In just a few months, Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman and Democratic Socialist, has gone from a long-shot fringe candidate to a national figure — securing an upset win in the June primary, where voters 18-29 had the highest turnout of any age group.
Now, on the cusp of Election Day — where polls show him the clear frontrunner over his closest rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — Mamdani is counting on that youth coalition to show up again. But his pledge to address rising costs appears to be resonating with young people far outside of the five boroughs. It’s a message that many Gen Z and millennials say speaks to their most pressing concerns at a time when many feel hopeless about their leaders and yearn for new voices willing to break with political norms.
“When a candidate is able to speak to the concerns of the populace and validate those concerns … I think that that has a big impact, especially when it comes to young people,” said Ruby Belle Booth, who studies young voters for the nonpartisan research organization CIRCLE.
This is why establishment dems are as opposed to him as the republicans.
We’re seeing in real time how the system does NOT want things to get better for us, and the people who are supposed to represent us are representing their own agendas and preservation of the system that lets the administration dine in gilded ballrooms while we literally starve.
Mamdani got to the national stage through grassroots campaigning and involvement from people who care. You CAN make a difference if you get involved on a local level and get active in your community.
I saw a DSA Mamdani sign up in a train station in California yesterday, he’s definitely got national exposure.
I’m old enough that I look at him and think “oh he would be such a nice son in law” 😄
I’m an old dude, and it isn’t just young people who feel hopeless about our elected representaives, and want new, dynamic leadership. I may not have as long a future as they do, but I’d like what time I have left to not be terrifying.
Definitely. Because where else are we going to find leaders? Not in congress. Bernie’s cool and all, but also old as shit. Would’ve been pretty great if his nomination wasn’t stolen. The only other heroes we have are dead. I watched a video by CerosTV about it yesterday. I recommend it.
I’m afraid to ask, but is there a reason you don’t mention AOC?
She voted wrong on a single bill amendment that wasn’t going to pass regardless of her vote. It’s the stupid purity test bullshit.
Almost like there is a large, unmet demand for leftist politicians at the national level. Hmm, no, couldn’t possibly be it.
I don’t even know if it’s that. I wonder how much of it is just “shit is clearly bad… Let’s please just try something different and see if it helps.”
We’ve been doing the exact same stuff for so long and everything gets worse. The current administration’s solution is to just go backwards and try the old stuff that didn’t work again and see if it will work now somehow.
wonder how much of it is just “shit is clearly bad… Let’s please just try something different and see if it helps.”
It’s kinda both from how I see things. When Bernie wasn’t given a chance by the DNC in the primaries in 2016, the Bernie supporters flocked to vote Trump. The Sanders to Trump pipeline is real. Slavoj Zizek made a great point that people want someone outside of the neoliberal status quo, and Americans got that, but with Trump. Americans are kind of at the crossroads of what they really want.
Yeah, it seems like the left and right agree that shit needs to change, but the right has been convinced it’s the left’s fault instead of it being the mega-rich.
I pray to the god that does not exist that he does not get assassinated, and if they try I want them to fail so hard that the assassins kill one another instead.
I’ve seen a persistent theory of politics within liberal circles that conservatives want Mamdani as mayor, because they see it as an excuse to send hordes of ICE / National Guard into the city at the first hint of defiance. Also, a lot of speculation that the NYPD is going to preemptively hate on this guy so much that they’ll practically roll out the red carpet for far-right radicals to terrorize the city. Given the degree to which people seem to have zero hope for the future, its certainly tempting to indulge in “There’s no way to win!” bleak prophecies.
But my expectations are significantly more muted. I think he’s going to get into office, run into a massive wall of bureaucratic intransigence, and lose his popular momentum when he’s not able to spin municipal straw into socialist gold overnight.
I guess only time will tell. But the worst thing for a progressive candidate’s image in the US is getting what they asked for and being expected to deliver. Just look at AOC, Keith Ellison, and Bernie Sanders.
The ICE gestapo is going to terrorize NYC no matter who’s mayor. I don’t think even Curtis Sliwa in office would discourage Trump.
But yeah, Mamdani has high expectations just like Obama did. Luckily, he has a lot of councilpeople on his side. The DSA has grown a lot in the past decade.
Bernie had a lot of resistance when he was first elected mayor too, but that didn’t stop him from making a difference there and getting elected over and over again.
The struggle doesn’t end on election day!
On the one hand I’m farther to his left and am critical of some of his campaign decisions, and am not optimistic about his abilities to overcome the capitalists through purely electoral means.
On the other hand I’d be happy to see him prove me wrong.
Who says he has to do it through purely electoral means? Why would you even assume that’s the plan? He’s a politician. The electoral part is where he fits in. That doesn’t mean he expects the rest of us to sit back and watch once he gets elected It’s never this approach or that, it’s everything.
It’s the only thing I see him doing. I don’t see him organizing workers or tenants and helping them unionize. I don’t see him distributing mutual aid. I don’t see him engaged in mass education. I don’t see him arming the poor and training a people’s army.
The electoral part is the only part I see him doing, and the only part I see his supporters doing.
Again, I’d be happy to see him prove me wrong.
I don’t see him arming the poor and training a people’s army.
If you think that’s a realistic expectation to have for someone running for office in the imperial core you are in desperate need of a reality check. Even if your goal is an armed revolution there are so many prerequisites that have not been met to make such a thing possible. This is what happens when you spend too much time reading about revolutions and not enough time getting in touch with the people around you.
