“Zohran For Mayor,” by Eden, Janine and Jim, used under Creative Commons CC BY 2.0 License
New York did it. Its people elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor of America’s largest city. The 34-year-old democratic socialist, immigrant from Uganda, and two-term state assemblyman not only put the disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo and his political machine into the dustbin of history, he beat the billionaires in American capitalism’s headquarters.
When Mamdani launched his campaign in late 2024, he was considered a long shot. Few knew him, and the few power brokers who did dismissed him. Mamdani suffered through tired, lazy smears which the ruling class relentlessly throw at socialists: “unrealistic this,” “impossible that,” you know the lines.
Despite the long odds, he now sits atop one of the highest offices in the country. As mayor of New York City, he will manage a budget of more than $119 billion and a staff of 280,000-plus, and serve 8.4 million people. Socialism won, and it won big.
His agenda? It’s unapologetically Left. A rent freeze for stabilized apartments, fare-free buses, no-cost childcare, violence prevention instead of increased police militarization, a $30-an-hour minimum wage by 2030, and a refusal to cooperate with Trump’s gestapo ICE agents. This progressive platform and a well-run campaign elevated Mamdani from once-dismissed state legislator to America’s most powerful mayor.
Democratic voters across New York City didn’t just elect a mayor, they ignited hope across our country. People thousands of miles away, many who’ve never even visited the city—myself included—were electrified by his win. If socialism sells in the finance capital of America, surely it can sell across the rest of the country, too.
While a yearning public celebrated from coast to coast, the Democratic Party’s establishment sulked. Self-appointed party leaders like Pete Buttigieg made a point of highlighting victories for centrist Democratic gubernatorial candidates in both Virginia and New Jersey, yet conveniently neglected to recognize the Democrat elected mayor of the nation’s largest city.
Maddeningly, the Democratic leaders in both the US House and Senate—both New Yorkers—also gave Mamdani the cold shoulder. Hakeem Jeffries spent months dodging Zohran, before quietly capitulating just days before the election, offering less than enthusiastic support to his party’s mayoral candidate. Senate Minority Leader and shutdown surrenderer Chuck Schumer failed to endorse his party’s candidate for mayor.
National Democratic hacks, the same crew which have allowed a carnival-barking Donald Trump to win the most powerful office on the planet twice, despise Mamdani. They do not want to open what they view as the Pandora’s box of politics: the socialist success story. If people start to believe that a better world—made possible by ambitious, left-wing policy—is within reach, the middle-of-the-road slop served by Jeffries, Schumer, Buttigieg, and Co. won’t sell.
This same crowd of consultants and electoral losers condescendingly tell us on the left, after they shoulder us with unambitious, bad candidates, to “vote blue no matter who.” When Zohran won his Democratic primary election, we learned their refrain isn’t an even-handed theory that seeks to unite a big tent party—it’s a weapon utilized solely against the Left. When it was their turn to play nice, they refused.
It’s unfortunate to see Democratic leadership eschew supporting the most inspirational political winner for the Left since the return of Trump, especially as mainstream Democrats in national leadership have led no meaningful opposition to the Republicans who are ransacking our country. For us, the people, it’s a reprieve from a relentlessly cruel series of attacks from the federal government.
Here lies the fork in the road ahead: do we continue to allow the both morally and electorally challenged Democratic Party elites to manage our opposition to the Republicans? Or do we elect democratic socialist candidates in primaries that are prepared to buck the billionaires, the pundits, pollsters, and conventional wisdom? On the left, we’re right on the policy, and Zohran proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that we’re also political winners.
This alternative politics couldn’t be more relevant today. We see a federal government captured by billionaires, looting the treasury for themselves and their obscenely wealthy friends; and an ICE force that has grown into an uncontrolled militia, deployed against us in our own cities, targeting the most vulnerable, and literally disappearing people. All while the vast swath of people are poorer, sicker, and suffering at levels unseen in the recorded history of this country.
Mamdani is the opposite of Donald Trump, and in every perceivable way, that is for the better. The best counter to the depravity we see in our nation’s capital is the progressive, aspiring agenda that puts workers first.
To those good-faith party supporters who may not identify with the leftmost flanks of our party: Mamdani is the answer to your concerns. Democratic socialism wins, and this agenda can and will beat Republicans going forward.
To those in the party’s ivory tower who are more interested in toppling a socialist mayoral candidate than a fascist for president: your voters are far to your left—it’s far past time to get with the program.
The Mamdani master class cannot stop in the Big Apple. Progressives across the country should contest spineless, ineffective Democrats in primaries—from local and state to national offices. Our government can be one for people, an empowered institution that protects the most vulnerable and serves the many, not the wealthy few. The Mamdanis of this country, and those of us with his politics, can make that political will a reality.
Grant Chassy is a lifelong Champaign-Urbana resident. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Illinois State University. He has worked in state and county government in Illinois, and serves on the Public i Editorial Collective.