How Zohran Mamdani Achieved Escape Velocity from Politics as Usual

As we move into the general election season, the joy of primary night may already feel distant. But as Zohran Mamdani moves closer into not just winning campaigns but governing, it is worth looking at how the groundbreaking coalition building of his campaign can be a model for future governance — and open space for more Left power. 

It was just the week prior to Mandani’s upset that Lander, New York City’s progressive comptroller, elected in 2021, catapulted to national attention, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him and a Mexican immigrant leaving a court hearing. The organization Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, which was helping organize support for the immigrants in court, called for New Yorkers to come together to protest the arrests.

One of those who came was Mamdani, who joined both his and Lander’s supporters to demand the comptroller’s release. Ending fascism and making New York affordable for all residents was enough for the two candidates and their supporters — who hold significant political differences — to build a mutually constructive partnership.

Mamdani, who is Muslim and openly identifies as a socialist, supports Palestinian liberation, and he is offering bold experiments designed to make the city more affordable. Lander, who is Jewish, is known for his smaller-scale and incremental improvements, and he identifies as a progressive Zionist.

It’s because of their public differences that the solid Mamdani – Lander alliance is a significant break with past coalitions, which demand the Left enthusiastically elect centrist Democrats and compromise on progressive values. This dynamic has dominated Democratic politics and the Left at least since 9/11, but after Hillary Clinton’s losing 2016 presidential campaign, voters far beyond the Left have been largely rejecting this devil’s bargain. When invited to participate, they disprove the centrist position that most people don’t care about politics. 

Left-organized coalitions can be a place where centrists are welcome, but their ideas about so-called realistic politics are not. These coalitions draw liberal support to left efforts, rather than moving rightward to try to capture centrists. 

“It’s a question for our own party,” Mamdani told The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert in June as Lander, to his right, looked on. ​“Do we move forward with the same politicians [and] policies of the past that delivered us this present,” the 33-year-old state assemblyman from Queens went on, ​“or do we move forward with a new generation of leadership, one that is actually looking to serve the people?”

Mamdani was and extraordinarily popular, and his campaign attracted 50,000 canvassers who knocked on more than a million doors across the city. In those conversations, they found broad resonance surrounding the promise of affordability, an issue that cuts across race, gender and income brackets. The rapper RZA, of the Staten Island-founded group Wu Tang Clan, summed up the vision of affordability this way after a discussion with Mamdani: ​“You could make [Brooklyn neighborhood] Brownsville a place where you wanna live, versus a place where ​‘I’m getting the fuck outta here.’” 

New York City was electric with political conversation in June, and not just among pundits and electoral campaign veterans. Residents with little electoral experience were using terms like ​“turnout” at cafes and bars, marveling at the social and neighborly connections that only mass political work can make. For at least a brief period — and possibly long-lasting — Mamdani’s campaign shifted the terrain of electoral politics so profoundly that it was no longer a spectator sport. 

“Mamdani ran a campaign that managed to expand the electorate in such a way that no turnout model or poll was able to capture,” reflected a top Cuomo advisor. Implicit in the statement is the idea that the Democratic Party model has collapsed even in organized-money strongholds like New York, where pro-genocide politics dominate both parties, and which saw the sound defeat of Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman in 2024. 

That collapsed model looks something like a campaign that focuses on pandering to a small number of frequent voters (who skew richer and whiter than the electorate as a whole). It communicates with them through media and advertisements, and pays a large batch of canvassers to try to turn voters out for elections.

When Lander first announced his mayoral campaign a little more than a year ago, he appeared to somewhat be tacking right, with statements like, ​“Progressives, myself included, were slow to respond to the elevation of crime and disorder.” This served to walk back his earlier criticisms of excessive police funding. 

Lander could have doubled down on his apparent move into the center. Instead, with Mamdani’s momentum undeniable, Lander returned to his progressive roots. The two cross-endorsed each other just days before ICE arrested Lander. These two events, in particular, turned Lander into a hero of the race. 

Mamdani’s momentum suggests that only bold left visions can achieve escape velocity from politics as usual. The new model: discuss an optimistic left vision by way of concrete policy ideas with hundreds of thousands of unlikely voters. Invite them to join the canvass; thousands did. Finally, trust voters to understand consistent ethical positions, including around Palestine.

The model is the result of a multiyear investment by groups like Democratic Socialists of America, Desis Rising Up & Moving (which is predominantly Muslim), CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, as well as an increasingly strong left labor movement. For years, all of these groups have been honing their door-knocking infrastructure, expanding their memberships and building solidarity through mass political education. Just like the thousands who demonstrated for racial justice in 2020, the tens of thousands of people who have been showing up in the streets as Israel’s genocide accelerated are also canvassers. 

Protesters furious about racial injustice at home and abroad formed a big enough, dedicated-enough nucleus of a canvass that grew far beyond itself.

As centrist denial about the genocide against Palestinians falls apart, many on the Left are negotiating how to engage those who — until recently— were clearly opponents and, now, could be needed allies.

