Zohran Mamdani’s Path to Victory

Zohran Mamdani has seen his support steadily tick upward since he entered New York City’s mayoral race in October. Since March, he has been the clear second-place choice behind former governor Andrew Cuomo. But the prospects for the charismatic young socialist state legislator from Queens erasing the large gap between him and Cuomo has seemed remote… until this week.

On Tuesday, an internal poll released by the Mamdani campaign showed him moving to within 12 points of Cuomo after ranked-choice votes are tabulated, a big drop to the near 40% lead Cuomo held a couple of months ago. On Wednesday, an independent poll from Emerson/Pix 11 showed Mamdani within nine points of Cuomo with four weeks until election day. Earlier today, he released this banger of an ad promoting his rent-freeze plan that can only help his cause.

So can Mamdani pull off a historic upset and chart a new course for a city of 8.4 million people? In the current May-June edition of The Indypendent, we break down how the Mamdani campaign plans to win by mobilizing a highly unconventional coalition of voters to come out for its candidate.

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Zohran Mamdani’s Path to Victory
By John Tarleton

Zohran Mamdani has been on a roll since he launched his longshot mayoral campaign.

Relying on small donors, the 33-year-old socialist state legislator from Queens raised the maximum amount allowed by the city’s campaign finance system faster than any candidate in history. His campaign began door-to-door canvassing in December, months before other candidates. His witty, always-on-message videos have conveyed his plans for making the city affordable for the working class to hundreds of thousands of viewers on Instagram, Tik-Tok and Twitter. Polls have shown Mamdani steadily rising from low single digits to roughly 20%, good enough for second place in a crowded field.

“Cuomo’s campaign has been one disaster after another,” Andrew Epstein, a Mamdani campaign spokesperson, told The Indypendent. “He basically has one way to go, which is down.”

In 2021, around a quarter of New York City’s nearly 4 million registered Democrats voted in the mayoral primary won by Eric Adams. Many of those were the much-coveted “triple primes” (voters who have cast ballots in the last three Democratic primaries) who campaigns pursue because they reliably vote. The triple primes skew toward being older and more middle-class, which impacts how most candidates campaign. Mamdani’s campaign is trying to galvanize the other 74% of the voters — who are rarely wooed by mayoral candidates.

With the clock ticking as the June 24 Democratic primary approaches and many voters starting to tune in to the race, Mamdani trails former governor Andrew Cuomo by roughly 20 points. But he also has some unique advantages that give him a fighter’s chance of pulling off a historic upset. This will require a massive turnout by several political constituencies that have previously been ignored in mayoral elections and may be overlooked by pollsters whose results are only as accurate as their model of who will vote.

Youth Quake

After a decade of Trump and two Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns, younger voters are voting at a higher level than their predecessors. According to the New York City Campaign Finance Board, voter turnout among those aged 18 to 29 (10.6% to 17.9%) and 30 to 39 (15.3% to 21.7%) increased by the largest percentage of an age group from the 2013 to 2021 Democratic primary for mayor. Mamdani is leading in all the polls with voters under 35. With his ubiquitous social media presence, he’s hoping to inspire them to turn out in historically large numbers.

South Asian and Muslim Voters

Mamdani is the first major South Asian or Muslim candidate for mayor. There are an estimated 350,000 Muslim New Yorkers registered to vote. Only 12% voted in 2021. Mamdani has been a regular at mosques and temples. He’s already respected in the South Asian community for joining a 15-day hunger strike by taxi drivers in 2021 that won $450 million in debt relief for the embattled cabbies. Mamdani has built on that goodwill during his mayoral run, according to Jaslin Kaur, the daughter of a taxi driver and a 2021 City Council candidate in an Eastern Queens district with a sizable South Asian population.

“His volunteers are out there wanting to have in-language conversations with people,” Kaur told The Indypendent. “And making those introductions makes people feel like they’re connected to the campaign, [while] Cuomo has felt very far away.”

Rent-Stabilized Tenants

No matter how many young voters back Mamdani, he also needs older voters too. Two of his main campaign promises — a four-year rent freeze for the city’s 2.4 million rent-stabilized tenants and free and fast buses — could help. Rent-stabilized tenants tend to be older and are disproportionately Black and Latino. The same with elderly bus riders who find buses easier to enter and exit than subway stations. Will enough older voters get the word in time to change their mind?

