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INSIDE THE MAMDANI CAMPAIGN’S APPEAL TO BLACK VOTERS  
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Afua Atta-Mensah and Maya Meredith
November 20, 2025
Hammer & Hope
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_ Afua Atta-Mensah was hired after the primary with the mission to
build Mamdani’s multiracial base of support, including deepening
relationships with Black voters by implementing a political strategy
grounded in a community organizing framework. _

Zohran Mamdani at 2025 West Indian Day Parade in NYC,

 

One crucial factor in Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City
mayoral election last month was a huge shift in the Black vote.
According to The City
[[link removed]], Mamdani won
64 percent of the vote in neighborhoods with a plurality of Black
residents — a 25 percentage point jump from the June primary. In
our feature “Will Zohran Mamdani Win Over Black New Yorkers?”
[[link removed]] Maya
Meredith interviewed volunteer organizers who pushed the Mamdani field
operation deeper into Black working-class communities. Meanwhile, the
campaign was making its own moves.

Afua Atta-Mensah was hired as political director after the primary
with an explicit mission to build Mamdani’s multiracial base of
support, including deepening relationships with Black voters by
implementing a political strategy grounded in a community organizing
framework.

Meredith talked to Atta-Mensah about how she and her team brought the
candidate and his message into Black communities and named how his
agenda would meet their unique material needs. At the same time, she
worked to ensure the campaign was ready to address skepticism about a
political program intended to benefit working New Yorkers of all races
whose message was often delivered by white canvassers perceived as
transplants or gentrifiers before they were seen as neighbors.

 

YOU WERE BROUGHT ON TO ZOHRAN’S CAMPAIGN TEAM AS POLITICAL DIRECTOR
AFTER THE PRIMARY ELECTION. WHAT DID YOU SEE AS YOUR MANDATE AND YOUR
GOALS IN THE LEAD-UP TO THE GENERAL ELECTION?

I saw my role as helping expand the coalition from the primary to
ensure a win. First and foremost, my goal was to help build a
political operation that was both parallel to _and_ ran with a field
operation that would cement a coalition that could win — but that
could also see Zohran through a first year where he could move forward
his agenda and platform.

WHAT BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE DID YOU BRING TO THE PROJECT?

I come to politics as an organizer. I served as the head of Community
Voices Heard in New York, which is a base-building institution that
started as a welfare rights organization. After leaving CVH, I went to
Community Change, an institution that supports organizing across the
country, where I served as the chief of programs, overseeing their
electoral, policy, and organizing work. And so my mind coming into
Zohran’s campaign was that mixing organizing with politics was a
necessary output to move forward.

I was excited by what I heard about their orientation toward
organizing, but I also had questions. For me, any class analysis that
is devoid of a race analysis is not one that is practical or
transformational for America. And so I wanted to make sure that we
were unapologetic about engaging communities — not just because _Oh,
this policy will help everybody_. No, to make the case directly to
Latino, to Asian, to Black New Yorkers about what Mamdani’s agenda
could look like and what it would mean to have folks seeing themselves
as part of this — not just thinking that it will help their
pocketbooks, but that it will help them live in dignity and safety.
What it means to have a true multiracial Democratic coalition.

HOW DID YOU APPROACH THE SHIFT IN THE CAMPAIGN’S STRATEGY FOR
REACHING BLACK COMMUNITIES FROM THE PRIMARY GOING INTO THE GENERAL
ELECTION?

I think one of the first pieces was making sure that the campaign saw
the strategy as a necessity not just for winning but also for
governing. The first thing I did was build a team that had a similar
vision and understanding. I want to ground in that, because there’s
been a lot of conversation about a lack of diversity within the team.
The political team, which I oversaw and grew to 13 people at the end,
was almost all people of color. Majority Black. Seven Black folks, two
Latinos, one Indo-Caribbean staffer, and we had one member of the team
doing Jewish outreach. We were clear that Black communities and Latino
communities and Asian communities are not a monolith.

We took our message to elected, faith, and community leaders and had
conversations. We had Zohran sit with people in all of those different
leadership configurations, so that he could speak to what the agenda
meant to him and what it could mean for New York City.

Some of the shifts you may have seen were moving from the general idea
of how this helps everyone — which is true — to the specific. Deed
theft is about Black communities. You should say the word “Black”;
if it’s for them, _say it_. Don’t just mention the
“disproportionate impact.” When we’re talking about maternal
mortality, clearly you have to talk about Black women. So _say it_.
And let’s go to Central Brooklyn and talk about it.