The lesson offered by the Mamdani campaign is that the Left can enlarge the tent by focusing on meaningful action. In this case, the canvassing, which is also something the Left needs to expand. Protesters and canvassers, who are often one and the same, each play a role in shifting public opinion and action. 

Mamdani’s political choices — his continued insistence on the importance of Palestinian lives, his track record of standing with the working class — gave so many New Yorkers who have marched against the genocide and for Black Lives a reason to canvass — and they did. 

The lesson from the Mamdani campaign is in the canvass: what galvanizes people to participate is a consistent rejection of the anti-democratic center, and the myths, the frames, and the discourse it produces. 

People who are taking meaningful action are the sole focus: our base and our power. If we accept centrists while rejecting their myths, we can grow the power to move toward our optimistic left vision. Mamdani’s boldness around Palestine led to a pervasive optimism among many voters that is the opposite of the careful, risk-averse politics that even progressives like Lander generally practice.

Lander, acting in many ways as Mamdani’s junior partner, reflects the reality that the Left can lead without hiding itself. The benefits are huge. When the Left does act boldly in this type of coalition, it’s able to welcome centrists while rejecting the anti-democratic center and the myths, frames and discourse it produces. This is especially true in the ongoing, bad-faith accusations of antisemitism that Mamdani faces, even as he won more Jewish votes than former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was favored to win. 

Popular far beyond New York’s borders, an anti-racist class analysis doesn’t flatten difference, it celebrates it. Mamdani’s confident exuberance about his own cultural particularities invites others to be that way, too. It also makes Mamdani exceptionally effective at opposing racism of all kinds in many emotional registers. 

Mamdani was unsparing in his assessment of Andrew Cuomo’s racist legacy as governor, saying, ​“he has nothing to say to us, because he doesn’t see us as if we are every other New Yorker.” And dignified in demanding Cuomo pronounce his name properly: ​“the name is Mamdani, M-A-M-D-A-N-I, you should learn how to say it.” New York City is about 70% people of color, and this insistence on respect was deeply cathartic here and across the country.

By naming Islamophobia and the the toll on him, he made room to celebrate Muslim holidays, offer solidarity with other Muslim candidates, highlight the diversity of the city’s South Asians, and showcase Muslim New Yorkers’ political acuity as every other New Yorker (such as the halalflation video). He can even joke about it. Mamdani’s deft undefensiveness highlighted the racism of the incessant questions about antisemitism and Israel, and the lack of concern for Palestinians, Muslims and those in solidarity. 

A Jew and a Muslim together make a powerful rejoinder to the incessant, bad-faith charges of antisemitism. Lander’s solidarity expands the space for Mamdani to replace the racist premise behind the antisemitism accusations with a position that represents that of most Americans: Equal rights should be the norm, from New York to Palestine. Mamdani’s lack of defensiveness over this position has also served to highlight the racism inherent in the questions he and so many others face about Israel. It’s unsurprising, then, that prominent Democrats continue a politics-of-division strategy to explain why they did not endorse Mamdani following his shocking primary victory. What is remarkable is now they must disavow or apologize.

That’s the power of the win—a win powered by voters under 45, of all races. Meanwhile, the majority of the city’s most politically influential unions backed Cuomo, following the mainstream labor tradition of endorsing the candidate deemed most likely to win. (Notably, the United Federation of Teachers could not endorse, and the membership split between Cuomo and Mamdani, primarily over Palestine. After Mamdani won, handily, UFT did endorse.)

One thing to note about the Mamdani and Lander pairing is how we can become more resilient, even as our coalition partners stumble. After the primary, in response to a rhetorical attack on Lander’s choice, as comptroller, not to reinvest City funds in Israeli bonds, Lander took a swipe at the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Gratuitously adding to his sound fiscal reasoning for the disinvestment, he said, ​“As a Jew, I am proud that we have these investments in Israel.” This is a significant difference with Mamdani, who not only supports BDS but is the author of Not on Our Dime state legislation introduced in 2023, which would withdraw tax exemptions from charities raising money for U.S. military and Israeli settlements. The coalition held, welcoming the shift in policy while continuing to push for broader application of BDS principles. In fact, making the distinction that Lander did appears to be morphing into bad politics as the tide is shifting toward recognizing, though not actually ending, the genocide in Gaza. 

The Left in the United States has gained enough strength over the past decade to begin to think more substantially about coalition work and governing with shared interests. But the Left has not yet gained enough power to flank and defend our elected officials when they, in relative isolation, are pressured to vote or act in certain ways, or for the Left to hold them accountable when they cross the line of acceptable compromise. 

Mamdani is showing how to lead from the Left, even when the coalition has disparate and conflicting views on critical issues, which will be important in the general election — where the significance of organized labor consolidating behind a democratic socialist candidate will be clutch. It’s another indication that these coalitions work best when the Left leads by first attracting voters and others who do not usually participate in politics.

Then, the center will follow.