I am a NYC-DSA member. I am also a member of a communist caucus within DSA. I identify as a Marxist-Leninist but see value in being a member of the largest group of (for some, nominally) socialists in the country. I am somebody who knows Zohran as an acquaintance and volunteered for his first campaign, as well as more officially working for this mayoral campaign. I would say I am in the cusp second/third ring of people around him, and communication is typically campaign related, though we have mutual friends who are closer to him who have provided me with some insight I did not personally have.

There has been talk of it for years now, and here we are in 2024 staring down the barrel of an Eric Adams VS Andrew Cuomo VS Curtis Sliwa election. Three conservatives running for mayor of the city with the largest group of organized socialists in the country.

Much like here on Hexbear, there have been talks within DSA for some time on the efficacy of not just continuing to run for political office on the Democratic ticket, but whether to run for political office at all.

It was important to us to understand NYC-DSA as an organization beyond those who directly constitute its membership. We felt strongly that we must consider those who naturally align with the organization as a second, slightly less reliable but equally important, arm for doing organizing. This campaign was going to be made or broken by our ability to make people actually care about mobilizing for us. It is for this reason that as socialists, we had to ideologically run the campaign, not let the campaigning for office ideologically run us. That was the only thing that could separate us from being just another campaign with progressive dem ethos.

Thus, it was important that the campaign continue to have one clear vision throughout. The amount of volunteers we could drive to our campaign would be directly proportional to the amount of people we were reaching with our message. Watering it down would hurt us far more in the long run, and give other candidates room to budge in on messaging or flip flopping. If our message truly resonates, staying committed likely means growing our base and numbers of volunteers in the future.

So how do you run an ideologically socialist campaign for a city of people who would not have a plurality identify as socialists? Really, it’s simple: keep it materialist. Zohran mentioned early on that every contested campaign for office is a slog of neoliberal BS that people do not even hear anymore á la “Student loan debt forgiveness programs for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in economically disadvantaged communities.” Those that even stayed awake through that entire sentence are slapped in the face by how exclusionary this supposed inclusive and uplifting policy is supposed to be. Nobody was talking about anything other than the typical Kamala-like drivel in the NYC mayoral race, so we strategically set our sights on late October, just pre-presidential election. No matter the outcome, it would give us a good place to slot in our campaign as the only left lane option and only one relentlessly focused on material issues of affordability for New Yorkers in a way nobody else cared to.

Inevitably, Kamala lost and Zohran had a great idea to highlight exactly why, while simultaneously boosting our own campaign: go hit the streets and interview people about why they voted for Trump or didn’t vote for Kamala. He was out there for hours and hours and hours in the cold and wind getting the exact answers you and I already knew he’d get, “They don’t care about us.” ”Trump is at least saying he will bring down prices” ”Biden and Kamala are already in office, but what are they doing?”

It easily reaffirmed what we needed to say and do: New Yorkers can’t afford childcare, they can’t afford rent, they can’t afford transit, and they can’t afford their groceries. So so so many people were willing to take a risk on Trump just for saying he’d address things like that, despite already hating him. Why wouldn’t they consider taking a chance on us? Do they care more about the fact we are socialists or that they can’t put food on the table?

If you’re running an election campaign, and you don’t actually care about policy you’re giving the majority of voters, who do you target? The people with a proven track record of voting. That is how >90% of democrats run their campaigns. The longer the track record, the more you target them. Voted in three consecutive primaries? By conventional dem logic, you should definitely get a knock on your door! But these strategies alone don’t typically work for a socialist candidate. Why? Our target demographic is inherently disenfranchised by electoralism. We need those who are likely to vote, but more importantly we need those who are only likely to vote for the right candidate. We were looking for people who live in progressive areas but haven’t recently voted. By “recently” I mean people who haven’t voted even once since Obama. We know we are not alone in feeling disenfranchised. Find people living in rent stabilized housing and tell them I know politics suck, but our guy is going to stop your rent from going up. Find south Asian and Muslim communities who vote in low numbers and tell them our guy knows your struggle. Find those who voted Obama and Trump ‘16 and tell them we are hurting too, and enough is enough. We want to put food on your table, keep a roof over your head, help you afford childcare so you can have the dignity you deserve.

Neoliberals have over-intellectualized politics to be some complex system that nobody can truly understand, but it really isn’t that hard if you’re willing to put in the work to actually reach those who need help.

