By Sheldon Ranz

The history of mainstream lefty runs for mayor of NYC has been discouraging. Previous campaigns by democratic socialists NY State Assemblymember Frank Barbaro in 1985 and Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger in 1997, each of whom had been critical of the Israeli government, fell short. But it seems as if the third time may well be the charm…

It is hard to believe that just last February, NY State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani was polling dead last at just 1% among mayoral hopefuls, campaigning against the 1%-ers of New York City. And yet, his openly socialist and pro-BDS candidacy arrived just at the right time, with the Trump regime inciting a thirst for profound change, attracting 52,000 young volunteers who tirelessly outcanvassed and outphonebanked the other candidates, especially the frontrunner, former Governor Andrew Cuomo.

For months, Mamdani was stuck in second place, albeit slowly narrowing the gap. His campaign excelled at social media presentations, ubiquitous on Tiktok and Instagram, and in getting public funding matching grants, while Cuomo’s campaign kept screwing that up and was cited for violations, eventually having to rely on rich private donors to keep it going. Cuomo’s TV ads were negative to a fault and presented Mamdani as if he were a comic-book villain. The ads made mention of the New York Times editorial stating that Mamdani was so bad that he did not belong on the rank choice ballot. The sheer volume and hysteria in the ads on the airwaves was both insane and laughable. Did Mamdani stand a chance?

And yet, on June 24, he did more than that, beating Cuomo by such a convincing margin that Cuomo was forced to concede just two hours after the polls closed. The final tally, announced on July 1, showed that Mamdani had won 56% of the primary vote to 44% for Cuomo, after all the other candidates had been eliminated in the ranked-choice system. The 543,344 votes for Mamdani were the most for any primary winner since 1989, when Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins beat incumbent Mayor Ed Koch.

So how did Mamdani pull it off?

• Affordability: Mayor Adams’s willingness to allow rents to rise made this the top issue in the campaign and the most relatable to working-class and poor New Yorkers.
• Sticking to his Guns: Mamdani refused to apologize for supporting Palestinian human rights, even if some pundits told him that such support was insensitive to Jews. He understood that making such apologies was a sign of weakness and helped sink Jeremy Corbyn and the UK Labour Party in the 2010s.
• Finding the Missing Voters: In the 2021 mayoral election, three million registered Democrats did not vote. The Mamdani campaign made a special effort to target them and turn them out for Primary Day.
• Smart tactics: the ranked-choice system allows candidates without an easy path to victory to cross-endorse each other. Mamdani and NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, consistently polling #3 in the race, cross-endorsed each other to stop Cuomo. Credit JFREJ – Jews for Racial and Economic Equality – who jointly endorsed Mamdani and Lander early on, for lobbying these candidates to help make this happen.
• Cuomo’s incompetence: several times during the campaign, his people submitted loads of invalid signatures, resulting in rejected public campaign funding applications. Cuomo’s ego was so big that he refused to cross-endorse anybody. He skipped a critical candidates forum at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on June 8 that angered many of his Jewish supporters and turned into a triumph for Mamdani (see more below),.
• Bragging Rights: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg concurrent successful prosecution of sexual predator Harvey Weinstein reminded everybody that the #MeToo movement is far from dead. The DA made the sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo matter again.
• Personality: In the closing days leading up to the primary, Mamdani pulled off an impressive physical feat. He walked the entire length of Manhattan, from Innwood to the Battery, 13 miles in total, several times a week, in his dark suit and tie. He made a point of talking to African-Americans in Harlem, especially those who had been hit by robocalls from Rep. James Clyburn, the Big Pharma lobbyist who prides himself on being the ‘Bernie Buster’ from the 2016 and 2020 presidential cycles. Mamdani’s humor, charm and sheer endurance nullified whatever damage those robocalls caused.

In all of this, SDUSA’s NYC chapter had not been absent; far from it. Shortly after our endorsement of Mamdani, “Zionists for Zohran”, was published in late May, copies were sent out on social media and distributed at public events. A week later, the Jewish newspaper The Forward noted that candidate Lander had lost 2% of his Jewish support to Mamdani, leaving him trailing Mamdani 20% – 18% in that area.

At the Democratic mayoral candidates forum on June 8 at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I was able to meet Mamdani before he took the stage and ensure that he and his Campaign Coordinator, Andrew Epstein, got a copy of the endorsement.  Since Mamdani was being hounded by his opponents for (allegedly) refusing to visit Israel, I reminded him that even if he wanted to visit Israel, Israel would not allow him to enter the country because he supports BDS. Therefore, he would do well to remind the audience that Israel has this repressive policy and that that is the real problem here.  Sure enough, during the panel discussion, one of the other candidates taunted Mamdani over him not visiting Israel and Mamdani responded, using the information I had given him.  Many in the audience cheered him; some were stunned to hear about this. I was sitting in the front row, and he smiled at me as I gave him the thumbs up!

Good times for sure, but let’s not forget, there is still a general election on November 2 coming up, with Cuomo and Adams running as independents and Curtis Sliwa as the Republican nominee. Mamdani has pulled in most of Cuomo’s labor union backing to add to his superior ground game and has not made any mistakes. Still, we are aware of what happened in 2021 in Buffalo when India Walton won the Democratic primary but lost to the incumbent Mayor Byron Brown. But, you know who else is aware? Zohran Mamdani!. As Walton told Norman Solomon in The Rage of Billionaires and the Frenzy to Stop Zohran Mamdani From Becoming New York’s Mayor (Counterpunch, July 1):  “Watching the New York City mayoral primary from Buffalo last Tuesday gave me a familiar feeling…As I watched the results come in, I felt a flutter in my gut and a sense of pensiveness. A feeling of overwhelming joy and a fear that it would be snatched away despite my attempts to cling to it. I imagine that as Zohran watched, he also felt a sense of familiarity. In 2021, Zohran Mamdani supported my run for Buffalo mayor; I was a first-time unknown candidate challenging a 16-year incumbent, and conventional wisdom said it was an impossible race to win. Now, in 2025, Zohran has once again toppled the establishment. I’m starting to think that populist policies that focus on working people are a winning strategy.”

Sheldon Ranz is the Director of Special Projects for Social Democrats USA and the editor of Socialist Currents.