Meet the Movement That Powered Zohran’s Election Victory

Zohran Mamdani’s resounding defeat of Andrew Cuomo has shaken the Democratic Party establishment and its allies in elite liberal media circles. How did Mamdani defeat a former three-term Democratic governor with near-universal name recognition, more than $30 million in Super PAC support and loads of big-name endorsements?

We live in a society where individual brilliance is exalted and the power of collective action is minimized. Unsurprisingly, the establishment consensus that has emerged is that Mamdani won because he is a generational political superstar whose social media savvy overwhelmed the lumbering Cuomo campaign. This is part of the story, but it shortchanges the New York City DSA-led mass movement that also powered Mamdani’s victory — knocking on 1.6 million doors and turning Zohran-curious voters into committed supporters.

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In that spirit, we hit the streets on Saturday with our first post-election issue, which celebrates the extraordinary movement that made this moment possible. It includes a piece by Mamdani campaign manager Elle Bisgaard-Church on how the various pieces of the campaign strategy came together with a massive field operation at the center of the campaign’s vision, first-person stories from canvassers who did the work, and a photo essay that captures a campaign in motion from frigid winter days when Zohran was polling in the low single digits to the sweltering summer heat that enveloped the campaign’s final days as Mamdani closed in on Andrew Cuomo.

How The Race Was Won
By Elle Bisgaard-Church

“I Love Talking to My Neighbors”: Zohran Volunteers Share Canvassing Stories
By John Tarleton

Photo Essay: This Is What Democracy Looks Like
By Indypendent Staff

More Coverage

“We Will Beat These Monsters”: Lindsey Boylan Reacts to Cuomo’s Defeat
By Ariana Orozco

Editor’s Note: The Political Revolution Is Back
By John Tarleton

The Street Has Spoken
By Nicholas Powers

Solidarity Beats Pro-Israel Solidarity PAC in Closely Watched City Council Races
By Theodore Hamm

If you would like to share your comments on our coverage or forward story tips or suggestions for future coverage, email contact@indypendent.org.

Help Distribute The Indy

One way we can tell New Yorkers are excited about Zohran Mamdani’s victory is that our post-election special edition is moving faster than any paper in recent memory. We expect that interest to remain high in the coming months as we continue to cover the mayoral race and what is likely to be New York City’s first socialist mayoral administration. If you would like to help distribute The Indypendent in your neighborhood, school or workplace, there’s several ways you can help:

1.) Join our adopt-a-box program and become an Indy box steward. We will place one of our red-and-white news boxes in your neighborhood if you will commit to keeping it neat and orderly and to letting us know when papers run low. For more about how it works, see these testimonials from some of our volunteers.

2.) Take some papers from one of our existing boxes and put them out in other venues that we haven’t reached. Whether it’s your neighborhood library, a cafe or bodega, please ask for the manager and get their permission. This upbeat post-election issue should be especially well-received — all the more so as Zohran campaigned as a champion of immigrant small businesses. For businesses that carry The Indy, it’s a way to demonstrate their progressive values to their customers and give those customers another reason to come by their store.

3.) Take papers to meetings or events you attend and share them with others.

4.) If you are active on social media, you can share our latest articles from indypendent.org and posts from Indy Twitter and Indy Instagram, and even this newsletter.

In the News

The Indy’s Editor-in-Chief John Tarleton has led our coverage of the rise of DSA and New York City’s electoral left over the past decade. In 2018, he profiled little-known congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In December, he wrote about how Zohran Mamdani and New York City DSA was building an electoral juggernaut intent on presenting voters with socialist solutions to the city’s cost-of-living crisis. And in May, when most of the media had written off the race as being a blowout for Andrew Cuomo, he accurately mapped out how Mamdani could overcome a 20-point deficit and pass the former three-term governor in the final weeks of the race.

Tarleton appeared on Democracy Now! twice in the week leading up to the June 24 primary. He hosted a four-hour election-night special on WBAI along with The Indy’s Ariana Orozco. This week, his interview with Law & Disorder, a nationally syndicated radio show and podcast, is being carried on more than 150 stations nationwide.

Congratulations, John! It’s great to see all your hard work start to be more widely recognized.

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