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Late on a frigid Saturday afternoon in December, ­Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani climbed up on a bench and looked over a crowd of around 20 protesters. Midtown’s empty glass office towers rose high above him. To his side was a statue of an early-20th-century garment worker bent over a sewing machine. Throngs of people in Santa Claus suits surged by on the sidewalk, oblivious to the earnest young politician who was speaking. It was Mamdani’s 18th and final campaign event in another whirlwind week of striving to be elected New York City’s next mayor. On this occasion he was speaking to supporters of death row inmate Billie Allen, whose life could be spared by a presidential pardon in the waning days of the Biden Administration. 

“It is in the hands of President Biden to ensure that Billie does not suffer the same fate as so many prior,” Mamdani’s voice boomed out over the crowd. “There is no person who deserves to be executed by this government.”

A few minutes later Mamdani disappeared into the twilight. 

“You have to be physically present in New Yorkers’ lives,” Mamdani told The Indypendent later. “You have to show up where they are practicing capital ‘P’ politics and where they are just gathering with their friends in their neighborhood.”

• • •

Running as a candidate of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani, 33, was first elected to the State Assembly from ­Astoria, Queens, in 2020, defeating a five-term incumbent who had the full backing of the Democratic Party machine. Since then he has emerged as an energetic and effective legislator who excels at constituent service and has helped lead winning fights for laws to expand publicly owned utilities and to establish a pilot project for free bus routes for working-class New Yorkers. 

If elected, Mamdani would be New York City’s first socialist mayor. He has used his campaign so far to define the “S” word in the most appealing way possible ­— as a source of relief for the city’s inflation-ravaged multiracial working class. His headline proposals — a four-year rent freeze for New York’s two million rent-stabilized tenants, free bus fares and free universal childcare for all children up to age six ­— would ease the affordability crisis for millions of working-class New Yorkers. On Dec. 12 Mamdani called for city-run grocery stores to be placed in each borough. Freed from profit motives and price gouging seen at corporate-run grocery stores, he says, public grocery stores could deliver lower prices. 

“Too often the scale of proposals put forward by politicians are not commensurate with the crisis working-class people are facing,” Mamdani said. 

Mamdani has raised over $350,000 since entering the race. Much of that haul will qualify for 8-to-1 public matching funds from a city program that rewards candidates who garner donations of up to $250 from New York City residents. In addition to showing up at community events in every corner of the city, he has shown a knack for creating viral moments that reach a larger mass audience. 

On Nov. 3 Mamdani ran the New York Marathon from start to finish wearing a T-shirt that read “Eric Adams Raised My Rent” on the front and “Zohran will freeze it” on the back. Days after the election Mamdani released a video of himself conducting on-the-street interviews in a pair of immigrant neighborhoods in Queens and the Bronx that swung heavily to Trump. While anguished Democratic Party talking heads debated each other on cable news, Mamdani listened to voters talk about their frustrations with the high cost of living and the war on Gaza and shared what he found. The video ultimately went viral, gaining 2.8 million views on social media. 

 “He’s being more proactive than all of his competitors combined,” says Michael Lange, a New York City political operative and author of the The Narrative Wars on ­Substack.   

• • •

On the same day Mamdani spoke at the Billie Allen ­rally, more than 50 of his supporters gathered in 32-degree weather outside the Brooklyn Museum. Less than six weeks removed from the presidential election and more than six months out from the Democratic mayoral primary, they were preparing to knock on doors and urge voters to believe that a more just and humane version of this city is possible. Most of them were members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Mamdani’s political home. 

“I’m pregnant, and I want to have affordable childcare so I can afford to stay in the city,” said one volunteer. 

“I want to be in favor of something for once,” said ­another. 

“I want to feel something again,” added a third. 

DSA has wrested nine state legislative seats, including Mamdani’s, from the New York Democratic Party establishment since 2018, and its elected officials now represent more than one million New Yorkers in Albany. The group’s go-to strategy has been to mobilize its thousands of passionately committed members, flood the zone with volunteer door-to-door canvassers, and simply outwork and outhustle their better financed opponents. They are now looking to scale up this model to a citywide level with a goal of knocking on one million doors for Mamdani’s campaign.  

“We’re going to be spreading the message of socialism and racial justice across New York City on a massive scale,” Sid, a DSA field organizer, told a group of volunteers during a short training session before they fanned out in teams of two to canvass in nearby Crown Heights. 

In that same moment, New York City DSA was also launching door-to-door canvasses in the East Village, Bushwick, Kensington, Flatbush, Astoria, Jackson Heights and Parkchester.

I tagged along with a pair of canvassers, Julie and ­Jasmin, whose “turf” consisted of three six-story walk-up apartment buildings on Carroll Street in the heart of Crown Heights. Julie, a public-sector tech worker, was a veteran of many New York City DSA canvasses. Jasmin had done political canvassing in Chicago before moving to New York six years ago to pursue her writing career. She said she was moved to act by the genocide in Gaza and her disgust with Mayor Adams. 

Julie used a Mini-VAN app on her phone that told her the names and ages of registered Democratic Party voters and guided her to their apartments. The march to knock on a million doors was under way. 

