Zohran Mamdani | Manhattan’s progressive man

In a stunning political upset that has caught the eye of political observers and could potentially upend the Democratic Party in the U.S., a new progressive star has emerged: Zohran Kwame Mamdani, the presumptive winner of the New York City mayoral primary.

For an Indian progressive uninitiated in American politics, the name Zohran Kwame Mamdani will invoke references to two familiar figures. The 33-year-old is the son of noted postcolonial theorist and academic Mahmood Mamdani, who has written extensively on the legacy of colonialism in Africa, and acclaimed film director Mira Nair. His middle name is, of course, a reference to Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian Pan-Africanist revolutionary leader. But now the younger Mamdani has become a name to be reckoned with on his own accord.

By defeating a formidable establishment figure — former Governor Andrew Cuomo — in the New York City mayoral Democratic primary race, Mr. Mamdani has catalysed sharp discourse within the fractured and soul-searching Democratic Party, still reeling from stinging defeats in the presidential and Congressional races in 2024 that heralded the Trump 2.0 era. New York is largely a Democratic stronghold, and the winner of the primary typically goes on to win the mayoral race. In the November Mayoral election, Mr. Mamdani will take on the incumbent, the unpopular Eric Adams, who is expected to run as an independent.

Mr. Mamdani’s political career is relatively short — he was first elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020. In the State capital of Albany, he joined a small group of lawmakers affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a progressive and socialist organisation that was formed in 1982 but truly took flight during Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in 2016. Since then, it has emerged as a major leftist pressure group operating both within and outside the Democratic Party. Mr. Mamdani’s victory is reminiscent of a similar triumph in New York when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (fondly known as AOC) won a Congressional election in the city’s 14th district in 2018.

While Mr. Mamdani’s legislative record is relatively modest in terms of Bills passed, his colleagues acknowledge that his work helped shift the Assembly’s ideological emphasis to the left. If elected, Mr. Mamdani would be the city’s youngest Mayor since 1917 and the first Muslim to hold the post.

Mr. Mamdani’s victory was no mean feat. He had to overcome the challenge posed by a candidate with extensive political experience — former two-term New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo. Mr. Cuomo has deep establishment ties and was endorsed by multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, among others. He was also backed by a super Political Action Committee that raised $25 million to bankroll his candidacy. The fact that Mr. Cuomo had resigned from his gubernatorial duties a few years ago after being embroiled in sexual harassment cases did not deter him from attempting to obscure this record while running a conventional campaign that featured attack ads targeting Mr. Mamdani’s identity and views.

Grassroots mobilisation

Mr. Mamdani overcame these challenges by relying on massive grassroots mobilisation — reportedly 50,000 volunteers organised by the DSA’s New York Chapter conducted a door-to-door campaign that reached an astounding 1.5 million doors. Focusing on one key issue — “affordability” in New York’s high-cost economy — Mr. Mamdani pledged to address this through a series of concrete measures. These included freezing rents for nearly a million New Yorkers in rent-stabilised apartments, providing free city buses (based on a pilot programme he had helped start as a lawmaker), creating city-owned grocery stores that would keep food costs low by buying wholesale and operating on city land, and providing childcare for infants and toddlers.

The focus on livelihood-based “bread-and-butter economic issues” helped his campaign build a broad coalition of support, including in neighbourhoods that were won by Donald Trump in the 2024 elections. Notably, Mr. Mamdani’s message was tailored to redirect working-class frustration away from the Right’s targets — immigrants and marginalised groups — toward a different culprit: billionaires. The endorsements by the doyen of the American democratic Left, Bernie Sanders, and its key public figure, AOC, also bolstered his candidacy.

Interestingly, Mr. Mamdani managed to register a strong win while unapologetically taking a pro-Palestine position, accusing Israel of committing “apartheid and genocide in Gaza”, supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and openly embracing his Muslim identity. This stood in sharp contrast to the Democratic Presidential campaign in 2024, where candidate Kamala Harris tacked to the right of centre, refused to halt arms sales to Israel, and did not allow a Palestinian voice to speak at the Democratic Convention. In many ways, Mr. Mamdani’s campaign — focused on welfare issues while celebrating his identity as the son of immigrant parents and a practising Muslim — represented everything the Trump administration has demonised during its current tenure.

Seen in this light, Mr. Mamdani’s victory could possibly be the biggest win for the democratic socialist movement that has taken root in U.S. cities since Mr. Sanders’s national campaign. It offers a boost to a demoralised American Left caught between the right-wing populism of Mr. Trump (which has attracted segments of the traditional working class) and what critics see as the vapid centrism of the Democratic Party establishment that refuses to change course, particularly on foreign policy.

Inevitably, the question arises: Is Mr. Mamdani’s win a blueprint for future success for the beleaguered Democratic Party? His campaign — combining modern social media tools with traditional door-to-door campaigning — managed to generate broad support across a sprawling urban metropolis, offering lessons for other Democratic mobilisations in similar environments across the U.S. A freewheeling, accessible style is clearly a more effective approach than the carefully scripted strategy that cost Democrats in 2024.

Road ahead

Yet, challenges remain. Republicans are already working to brand Mr. Mamdani as the radical face of the Democratic Party, while the media establishment that supports the GOP has sought to use his identity to tarnish his record, with one Republican Congress representative’s fundraising appeal branding him as a “Hamas Terrorist sympathiser”. His brand of democratic socialism may indeed prove a difficult sell in the small towns and red bastions of middle America.

Ultimately, Mr. Mamdani’s victory may be less a simple blueprint to be copied and more a mirror held up to the Democratic Party. It has forced a reckoning, proving that a campaign centred on economic justice and unapologetic principles can generate a powerful movement. The question for party leadership is not whether they can perfectly replicate a New York City race, but whether they are willing to embrace the grassroots energy, class-based populism, and bold vision that this stunning victory represents. The future of the party may well depend on their answer.

Published – June 29, 2025 01:40 am IST