaking to a union
crowd on the sidewalk at a poll site near Union Square yesterday, as
temperatures climbed toward 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a beaming Mamdani,
gamely wearing a “United Auto Workers for Zohran” T-shirt over a
dress shirt, seemed to hardly break a sweat as motorists slowed their
cars, honked their horns, and snapped pictures on their phones.

His victory is the biggest one yet for a socialist movement that has
been building support steadily in New York City ever since Bernie
Sanders ran for president in 2016. New York City’s Democratic
Socialists of America (NYC-DSA) chapter, along with neighboring
partners like Mid-Hudson Valley DSA, has won elected offices and
legislative reforms, expanding renters’ rights, taxing the rich, and
building publicly funded renewable energy, but before Mamdani’s
campaign, had yet to become a mass movement.

The candidate is charming and surrounded by media geniuses
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more than anything, organizing — more than 40,000 volunteers —
made this happen. And that organizing can’t be separated from the
socialist vision that animates it.

More than anything, organizing — more than 40,000 volunteers —
made this happen. And that organizing can’t be separated from the
socialist vision that animates it.

That vision is big: a city that working-class New Yorkers could
afford. At the same time, it’s specific: rent freezes; fast and free
buses; affordable housing
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option for groceries; and a clear commitment to public safety
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investing in mental health responders for people in crisis, allowing
police to focus on preventing and solving serious crimes.

This was a straightforward triumph of people over money, the kind that
capitalist elites try so hard to convince is impossible. Cuomo’s
campaign was bankrolled by $25 million from some of the worst actors
in American life — more than $8 million from billionaire and former
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg; $2.5 million from a landlord
group; $1 million from DoorDash, a food delivery app deeply dependent
on the exploitation of low-wage workers; and half a million from Bill
Ackman, a Trumpist hedge funder who has been attempting to destroy the
campus Palestinian solidarity movement (and with it, all of American
higher education) — in total comprising the largest super PAC in the
history of New York City mayoral campaigns. Mamdani didn’t just beat
money as usual, he beat an extraordinary mobilization of money.

Mamdani’s campaign shows that much of the canned conventional wisdom
that consultants serve up to the Democratic Party is nonsense.
Conventional politics decrees that door-knocking doesn’t work, that
young people won’t vote no matter how hard you try to turn them out,
that certain demographics (white men, very religious voters) are
immutably conservative. And ever since Bernie Sanders inspired so many
but did not become president, centrist Democratic leadership has
insisted that improving people’s material conditions cannot form the
basis of a winning politics. Mamdani’s victory shows they’re wrong
about everything.

Mamdani’s victory also proved the Democratic establishment
spectacularly wrong on Israel. The candidate who vowed to arrest
Benjamin Netanyahu
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war crimes if he came to New York, who wouldn’t agree to visit
Israel [[link removed]] if elected,
beat Netanyahu’s lawyer
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For his commitment to solidarity with Palestinians and opposition to
the genocide, the candidate was constantly tarred as an antisemite by
Israel’s apologists.

If anything, all those attacks seemed to actually help Mamdani, by
letting voters know that he opposed the war in Gaza and refused to
back away from a principled stance out of supposed political
expediency. This victory shows that we’re moving into a political
environment where, with enough organizing and frank explanation,
people see that criticism of Israel is not toxic: it’s Israel itself
that is toxic. Two progressive city council members in
Brooklyn, Shahana Hanif and Alexa Avi
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were targeted by pro-Israel forces for their sympathy with Palestine;
both handily won reelection last night.

Mamdani didn’t just beat money as usual, he beat an extraordinary
mobilization of money.

The general election is going to be wild. While it’s unclear whether
Cuomo will decide to stay on the ballot — being routed in the
primary, he seems to be rethinking that plan — Mamdani will still
face disgraced but determined incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and
Republican Curtis Sliwa. The establishment will certainly try hard to
defeat Mamdani in November.

If Mamdani does become mayor, the mass movement that elected him must
be prepared to help him succeed, as the ruling class (especially the
real estate industry), the Trump administration, and the police make
every effort to make his mayoralty a failure. He will face much more
pressure to succeed than ordinary mayors, to be able to stand up
against backlash; he will need to appoint the most experienced team,
drawing on the existing rich expertise of the city’s most dedicated
civil servants.

He will need to work tirelessly not only on fulfilling his campaign
promises but on issues that matter to the middle class, like K-12
education and cleanliness. Under austerity mayor Adams, we have had to
step nimbly over human excrement on the stairs as we exit subway
stations. Under a Mayor Mamdani, that same pile of excrement could
easily become a symbol of why socialism doesn’t work. He needs to
demonstrate that socialism — much more so than neoliberalism — can
keep the shit off the steps.

Mamdani, NYC-DSA, and the broad New York City left have accomplished
the hardest thing in American politics: convincing people that change
is possible. When you talk to most people about socialist or social
democratic ideas — from single-payer health care to free buses —
they usually don’t dislike those ideas, they just don’t believe
any of that can happen. This campaign showed that it can.

_[LIZA FEATHERSTONE is a columnist for Jacobin, a freelance
journalist, and the author of Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle
for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart
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_Our summer issue examines the role of speculation in contemporary
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