At the first home, a woman named Esperanza was too ill to make it to the door, and her husband didn’t speak English. At the second door, Emily said she appreciated the effort but was about to head out and couldn’t talk. At the third door, the tenants said they had no interest in politics. We continued upstairs. On the third floor, Jasmin managed to briefly speak with a tenant who took a palm card with the highlights of Mamdani’s platform. When the two canvassers’ tour of the building was done, 17 doors had been knocked on, and one conversation had occurred. 

Julie was undiscouraged. “It’s a numbers game,” she ­explained. 

Her optimism would soon be rewarded. In the next two buildings, more residents were willing to engage. Much of the enthusiasm came from white progressives. On back-to-back doors, first Sarah and then Andrea made their views on Eric Adams’ re-election bid known: “Not him!” Neither had heard of Mamdani, but they liked his promise to freeze the rent on their rent-stabilized apartments for the next four years. They took the palm cards and promised to use the QR code on the card to find out more about his campaign. Julie reminded them that if they made a $10 donation, it would mean $80 in city matching funds as well. 

The promise of free universal childcare resonated with several parents of small children. One older Latina voter said free childcare would make a big difference for her daughter, who was away at work, and her granddaughter. “I believe you have to vote,” the woman said. “It’s important.”  

By the end of the three-hour shift, Julie and Jasmin had knocked on 51 doors, engaged in nine political conversations and identified one “yes” voter and eight “maybes” for their candidate. Altogether the Mamdani campaign announced that more than 300 volunteers had turned out at the eight canvass sites and had knocked on more than 7,300 doors.

When I asked Julie at the end of the shift why she had come out on a bitterly cold weekend day to do this volunteer work, she mentioned that she and her partner were looking to start a family. The cost of childcare would determine whether they would have to abandon the city. 

Still, I wondered, at a time when many disillusioned liberals are forswearing activism, where do she and her fellow democratic socialists find the resolve to try something bigger than they have ever tried before? 

“The Democrats have failed us for a second time,” Julie said. “I think there is a lot of energy for something different. Zohran is offering that. That’s why there’s 50–60 people here on a frigid day in December.”

• • •

The Democratic Socialists of America was founded in 1982. For much of its history, DSA was a genteel refuge for socialists who sought to pull the Democrats to the left but wanted nothing to do with the various sectarian groups that populate the far left in this country. The group’s ranks swelled starting in 2016 when Bernie Sanders popularized the idea of “democratic socialism” with his youthful supporters in his primary run against Hillary Clinton and again when Donald Trump upset Clinton to win the White House. 

DSA is the largest socialist organization in the United States in at least 80 years. Its New York City chapter is its largest local chapter with more than 6,500 members. It helped ­Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez win her congressional seat in 2018. It has also elected nine of its members to the New York state legislature and two more to the New York City Council while building a growing presence in the labor movement. It’s sparing in who it endorses, but when it backs a candidate, it goes all in with providing volunteers and campaign expertise. 

“We can start thinking bigger. We can start being more ambitious,” said NYC-DSA’s Alex Pellitteri. “All of the races that we have done have really been leading up to this and have been preparing our volunteers and given them a level of expertise and commitment.” 

“I’ve been thinking about this like a structure test,” said Claire Valdez, who served as NYC-DSA’s membership coordinator before being elected to the State Assembly from Queens in November. “We’re gonna learn a lot about the organization, and we’re gonna learn a lot about our capacity.”

“Everyone in New York City politics knew DSA had a base, and now we’re seeing that crystallize,” said Michael Lange. 

Mamdani begins with the largest base of any of the six candidates in the primary outside of Mayor Adams and Comptroller Brad Lander, who have both won citywide races. The question, Lange asks, is how high Mamdani’s ceiling is. He noted that Mamdani will benefit from having millions of dollars in matching funds to promote his message in a way no previous DSA candidate has and that he’s good on television. If his pro-rent-freeze message sinks in with New York City’s two million rent-stabilized tenants, that could pull in more support, Lange added.

Mamdani is also the first South Asian and Muslim candidate to run for mayor. Jaslin Kaur, a former DSA City Council candidate in Eastern Queens, says Mamdani is already seen as a “hero” in the South Asian community for going on hunger strike for 15 days in 2022 to help win hundreds of millions of dollars in debt relief for financially stressed taxi drivers like her father. 

“If we can really see a campaign that represents the community come out, and really show that it’s investing in outreach, it’s going to be really exciting,” Kaur told The Indypendent.

Mamdani will also have to navigate New York City’s ranked choice voting system which allows voters to vote for as many as five candidates in their order of preference and have their votes transferred to their next highest choices as ballots are tabulated and candidates are eliminated from contention. On December 4, United Auto Workers Region 9A endorsed Mamdani, Lander and Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos in no particular order as the three progressive choices in the race. The Working Families Party has also vowed to only support mayoral candidates who identify as being a part of a broad anti-Adams front, something Mamdani has already done.  

While a lot will have to go right for Mamdani to prevail over his better-known opponents and the inevitable hostility of wealthy special interests, should he catch fire and become a real threat to win, he says the underlying strategy is simple. 

“New Yorkers want vision, clarity and an agenda that directly addresses the most pressing issues in their lives,” he said. “And I think our campaign does exactly that.”

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