Dem
47
GOP
53
The elections last week were a real eye-opener for some people, especially young progressives. They saw Zohran Mamdani—who, by conventional standards, was a three-term assemblyman well-qualified to be... a state senator—become the chief executive of an organization with 280,000 full-time employees and a budget of $110 billion. That amount of annual revenue is more than that of Target, Disney, FedEx or Albertsons. If NYC were a company, it would rank about 40th among U.S. companies by revenue.
Mamdani's real achievement was winning the primary against a number of higher-profile and/or more conventionally "qualified" candidates. Beating a widely despised scumbag running as an independent in the general election was considerably easier. Almost any generic Democrat could have done that. In fact, it is actually a rather poor showing. Mamdani's vote share of 50.4% pales in comparison with Kamala Harris' 68.1% share last year and Eric Adams' 67.0% share in the 2021 mayoral election. Two-thirds of New Yorkers are Democrats. Winning only half the vote against two extremely weak opponents is not something to write home about.
Nevertheless, inspired by Mamdani, more than 4,000 people just registered at Run for Something, an organization that helps young progressives who never before thought about running for public office to build a campaign and run for some office. The offices they are interested in running for are all over the map—local offices, state offices, Congress, and more. Some potential candidates already have some fame, like social media star Kat Abughazaleh, who is running for the House seat being vacated by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). Others, like Courtney McClain, who is running to unseat Rep. William Timmons (R-SC), have never run for public office before and are not famous. They are surely thinking: "If a Muslim born in Uganda can be elected mayor of NYC, then in a blue wave next year, anything is possible."
This surge in interest isn't the first one, just the latest one. In June, when Mamdani won the primary, 10,000 people signed up with Run for Something. This doesn't mean that all 14,000 will in fact run for something (and many of them may be aiming for the same office). Signing up to get advice and a how-to-run manual is not the same as filing, raising money, hiring staff, mounting a real campaign, and catching on. But it shows there is a tremendous amount of energy being unleashed at the grassroots and some of the new sign-ups may indeed actually run and win. Remember, you can't beat someone with no one, and the Democrats' chronic problem for years has been finding people to contest all those downballot offices.
Olivia Julianna, a young Democratic strategist, warned that trying to clone Mamdani's campaign won't work. Rural South Carolina is not urban NYC. Mamdani didn't talk much about how Donald Trump's policies are hurting farmers, but McClain might well be advised to spend a lot of time talking about that to South Carolina farmers. However, one theme that many young candidates can use, regardless of geography and office, is that the country is on the wrong track and current leaders are failing the people. What do you have to lose trying someone who thinks things need to change and wants to do something different? It could be a powerful argument.
One thing Mamdani had going for him is that he was a Democratic Socialist (as well as a democratic socialist). The Democratic Socialists for America chapter in NYC is quite large and Mamdani got 50,000 volunteers to knock on 3 million doors. That strategy won't work in most places, but it might work in places where there are potentially many volunteers available (e.g., college towns) and for people already Internet famous and who can reach thousands or millions of people by posting an announcement video to some social media site. In any event, expect many more insurgent campaigns next year up and down the ballot. (V)