“Canvassed two large rent-stabilized buildings in the Bronx. Some had heard of Zohran. Most hadn’t. All were excited about his platform,” Mamdani supporter Lawrence Wang tweeted on May 10. “But the real kicker? None had been canvassed prior to today. The Bronx is ready for Zoh-mentum. We just need to seize the opportunity.”

Here are some factors that could help Mamdani make a strong final push.

Money to Burn

The quickest way to reach a lot of over-45 voters is to advertise on television. Thanks to his success with raising small donations that were matched at an 8-1 ratio by the city’s public matching funds program, Mamdani has millions to burn television ads. His first ad went on the air in early May during a New York Knicks playoff basketball game.

The DSA Difference

Mamdani’s campaign has nearly 20,000 volunteers. It knocked on its 400,000th door on May 10 and is distributing campaign materials in multiple languages. Epstein projects volunteers will ultimately knock on 1.5 million doors.

The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is the nucleus of Mamdani’s campaign. Since 2018, NYC-DSA endorsed candidates, having wrested nine state legislative seats and a pair of City Council seats from machine Democrats. While the media focuses on the outcomes of individual races to gauge DSA’s standing, years of running campaigns has built a large cadre of experienced canvassers and earned the trust of its supporters.

“There’s a lot of doors I’ve knocked on for at least four out of the past six years. It doesn’t feel like you have to try so hard to convince them,” says Shawna Morlock, a DSA organizer in Mamdani’s home district of Astoria, Queens that is also represented by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, State Senator Kristin Gonzalez and City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, all democratic socialists.

“It’s exciting for me that all those hours that our team put in in that year of campaigning [in 2021] is setting up for some exciting success for the mayoral campaign,” Kaur added.

An AOC Endorsement?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez made national headlines in April when she joined Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. Will she bring that same fighting spirit back to New York City, where Cuomo’s campaign is bankrolled by real-estate and finance oligarchs? The safe strategy for AOC would be to issue a ranked-choice endorsement of Mamdani among other candidates and then keep her distance from the race to avoid being seen as taking a “loss” if Cuomo prevails. If AOC decides to act boldly, she and Bernie could issue a ringing endorsement of Mamdani and stage a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour event here in New York as early voting begins on June 14. After going along to get along during the Biden years, AOC and Bernie would be risking some of their newfound prestige. But if they succeeded, the spectacle of Cuomo going down in defeat to a young leftist would reset the balance of forces not only in New York politics but in the national Democratic Party as well.

Progressive Unity

In 2021, progressives failed to take advantage of the city’s ranked-choice voting system, which rewards coalition-building among like-minded candidates. This time, progressive groups led by the Working Families Party are emphasizing multi-candidate endorsements and have successfully coaxed their favored candidates to direct their attacks at Andrew Cuomo. Some of Mamdani’s socialist allies have chafed at playing nice with other more moderate groups. But the benefit of keeping Cuomo under 50% as ranked-choice votes are tabulated is clear. If Mamdami initially finishes in the top two with Cuomo, a fifth-choice vote on an anti-Cuomo ballot is worth just as much as a first-choice vote from a passionate supporter.

The Debates

Andrew Cuomo has been hiding from public view throughout his mayoral run. That should change on June 4 and 12 when Cuomo, who is receiving public matching funds, is mandated to participate in two televised mayoral debates. The first will be a multi-candidate affair. The second will only feature leading contenders which could by then just be Cuomo and Mamdani, who will be looking to close the sale with intrigued voters who will be assessing if he’s ready for the job.

“Ultimately it’s a ton of New Yorkers tuning into television and watching him alongside Cuomo in person, unless Cuomo finds some way to duck out of it,” Epstein said. “And I actually do think In that space Zohran will measure up and demonstrate to New Yorkers that he’s ready for this.”

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Indy Time Machine

While most of the media discounted Mamdani’s mayoral run, we’ve been covering New York City’s democratic socialist movement for years, and we took his candidacy seriously from the beginning. We interviewed Mamdani (starts at 4:10) on our Tuesday evening radio show on WBAI five days after he entered the race. We also featured him on the cover of our January print edition when he was still in the low single digits in most polls.

Mr. Mayor? Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign Has an Army of Supporters Who Are Dreaming Big With Him
By John Tarleton