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This Could Be the Democratic Candidate of the Future, According to POLITICO

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  March 26, 2025 6:00 PM

As the Democratic Party increasingly becomes anti-Israel and shifts further to the left, mainstream media outlets are profiling these candidates as the future of the party. If that's really the case, will Democrats keep losing, or might they still win, especially in bright blue states, districts, and cities?

Over the weekend, POLITICO published a profile on Zohran Mamdanim, a 33-year-old socialist assemblyman running for mayor of New York City, in its magazine. The puff piece, "The Democrats Are Losing the Social Media Wars. This Young Socialist Is Changing That," comes in at close to 2,500 words.

Per the headline, there's plenty of mention of Mamdani's social media habits, and in contrast to other Democrats. As the piece mentions early on:

It’s Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist and upstart NYC mayoral candidate who is comfortable taking stages stuffier politicians wouldn’t. In search of voters, particularly fickle young ones who need a jolt to stop doomscrolling, this former rapper and current state assemblymember will leap onto nontraditional platforms like this one. Or into the winter waters of Coney Island in a business suit for Instagram (“I’m freezing … your rent as the next mayor of New York City!”). Or into interviews with Trump voters on the street like an influencer with a microphone, not to debate them but to understand them — and, in some cases, to win them over.

It’s a literally splashy messaging strategy tailored to the shifting media environment Democrats have largely ceded to conservatives, leading to disastrous consequences for the party. With TikTok shifting young voters sharply to the right and podcasters having just played a major role in helping elect President Donald Trump, the left has been flailing in search of an effective way to utilize social media and other non-legacy platforms — and so far, it has been failing miserably. (See: last month’s infamous “Here’s what Democrats did in February” tweet.)

But that’s not the case with Mamdani. The performer’s approach he’s brought to modern mediums has paid off in massive fundraising wins. He beat the whole Democratic primary field in his first filing period and now boasts a race-leading 17,000-plus contributors, translating into those millions in matching funds. And some recent polling even has him in second place in the crowded field of 11-plus candidates — behind only former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a dynastic politician who is the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic primary in June.

“As establishment Democrats fail to meaningfully connect with voters through nontraditional media, we’ve broken through to them — and it’s driving our fundraising and field efforts,” wrote campaign manager Elle Bisgaard-Church in a March state of the race memo.

The key to his tactics is part delivery, part content. He relays his messages in stunty, shareable packages, but the substance of that message draws on an older tactic from the Bernie Sanders playbook: Pick a handful of straightforward economic proposals that would impact the daily lives of regular people and repeat, repeat, repeat. Attendees of a Bernie rally are primed to chant Medicare for All before they even get there. Now, thanks to his social-media savvy outreach, Mamdani draws crowds ready to sing along to his own greatest hits — like at the comedy club.

The piece does mention the young socialist's policy plans, as he puts them out there. Not enough is said about how radical they are, though. Policies such as free bus rides and socialized grocery stores aren't economically sound. New York City is already in trouble in many ways.

As the piece does mention, though:

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“All right,” he asks, “who here knows our platform?”

“We’re running to freeze the…”

“Rent!” the crowd yells in unison.

“To make buses fast and…”

“Free!”

“To provide universal…”

“Childcare!”

He sums it up for the crowd: “It’s a platform about making New York City more affordable, because right now, the people who have built this city, the people who keep this city running, cannot afford to keep calling it their home.”

None of this is very likely to put the junior member of the state’s lower legislative chamber into the mayor’s office, given obstacles like Cuomo’s name recognition and a rightward shift in the city. But his campaign is doing something with implications far beyond New York, something that should grab the attention of Democrats around the country: He’s charting a way out of the abyss and into the new media age, one video at a time.

...

That mission is resonating early in the NYC mayoral contest, with Mamdani climbing the polls despite his youth and lack of managerial experience. “Zohran is one of the few serious communicators the socialist and progressive left has now in America,” said Ross Barkan, a political writer and former political candidate who once employed Mamdani as his campaign manager. “I think a lot of the left lost the plot,” Barkan said, in terms of “emphasizing cultural issues at the expense of economic issues. I think Zohran has been very smart to run a cost of living campaign.”

It’s not that Mamdani has abandoned identity. While Democratic stars like California Gov. Gavin Newsom are advocating a tactical retreat on certain debates in transgender politics, Mamdani showed up at a protest supporting medical care for trans New Yorkers. He also readily talks about his immigrant background as a practicing Muslim who was born in Uganda. Instead, he’s advocating a “yes-and” version of leftist politics: Yes, maintain progressive principles on social issues — and emphasize an economics-first message. Without compromising his positions on issues like trans rights or Palestine, Mamdani nonetheless offers a clear-eyed view on the limits of identity politics. There is a “ceiling” on the power of representation, he has said, because “people cannot feed themselves and their family on someone looking like them.”

...

As upbeat music swirls, Mamdani fast-talks about his universal childcare, rent freeze and grocery store ideas. In a burst of outer borough realism, the spot ends with the elders devolving into argument again about early morning construction noise, as Mamdani slips quietly away from the table.

...

There’s simplicity: One of Mamdani’s volunteers informed him that trying to freeze the rent has been the most successful hook to land people. “I love his ideas,” said one straphanger, pointing to rent stabilization in particular. Repetition pays off.

There is zero mention of Israel in the piece, despite how Mamdani is running to be mayor of New York City, which, outside of Israel, has the largest Jewish population. There is mention of this made up territory of "Palestine," which makes leaving out Israel that much worse.

For all this talk of social media, Mamdani has indeed made his anti-Israel stance known, especially following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, as well as his opposition to deporting pro-Hamas terrorist sympathizers, including Mahmoud Khalil, who led pro-Hamas activities at Columbia University and participated in them more recently at its sister school of Barnard College. 

The Trump administration has been looking to deport Khalil, which Mamdani responded over X to earlier this month in part by reposting a leftist, anti-Israel group known as Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JREJ). 

Mamdani has continued to speak out against Israel in his posts over X, and has done so for years. Although Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), a pro-Israel Democrat didn't mention Mamdani when endorsing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) last month, it was clear he was referring to the assemblyman when he shared his concerns with another candidate. 

The assemblyman and mayoral candidate was also particularly aggressive in protesting against Tom Homan, the border czar for the Trump administration. If New York City's status as a sanctuary city seems bad now, with current Mayor Eric Adams (D) signaling his willingness to work with the administration, one can only imagine what a new Democratic mayor in office would look like. But again, the puff piece didn't get into that, either. 

Mamdani himself proudly posted clips in which he's seen trying to shove past law enforcement in order to approach Homan.

While the magazine article mostly downplays Mamdani's chances, that may even give him a boost with a kind of underdog status. It also mentions how Mamdani is actually second in the polls behind Cuomo, who had been teasing a run for months that he just made official earlier this month. Recent polls show he's even surged when it comes to the support he has, though he's still far behind Cuomo. The primary takes place in June. 

If this is the "strategy to the left," as the subheadline suggests, it could very well signal a shift for the Democratic Party to the far left.