We had a simple pitch: Here is our list of ideas. If they sound good to you, rank us somewhere on your ballot 1-5. We are happy to represent you whether we are your first or fifth choice for mayor, BUT DONT PUT CUOMO ON YOUR BALLOT AT ALL. Other major candidates were on board too, and cross-endorsed each other and Zohran. The most important amongst these was comptroller Brad Lander, who campaigned prominently alongside Zohran in the weeks leading up to the election. This was a key part of the strategy to win over the wealthy liberal who would hold their nose, but reluctantly vote for Zohran under the right set of circumstances. It also did a lot to dispel the mudslinging accusations of Zohran being an antisemite, as comptroller Lander himself was Jewish and stood up for Zohran on many occasions.

I don’t want to be too cocky about this, but nearly every hurdle that was thrown at us was easily identified before we even were polling at 2%. The neoliberals are going to say all of the same things they’ve always said about socialists, but this time all we have to do is say something along the lines of, “and that’s bad why?” because normal people don’t think about things like this being a Trojan horse campaign so that we get to do executions in Central Park if Zohran got elected. This worked to much greater effect than anticipated, because while Zohran was all over the news and social media, the Cuomo campaign decided it was best to coast off of name recognition and hope people would just vote for him because of that and because he’s Not Zohran™. We constantly had nearly free airtime on the news and social media to make these people attacking Zohran for these “crazy policies” look like they actually hated the solutions that genuinely made sense to the working class. This hyper-focused campaigning ended up gifting us so many slam dunks. Nobody’s message was heard more loudly or clearly than ours, and it opened up the door to highlighting how other candidates/pundits don’t care about these issues the same way Zohran does. Long before Zohran was competitive in polls, I was saying he’s already the front runner in being seen as genuine. That alone doesn’t win elections, but it goes a long way when your competition is so NOT genuine.

What we weren’t prepared for, however, was the popular tide beginning to turn against Israel. Whether or not it was Trump being elected, Zohran unabashedly speaking about it, or just people finally having seen enough of Israel’s crimes, we were caught riding the wave as the exact right time. The other candidates and political pundits couldn’t stop talking about Zohran and Israel, and people were finally getting fed up. It reached a fever pitch at the end of a mayoral debate when candidates were asked a “lightning round” question where they were supposed to give a one sentence answer to the question: “Where will you make your first international trip as mayor of NYC?”

If you haven’t seen the debate, I don’t think I need to tell you that all of the candidates were tripping over each other to find a way to say “Israel” more enthusiastically than the last. When the question came to Zohran, he answered “I would stay here in New York City to do my job and address the needs of New Yorkers across the five boroughs.” At this point the Zohran HQ was hooting and hollering because that’s a great answer and we knew exactly what would happen next. The camera cuts back to the moderators, who tossed aside their rules to ask the only follow up questions of the entire lightning round:

Moderator: ”Mr. Mamdani, can I jump in here– Would you visit Israel as mayor?”

Zohran: ”As mayor I’ll be standing up for Jewish New Yorkers and meeting them wherever they are across the five boroughs, whether at synagogues or temples or subway platforms, because ultimately we need to focus on delivering on their concerns of–“ Moderator, sharply cutting Zohran off: ”Do you believe in a Jewish state of Israel?”

Zohran: ”I believe Israel has the right to exist”

Moderator: ”But as a Jewish state?”

Zohran: ”As a state with equal rights.”

I think it was in this moment that I knew it was over. They played themselves on live television. Even on the most astroturfed social media sites, all people were talking about was, “I didn’t know they were running for mayor of Israel.” The Israel line of questioning on Zohran fell apart before our very eyes. This isn’t a presidential debate. This is a local election (albeit a very large one). Why does a mayor need to believe in the right of Israel to exist? Why is this question even being asked when it broke the rules of the debate? What was wrong with saying he’d take care of New Yorkers?

This all played right into our hands. The other candidates are running the be mayor of New York City. Zohran is the only candidate running to be the mayor of the people of New York City.

Nothing was the same after this. The materialist elements of the campaign were not only no longer under fire, but other candidates were trying to adopt parts of them into their own campaigns. Other candidates were talking about a rent freeze. Zohran skyrocketed in polling, pulling statistically even with Cuomo in a few. Zohran couldn’t post a single video on social media with a view floor lower than several hundred thousand. Media was talking about Zohran 24/7.