That was the strategy: Naming the thing. Creating a structure of
talking to folks within Black and Latino and Asian communities. They
might or might not necessarily agree with you, but you need to come
and make the case. And you need to be unafraid to go to any
neighborhood in this great city to make that case, again and again and
again.

WHAT CHALLENGES DID YOU FACE IN DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING THAT
STRATEGY? WERE THERE ANY PARTICULARLY TOUGH RELATIONSHIPS OR
NARRATIVES OR COMPETING PRIORITIES IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY THAT YOU
NEEDED TO CRACK OPEN?

Listen, I’m not a part of DSA. There are real tensions in New York
City about DSA and gentrification. When it’s either your perception
or the reality that the very people who are talking to you about class
consciousness are the same people who don’t say hi to you in the
morning and push you out of your apartment, we have to hold the
complexity of that. Just like Black communities are not a monolith,
neither are DSA members. Since we had a candidate who proudly claimed
DSA as his political home, how do we hold all of that?

We didn’t shy away from it. We had those conversations about what it
means and looks like. And an important piece was that Zohran’s big
tent also included organizations that supported him from day one that
weren’t just DSA: New York Communities for Change, CAAAV Voice, DRUM
Beats. These are organizations that are also unapologetic about taking
that message into their communities and holding all of the
complexities.

And then of course there are other tensions. In politics, there’s no
tie; someone won and someone lost. Some folks either feel left behind
or are asking themselves, _What does this mean?_ Politics everywhere
are local. A lot of the time it’s who looks like you, who do you
know, who’s been around. We had to deal with those concerns about _I
don’t know this person_ or _My only engagement around the place he
calls his political home has not been something that has been helpful
to me_.

There were tensions with a field apparatus that did amazing work but
didn’t always reflect the communities of the doors they were
knocking on. We had to answer all that. What we did, again and again,
was not shy away from hard questions but to come and make the case
everywhere.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY WAS THE ANSWER TO THOSE HARD QUESTIONS? I ONCE HAD
THE OPPORTUNITY TO DOOR-KNOCK WITH ASSEMBLYMEMBER PHARA SOUFFRANT
FORREST AS PART OF HER CONSTITUENT ORGANIZING. SHE WAS SPEAKING TO
ANOTHER HAITIAN WOMAN AT THE DOOR, AND THE WOMAN WAS TALKING ABOUT ALL
THE WHITE KIDS MOVING INTO THE BUILDING AND PUSHING PEOPLE OUT. AND
PHARA WAS ABLE TO COMMUNICATE, IN A CHILL WAY, THAT IT’S REALLY THE
LANDLORD RAISING THE RENTS — IT’S NOT THE WHITE KIDS COMING IN WHO
ARE PUSHING PEOPLE OUT. BUT THAT MESSAGE HITS DIFFERENT WHEN IT’S
FROM ONE IMMIGRANT WOMAN TO ANOTHER. SO I’M CURIOUS: WHAT ANSWERS
WERE YOU SHARING IN THOSE KINDS OF CONVERSATIONS?

Part of the importance of having this multiracial coalition with all
types of partners that usually wouldn’t be a part of this was that
there are multiple messengers to lift it up. You lift up
Assemblymember Forrest. Usually there’s not a collaboration between
DSA and the assembly member and Brooklyn Democratic Party chair
Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn. But she was a strong supporter and was
also able to lift up the message with language accessibility, talking
directly in Kreyòl to say it’s both. It’s both the landlords and
the whites moving in.

The Black diaspora and journey is a real one, which in New York City
is beautiful to see, because it brings you from places like Haiti,
Panama, Jamaica, Ghana, and Virginia. And the one universal piece is
the treatment that we receive here. You come into these neighborhoods
in Bed-Stuy, in Harlem — global destinations — only to be pushed
out.

But there’s an answer here: a rent freeze that could provide some
type of solace while we work out these larger inequalities. It’s
important to be able to hold nuance. Having faith, community, and
elected leaders as messengers, along with a political operation that
can speak to people in different ways because the vast majority of our
team has lived those experiences, helped us do that.

WHAT WOULD YOU CALL THE BIGGEST SUCCESSES THAT Y’ALL HAD WITH
SHIFTING BLACK COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS?

