In just a few months, Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman and Democratic Socialist, has gone from a long-shot fringe candidate to a national figure — securing an upset win in the June primary, where voters 18-29 had the highest turnout of any age group.
Now, on the cusp of Election Day — where polls show him the clear frontrunner over his closest rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — Mamdani is counting on that youth coalition to show up again. But his pledge to address rising costs appears to be resonating with young people far outside of the five boroughs. It’s a message that many Gen Z and millennials say speaks to their most pressing concerns at a time when many feel hopeless about their leaders and yearn for new voices willing to break with political norms.
“When a candidate is able to speak to the concerns of the populace and validate those concerns … I think that that has a big impact, especially when it comes to young people,” said Ruby Belle Booth, who studies young voters for the nonpartisan research organization CIRCLE.
Mamdani’s campaign isn’t intended to establish socialism in New York through purely electoral means, that’s impossible and no one serious is actually pushing for that. His campaign is part of the DSA’s party surrogate strategy. It’s a shift away from the realignment strategy they had been attempting before, and IMO is a move in the right direction, but I still think they have further to go. As far as I can tell they haven’t decided on a plan for a “dirty break” from the DNC when the time comes, and seeing the party surrogate strategy find success might lead some in the DSA to warm back up to the realignment strategy, which I don’t think has a chance in hell of working (though I would love to be proven wrong).
Edit: I’ll add that the DNC seem particularly afraid of the party surrogate strategy, and that gives me hope that it can actually work.
I think he’s going to run into a brick wall with the city council and police union and organized business leadership when he tries to do any of the things he promised. They’d happily destroy New York if it meant kneecapping the DSA from making any progress.
New Yorkers are pretty savvy, I don’t know if they’d be happy about that
And then what?
Unless he taps into that anger and uses it to overthrow the political interests aligned against him, he won’t be able to do anything. They’ll just be mad and march around, but no real change will occur.
There is a whole lot of money in influence centered in NYC. I think there is a reason why ICE hasn’t gone all out there yet.