I’ve never seen so many people register to vote before an election. I must’ve personally spoken to at least a hundred or so. That number ended up rising to 50K, and almost all went to Zohran. At this point the campaign had roughly 35K individual volunteers. I had people coming to New York from across the country to canvass for Zohran like it was the Spanish Civil War. People were taking the train in multiple times a week from Boston and DC. No matter what polls were saying at this point, personally it felt far beyond over. Cuomo couldn’t even get volunteers for his campaign, and often when I saw them in the field they were sitting down pretending to canvass to get paid that sweet $25 per hour the Cuomo camp threw around.

Zohran decided all of that it wasn’t enough though, and just five days before Election Day we decided on the biggest endeavor yet: Zohran was going to lace up his sneakers and walk the entire 14 mile (22.5km) length of Manhattan in one day. On Friday the 20th just before sunrise, he set out. At times, the walk felt more like a parade. Zohran was getting stopped and greeted. Honked at and cheered for. Selfies nearly every block. Dozens of people would join the group and eventually peel off a few blocks later, but it was very clear that this was not your average photo-op or campaign. People felt at home around Zohran, aunties were crying when they hugged him and shook his hand, tias talking about how jealous their daughters would be that they met him, babas talking sports and offering tea, gym bros stopping their jog for a few blocks just to walk with us. Very rarely does a politician feel like they truly love the place they represent, and even more rarely does it feel that the people of that place love their politician back. On that day, there was no doubt the feelings were truly mutual.

One week before Election Day, and a week of early voting began. This was our first real test. Polls had been rolling in for the past two weeks, many of them statistical ties between Zohran and Cuomo in the last round of ranked choice voting. We were riding a tsunami of support that didn’t seem to slow the two weeks leading up to this point. The tide was turning on Israel’s favorability, and Zohran was more popular than ever on social media. We set the campaign goal of canvassing 1 million doors by Election Day, and we went on to surpass even that. New voter registrations were as high on a day to day basis as total registrations during the last primary. Zohran was nervous but didn’t let it show publicly. As early voting began, any worries the rest of us had left were laid to rest. Record numbers of early voters were turning up to the polls. Double the amount of the previous primary season in all boroughs favorable to Zohran. Pundits and the Cuomo campaign were trying to chalk that up the it being the relatively early days of Covid, or Zohran exhausting his pool of young voters early on, but it didn’t feel that way on the ground. I’ve never canvassed so many people who already confirmed they were planning on voting for my candidate. I’ve never seen such enthusiasm before. This carried on through the weekend, and turnout didn’t slow. The Cuomo campaign was very scared at this point, and things were only looking worse for them from there.

Forecasts for Election Day across the city were sunny, approaching record highs of >100°F (>38°C). Not every polling place in NYC is air conditioned (first world country? world’s most influential city? Anyway…) Absolutely devastating conditions for Cuomo’s significantly older, thus more vulnerable crowd of voters, who have fewer polling places, and live in far less population dense parts of the city where the commute to their polling place is much greater. We could not have asked for a more perfect set of conditions for the Zohran Campaign. Truly, he held the Mandate of Heaven.

Zohran started the morning at sunrise with a surprise press conference in his favorite part of the city, Astoria Park. He reaffirmed our affordability message and his mayoral cross-endorsements, and then went on to canvass around the city. Cuomo was nowhere to be seen until nearly noon, when he drove two blocks in Manhattan from his $8500/month apartment to his polling place, where he then stated he ranked only himself on his ballot. The two situations could not be more emblematic of each respective candidate.

It was the absolute scorcher it was predicted to be, but turnout seemingly did not yield. At the end of the day, the Cuomo team was feeling nervous while we were feeling cautiously optimistic. Many thought it would take many days of ranked choice calculations to figure out who won. Almost all scenarios predicted that Cuomo would have a commanding lead in the first round, and how commanding that lead was would determine if Zohran had a chance in the later rounds.

As soon as the first results trickled in, the night was already over. No pollster had predicted anything like this. Zohran was holding a commanding lead of 7% over Cuomo in the first round, 36% to 43%. All bets were off. Cuomo conceded just a few hours later.

I am very sorry and did not know about the Zohranposting ban outside of /electoralism. I promised to write this post long before that and never saw the discourse, so I am sorry that it’s crowding up your feed. I did my best to collapse the post down to be as small as possible! Either way, I hope maybe you enjoy a more detailed discussion about it instead! Thank you for your patience <3