I’m a Bronx girl. It didn’t go so well in the primary with the
Bronx, and we successfully flipped the Bronx. I’d say, the
26 percent lead with Black voters
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I’d say, flipping Brownsville was beautiful. And there’s so much
more work to do. It’s one thing to win an election, but to have a
multiracial coalition that is serious not just about the messenger_
_but the _platform_ is what’s imperative.

I’ll just say that on a personal level, it’s beautiful to go
across the city I love, all over, and see people excited about what is
possible. Folks were starting to believe in what it could look like
and what could be different. They were willing to take steps on faith
sometimes, even when others were spending millions of dollars to say,
_This will ruin the city_. That was beautiful to see. And to see
people across the city knocking on doors, taking a leap of faith, and
talking to their neighbors.

When we would do roundtables and sessions in Black communities across
the city, many older Black New Yorkers told the story of how their
kid, grandkid, nephew, classmate, neighbor, was telling them, “You
have to rank Zohran” in the primary. Many people would come and say,
“My grandson told me I had to come and hear you, so that’s why
I’m here.” This isn’t often talked about, but family members
were trusted messengers — the most important people pushing and
saying, “Give this person a chance. Give this movement a chance.”
The organizing that was done within families and within social circles
is something that is extremely important.

WHAT ARE YOU ENVISIONING NOW, GOING INTO THE TRANSITION AND THE WORK
OF THE NEW ADMINISTRATION? WHAT DO YOU SEE AS YOUR PROJECT MOVING
FORWARD?

I see it as holding that coalition together, which will be a Herculean
feat. It came together because of a host of different things:
ideological belief; being sick and tired of the status quo; fear,
hope, love, and everything in between. From there, folks will come
into different portions of the sausage-making that is governing.
We’re making sure that we continue to lift up the message and
continue to provide on-ramps for new partners to come in. I want them
to support a mayor-elect who I believe in, but I think what will keep
people in this fight for the long term is a belief that the things
that were championed in the campaign should be a part of every New
Yorker’s life.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE SPADEWORK TO KEEP THE COALITION TOGETHER? WHAT
ARE SOME OF THOSE ON-RAMPS TO BRING IN MORE PEOPLE AND MORE
SUPPORTERS?

Ensuring that the administration reflects the amazingly diverse
tapestry of the city, so people can continue to see themselves.
Ensuring community leaders are engaged in an ongoing way as thought
partners to figure out the strategy that can enact these things.
It’s equally important for there to be ongoing direct communication
from the transition team and the administration. I think Zohran and
the communications team have taken speaking directly to folks to a
level of art. That has to keep happening so folks continue to feel and
understand what we’re doing.

WHEN THINKING ABOUT THE OTHER PROJECTS INSPIRED BY ZOHRAN’S CAMPAIGN
THAT ARE GOING TO BE ARISING IN THE COMING YEARS, ARE THERE THINGS
THAT YOU WOULD WANT PEOPLE TO HAVE IN MIND WHEN THEY’RE THINKING
ABOUT HOW TO BUILD A MULTIRACIAL COALITION AROUND A SOCIALIST MESSAGE?

I would just lift up the term “multiracial,” because too often
that gets left out. It’s okay, from my vantage point, to talk about
identity, and not to erase it as if policy itself will save you.
Policy doesn’t save folks. _Power _does_._ Building power with folks
who have both a shared framework and a shared culture is important. If
folks are trying to build solidarity, I’d say a key portion is to
ensure that it is multiracial — to ensure that it holds and cares
for and sees the culture and value of folks within those communities
as important.

_Afua Atta-Mensah is a nationally recognized organizer and strategist
who served as the senior political director for the Zohran Mamdani
campaign. She is a mom and proud New Yorker who is dedicated to
organizing and strengthening Black-led institutions in Black
communities across the country._

_Maya Meredith is a movement infrastructure builder and organizational
development strategist. Based in Brooklyn, she serves as development
and operations director at the Climate and Community Institute and is
a leader in the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of
America’s Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus._

_Hammer & Hope_ [[link removed]]_ is a new magazine
of Black politics and culture. It is a project rooted in the power of
solidarity, the spirit of struggle, and the generative power of
debate, all of which are vital parts of our movement toward freedom.
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* Zohran Mamdani
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* multiracial democracy
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* Black politics
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