United States: Zohran Mamdani’s win a ‘political earthquake’

July 4, 2025
Issue 
Crowd at a campaign rally for Zohran Mamdani
Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign focused on issues that impact the daily lives of working-class people. Photo: Zohran Kwame Mamdani/Facebook

In the United States, socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani’s win in the June 24 Democratic Party primary for mayor of New York City has been described as a “political earthquake”.

Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), was up against the Democratic Party establishment, defeating former governor Andrew Cuomo and a slate of other candidates.

The win has been celebrated by socialists and the broader left around the world as a spark of hope since the election of Donald Trump last year.

Isaac Nellist spoke with Winnie Marion — a DSA member — about the campaign and its broader implications for politics in the US and internationally.

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Why was Zohran Mamdani’s campaign so successful?

We have been experiencing this rise in far right politics in the US and around the world.

In our two party system we have been offered two options: the far-right extreme views that put working class people under the bus to serve the billionaires; and alternatively, people that are unwilling to stand up to that agenda and continue to uphold the status quo.

The Democratic establishment has not been able to present an alternative vision that has inspired or excited people to fight for things that make their lives better.

When inflation and rent costs are so high, nobody has any confidence in the political system.

Zohran has been successful because he has presented a vision that inspires people.

A lot of first-time voters and younger voters, people who have otherwise not participated in politics in NYC, were excited by a vision for the future they can believe in and that presents an alternative to the right-wing movement.

The Trump administration has been attacking our city’s institutions, even on a municipal level. Having somebody who can confidently say they will stand up to Trump and his far right administration has excited a lot of people.

Tell us about your experiences being part of the campaign.

It’s been amazing on the ground to have so many people supporting the campaign.

Alexa Avilés, the DSA city council member I work for, is also running for re-election and having so many people canvass for her was so exciting.

We would talk to young people who knew about Zohran’s campaign and older people who knew Alexa, so our previous work helped to reach a broad base.

We’ve had 50,000 volunteers door knocking 1.5 million doors and making millions of phone calls. It is an extremely energised movement.

Structurally, we have field leads who are generally DSA members or part of other organisations taking on leadership roles and helping take in new volunteers.

It’s inspiring to talk to so many people who have never been involved in a political campaign before.

I joined DSA in 2020 through the Bernie Sanders campaign and there was a lot of excitement at that time which ultimately was let down when Joe Biden won the nomination, so a lot of socialists have felt like we are building towards a future campaign.

We have built institutional knowledge and structures over the past five years that all came together for this mayoral campaign. We have nine state and local elected officials in NYC.

It is tied to a moment where people feel such dissatisfaction with politics, particularly with the past year-and-a-half of witnessing a genocide. So this all came together to encourage people to join the campaign.

Many have also gone on to join the DSA.

What role did DSA play in the campaign? What lessons is it drawing from the experience?

A coalition of other organisations was also involved in the campaign, but DSA were the main energy behind it. Zohran has been involved with DSA for a long time, and DSA ran his previous campaign in 2020.

One key lesson is that being able to experiment at a time when there is so much dissatisfaction with politics is very important.

Trying large scale campaigns in strategic moments is something we can explore.

Not being afraid to embrace issues that people generally think candidates should avoid, such as using the word “socialist” or supporting Palestinian liberation. People connected with that message.

The other takeaway is the importance of a very clear policy platform with a few key programs that are beneficial and tangible to working-class people.

For example, free buses, making groceries more affordable by setting up public grocery stores, universal childcare, rent freezes for rent stabilised apartments, [platforms] that connect to people’s daily lives and don’t go into technical jargon that disconnects people.

The focus is on what can make your life better this year, or in this mayoral term, and how can we work together to achieve that.

What impact did Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the Palestine solidarity movement have on the campaign?

Zohran’s campaign has elicited a lot of anger from the Zionist lobby. People have been witnessing a genocide for a year-and-a-half and have been completely demoralised.

Last year we had encampments at universities across the country and university administrations collaborated with militarised police officers to crack down on students exercising their free speech.

Campus protest has been the heart of many social and anti-war movements in our history.

At Columbia University in NYC they sent NYPD officers to suppress protests.

The corporate media has targeted protesters and aided Trump to deport people involved in the protests and demand colleges give lists of those who participated in protests. He has also threatened to defund colleges that allow protests to continue.

A lot of the young people who voted for Zohran have seen this in person or on social media, or have been following the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained for months by ICE for participating in Palestine solidarity protests.

We see daily detentions by ICE and the horrors going on in Gaza and most politicians have been afraid to speak up about it.

The fact that Zohran has spoken up about the crisis in Gaza, and the fact that our taxpayer dollars are funding this militarisation and genocide instead of addressing the affordability crisis in the US, has boosted his campaign.

Additionally, the campaign is working to address racism and hate crimes in a broad and systemic way. However, Zohran has been the target of Islamophobia, including from elected representatives.

What impact will Mamdani’s candidacy, and potential win in the Mayoral election in November, have on Trump’s US?

It's hard to predict how Trump will react. Every day I am shocked by how horrible and heartless his political agenda is. Especially on immigration issues.

People are being forced to grapple with the fact that the Democratic Party has not presented a vision that excites people for many years.

It has led to a rising class consciousness as working-class people see themselves connecting to a socialist campaign.

I think a lot of establishment progressive campaigns will try to adopt a lot of the language and messaging that Zohran used to attract votes, but they are not accountable to the movement like Zohran and other DSA candidates are.

We will have to work to differentiate between that style of faux progressivism and socialist politics tied to a movement.

The right will attempt to use Zohran to advance their political agenda. Historically, there has been collaboration between the federal government and the mayor of NYC — it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Eric Adams, the current mayor of NYC who is running as an independent in November, has been aligning himself with Trump’s interests. The City Council has filed a lawsuit against Adams over his plan to support Trump’s deportation drive in the city by setting up Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Rikers Island [which houses NYC’s largest jail].

It is in Trump’s interests for Adams to defeat Zohran. He will try to make NYC an example for other cities in the US.

We will have to set up a front [to defend] our city infrastructure, politics and movements to combat this increasingly fascistic agenda.

What does the campaign reveal about the strengths and weaknesses for socialists engaging in electoral politics?

A lot of working-class people only connect to politics during elections, and don’t yet see themselves as people who can participate in politics in everyday life.

It is important that we use the ballot box to mobilise and excite people towards socialist politics.

We use elections to organise people, show them a better vision for the future and build class consciousness. We should use these platforms to talk with people about what it means to have socialist politics and to present a vision for the future beyond voting for “the lesser of two evils”.

Electoral politics are a helpful tool to talk to people about socialist politics, to build power, pass legislation and stand up to the far-right.

At the same time, we acknowledge that Zohran can’t implement everything on his own. The funding for his opponents does not stop after the election and it will be very hard to implement his policy platform. He will be getting attacks from all angles against what he is doing.

So we should see this as a first step in building a movement that supports what the campaign stood for.

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