Two True Things About Mamdani’s Victory

Zohran’s victory in the New York City Mayoral primary marks a huge upset, it also represents a major shift in progressive campaigning.

Fresh off the heels of the Zohran Mamdani upset victory, ideologues of the Left are trying to determine what led to his success. Was it his radicalism or his savvy moderation? Did his socialist program turn off lower-income voters or help him build a majority coalition? Naturally, like everything else, answers to these questions fall along factional lines. Moderates worry that Mamdani’s radicalism will weaken the Democratic Party by further associating it with unpopular far-left bugbears that only appeal to coastal liberals. While progressives take a victory lap as yet another New York City socialist has toppled yet another corporate friendly establishment liberal, proving, to them at least, that progressive economics is the big winner. But two things can be, and do appear to be, true: (1) Mamdani built a winning coalition by laser focusing on bread-and-butter issues and (2) that coalition was demographically confined to a social base that cannot win an enduring national majority.

On the one hand, as the Australians say, “different horses for different courses.” Mamdani’s campaign and coalition in NYC doesn’t need to look like that of a populist in Ohio, or Iowa. That’s a fair takeaway, but in some ways it's selling Mamdani short. In fact, the thing Zohran did so well was to sell his cost-of-living program to voters in simple and direct language. He downplayed divisive cultural issues and tried to pivot every conversation back to the economy, the cost-crunch that ordinary voters were feeling, and how his (limited) program addressed those things. This is something every populist should do—including those who live among the mass of humanity between the Hudson River and the San Francisco Bay. And this is no small accomplishment. First, it means breaking progressive taboos on policing, crime, and quality-of-life issues. A younger Mamdani was himself fond of outlandish rhetoric on these issues, in 2020 he tweeted “Queer liberation means defunding the police.” A message that sums up the basic mood of progressive politics at that moment. Yet, he successfully distanced himself from that by genuinely changing his position, and saying so. Voters appreciated the change of heart and his honesty about it. Further, it’s no easy thing to take some of Trump’s signature issues—inflation and the economy—and own them for the Left. For this Mamdani ought to be commended. And moderate critics ought to be humbled. For, not only did Mamdani do exactly what most centrists have insisted progressives do (drop the crazy), his genuine commitment to economic equality did shine through—and that’s thanks to his socialism. Moderate Democrats may not like it but socialist appeals have enduring resonance because they continue to point out deeper fault-lines in the economic system than liberals are willing to admit. In this way Mamdani’s populism came across as more sincere than many of his liberal critics might have.

On the other hand, Mamdani’s coalition could not win in a more competitive nationwide context and some indications suggest he didn’t fare particularly well among working-class and poor New Yorkers. This points to a few clear limitations that should temper progressive chest-thumping. First among these is that Democratic Party primaries are increasingly battlegrounds for Brahmin voters, and in New York City that is especially true. As Michael Baharaeen notes, the Democratic Party has likely become smaller and even less working class than it was just a few years ago. In New York City since 2021, “Democrats' voter rolls declined by 11.1%—compared to just 1.4% for Republicans and 2.9% for all other parties.” Worse, “erosion was greater in more working-class boroughs like the Bronx and Staten Island.” This means Mamdani was likely competing among an especially affluent and educated slice of the electorate.

Moreover, because the election was confined to liberal candidates, Mamdani and his main competitor Andrew Cuomo, almost never sparred over cultural issues. This helped Mamdani define his candidacy around economic populism but candidates would have no such luck in an open field. As Ruy Texeira complained, progressives shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that “an aggressive economic populism by itself is a sort of get-out-of-jail free card for a party whose brand among working-class voters has been profoundly damaged.” He’s probably right. Though, moderates also need to come to grips with the fact that the very reason Mamdani’s opposition couldn’t hammer Zohran on his championing of unpopular cultural issues, is because the liberal establishment also champions those issues. After all, Cuomo is no stranger to bizarre identity-obsessed appeals. In 2017 he said “As a New Yorker, I am a Muslim. I am a Jew. I am Black. I am gay. I am a woman seeking to control her body.” In a supreme irony, while progressives may have played a major role in damaging the Democratic Party’s brand, they also get to play the role of outsider. That means they can more easily distance themselves from that brand when establishment liberals are the foil.

Nonetheless, Mamdani’s limitations are real. Sociologically, not only is the Democratic Party too affluent and educated but Mamdani is too. The son of a globally successful filmmaker and a professor at Ivy League Columbia University, Zohran went to elite schools his whole life. His grammar school cost between $40k and 60k a year in tuition. That’s more than most people pay for college—and most people don’t go to college. Even though he was for the people, he isn’t really of the people. That’s a huge liability for a populist in places that aren’t New York City—and may prove a liability in the general election. Class still matters. A lot. As we at the Center for Working-Class Politics have repeatedly shown, working-class candidates tend to win working-class votes. It’s not only that these candidates foreground working-class economic interests, it’s that their social closeness to those they seek to represent gives them an added electoral advantage.

And while Mamdani’s pivot away from some of the Left’s worst rhetorical baggage paid-off, the pivot can’t just be rhetorical. His success as mayor, should he win in the general election, will be determined by his ability to deliver on the cost-of-living issues he advocated. It would be a mistake to try to introduce a broader suite of progressive policies through the backdoor. In other words, if he’s to succeed, the change in campaigning ought to reflect a real change of heart. That goes double for the broader progressive Left.

Despite these caveats, congratulations are in order. The case for a strong economic program won in New York. The case for moderating on divisive issues won in New York. Neither of those things alienated affluent and educated voters, or core Democrats, as many moderates have argued in the past. Mamdani demonstrated that the Left can evolve, adopt a new approach, campaign effectively, and win against long odds. There is still a long way to go, and there is much work to be done on fixing the Left’s badly damaged brand among working-class voters, but for those of us who want to see more of a focus on material issues, on the needs, aspirations and desires of ordinary voters, his victory represents a small step in the right direction.