In March 2021, as 59 state legislators were preparing to call on Andrew Cuomo to resign, the governor’s office did what powerful offices often do. It made a list. Who can they call up and pressure? Who can they peel off? Melissa DeRosa, a top Cuomo aide, ran down the names. When she got to Zohran Mamdani, the text she sent to a fellow operative at 10:58 on the morning of March 11, later released by Attorney General Letitia James, was short. “Zohan is DSA so we don’t have play there.”

Governor Cuomo’s political operation, at full steam and in total emergency mode, looked at a then freshman assemblymember and all they saw was a dead end. What stopped them, and what has led to Zohran Mamdani’s success and that of many other NYC-DSA electeds, wasn’t just individual brilliance or an enlightened set of principles, it was being immersed in a mass organization of working people. 

For NYC-DSA, mass political organizing has been the driving force that took it from a fringe organization to electing not only a mayor but local, state, and federal representatives who represent millions, and passing transformative legislation like the Build Public Renewables Act. This development of coherence and focusing on working-class people, through a genuine practice of democracy, has brought deep buy-in from thousands of organizers, and it’s the essential power behind these wins and exponential growth. It’s the same power I’ve seen over nearly the past decade of organizing across the city, the power that enabled a new assemblymember like Zohran to block the NRG power plant in his district, win $450 million in debt relief for taxi-medallion owners, and, years later, run and win as mayor. That is the NYC-DSA difference.

With less than a month before New York primaries, it’s all the more important to underline what a NYC-DSA endorsement is. For a left-leaning voter, what sets a NYC-DSA-endorsed candidate apart from a candidate who simply claims to be “progressive” or have similar policy positions, is a real and material growing movement, the growing relationships of thousands upon thousands of politically active New Yorkers that extend far beyond the ballot box and confines of any one district. Those relationships are how working people can build power inside and outside the traditional halls of power, fight entrenched political interests and how a working-class agenda can actually move forward and win.

There are countless photos from NYC-DSA that you might have seen a friend post. Masses of people out in the freezing cold of February collecting signatures on green sheets with frozen pens to get their candidate on a ballot, to the scorching heat of June outside poll sites and subway stops from 6am to 9pm, palm cards and posters in hand, armies of neighbors talking to other neighbors. Oftentimes I get a “Thank you for volunteering” from strangers. However, this buy-in and dedication isn’t charity but us all politically fighting for a better world, conversation after conversation. 

Our process for deciding which candidates to endorse is arduous, with long questionnaires, multiple forums, and deliberations where rank-and-file members decide whether a candidate is worth hours and hours of our lives, whether they will knock countless doors and lend their skills and their knowledge. Ideological alignment and policy stances must be there from the jump. But critically what the endorsement also weighs is material, the commitment of people’s time and labor, not simply a shared set of positions. It is all of us collectively sharpening and honing our politics, developing a shared analysis of the terrain and identifying what interventions we can make to change it. 

As a freshman assemblymember new to Albany, Zohran said in a 2021 interview with Jacobin, “You go into that chamber, and the whole way it is set up is for you to bend to power. All of the incentives are for you to bend to power.” Folks are isolated from their districts, their offices often underfunded and understaffed, and power players both elected and unelected push and pull you in one direction, theirs. That’s why bright progressives often fold, whether in Albany or DC. What’s unique for NYC-DSA legislators is that there’s an active mass organization alongside them. They can buck lobbyists and leadership, and keep bringing in and empowering their own constituents and others across the state. 

It’s fundamentally different politics, where a pragmatic, smart progressive would never support legislation like Not On Our Dime, which would end tax-exempt status for New York charities that funnel donations to Israeli settlements stealing Palestinian land, but a bold socialist one would, because they’re operating on different political terrain. The goal isn’t to be the smartest dealmaker, where backroom brilliance buys a footnote. It is to contest and reauthor power by bringing working-class people into it. The wins aren’t by the volume of legislation passed, but from organization, mobilization, and real positive change in people’s lives. It’s turning our democracy into a 24/7 system rather than something that happens once at the ballot box every two or four years.

So when you see the little red NYC-DSA logo on a candidate’s palm card left at your door, you can recognize that thousands upon thousands of people have poured large swaths of their lives into building an organization much bigger than themselves. That we’re looking to fundamentally revitalize our democracy, and that the candidate has that organization’s trust to be one of its leaders. That the candidate will stay committed to the promises they’ve made, because they will continue to be in motion alongside the movement after election day. While a progressive may champion an incremental legislative improvement or monetary deliverables year after year, our goal is not simply to get someone into a seat to do business as usual, but to collectively transform our city, our state, and beyond.

Eric Thor is an active member of New York City DSA living in Astoria, Queens. He was NYC-DSA’s co-chair from 2023-2024.

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