Mammani won with the help of the elevation and unification of some of the most forgotten voters in New York. Now its coalition has the opportunity to transform what is possible for people everywhere.
Zohran Mammani with fans in Brooklyn on May 4, 2025.
(Andrew Liechtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images)
In the cold February day of 2017, The gates went down Thousands of Bodegas through New York. Many of the Yemen, the family shops, which almost never closed, not behind the snowstorm, not for darkening, even for Ida. But only that once they did. The occasion was Donald Trump’s first Muslim ban. The owners closed their lights, closed the door and drunk: “Closed in protest. Closed for dignity. Closed for America.”
The day they collected Brooklyn’s hall in the hall under the winter sky, praying in the cold and waving American flags. It looked like a protest, but it seemed something deeper. It was a collective act contrary to – and affiliation. For many years after September 11, Arab and Muslim New York lived under the long shadow of observation and suspicion, ordered to keep their heads down, silent and be grateful. Bodega strike in 2017 broke through this silence. There were Muslim workers and small business owners – unopologenous, organized and stood on the shoulder – they did not ask permission, but claiming their place in the city they helped to build. It was not just about Trump’s ban. It was a gap with the post-9/11 fear policy. This noted the emergence of a new species of Muslim American politics – it is introduced in solidarity visible in public and justified by the authorities, not just presence.
Few people saw it. But on this day it was not only the end to hide. It was a quiet beginning of perestroika, which would understand more than years when the New York Democrats chose Zohran Mammani as a nominee for the mayor.
Mammani’s victory is historical in how the headlines capture. He is the first Muslim and South Asian nominee of the Mayor of New York, and the first democratic socialist in generations was a real shot in the leading major American city. But the main facts are not a true story. The true story is how he won – and why.
When Andrew Kuoma launched his return application, the democratic institution seemed to like to pretend that the last decade had not happened. Godfather lack As if it were in 2010, relying on the same donors, repeating the same conversations, spending millions on television ads and arguing that the tired electorate agrees for the devil they knew.
But Mammani saw what they didn’t do. He acknowledged how much land had changed. In part, this change began with the Bodog strike in 2017. Some people who organized or participated in this protest helped to force his campaign. Others who have been politicized or ignored since then joined its coalition. The memory of this moment – when the immigration communities performed to say, “We belong here” – did not go out. He deepened. It matured.
They were not symbolic gestures. These were seeds. The Mammani company has grown from the years of organization, disappointment and sadness, especially among young progressives, immigrants, Arab and Muslim communities that have long been pushing the party. He didn’t just run against Kuom. He encountered a political amnesia that forgotten people who appeared when it was important.
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No problem found that it turned off more clearly than the gas. Over the last 20 months, when tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed by US bombs, democratic leaders have proposed excuses instead of action. Even if the party base has moved to the support of Palestinian rights, the guide stood firmly.
Basically, Kuoma followed this scenario, accusing Mamman of extremism of his pro-Palestinian views and the requirements for loyalty. But Mamman did not shudder. He called what was happening. He said that solidarity is not a slogan that multiple democracy should mean something for those who most often ask.
Voters did not punish him for it. They rewarded him. As the Bangladesh Uber driver told me on the night: “Zohran is a world, not for war. He is for ordinary people. We don’t want any more wars. We need help here in New York.”
This clarity was not rhetorical. It was the basis of his company. And it worked. Mammani didn’t just won the slope or the hill block in the park. He won across the city: In Jackson -hitsts, Richmond -hill, Satset -Park, Chinatown and Flashing. He flipped over Swing areas such as Oucky Gardens, places that voted for Joe Biden in 2020, for the governor of Governor Lee in 2022, and for Donald Trump last year. He The united two groups It rarely moves in tandem: young progressives and work class immigrants.
This coalition did not appear from the air. It has been built for a decade, starting with Bernie Sanders 2016, lifting DSA in politics in New York, Democrats’ victories in Alexandria Akasia-Cartes and Jamaal Bowman, as well as The defeat From the Republican Independent Democratic Coalition, supported by the Republican, a victory, which is partly fueled by a party of working families. He gained force through protests, petitions, primaries and losses. It learned to win, learning to lose – on the contrary.
By 2023, the Socialists occupied more seats in Albani than at any time in the last hundred years. Arabic, Muslim and Bangladesh communities began to elect their own leaders and form strong institutions. Mamman has grown in this movement. When he ran for the mayor, he was ready.
While the national democrats were distracted, Mamman leaned. He ran on Clear and justified message: Freeze the rent, make buses free, build public grocery stores. His position on Israel and Palestine was not buried, and she was not isolated. It was part of a broader argument about dignity, the housing and voices of which are important. He made democratic socialism sound like common sense. He invited people – not to agree on everything, but to build something more than himself.
He also realized what you are doing solidarity. His alliance with Brad Lander, a progressive Jewish comptroller of New York, was not just symbolic. It was strategically. Together, they showed that Muslims and Jews can share power without developing their differences, and that the real coalition was built through action, not just conversations.
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Some will say that Mammani won the kuoma failures, or because young voters such as Tiktok. But it was not a Vibe company. It was a company about housing, buses, food and war. Yes, the connection was sharp. Yes, Mammani understood the moment. But what made his company powerful was her honesty. It didn’t just look good. This said the truth.
Now the danger is that the Democrats will take the wrong lesson from the Mamman triumph. They can try to copy the Media Strategy Mamdani by ignoring the content of its message. Somewhere someone is already breaking meme, convenient for crying about the “economy” funded by Jpmorgan. But what the voters moved was not a means. It was a message.
Mamman critics call it radical. The same criticism of Fiorello La Guardia in the 1930s. The New York Times – Note La Guardia was obsessed with “socialist games” as public power. Today, La Guardia is remembered not as a radical, but as one of the greatest mayors of the city. They called the airport behind it.
If Mamman’s victory feels like something new, it is. But it’s also a return. Returning to a policy that views dignity as incorrect, solidarity as a strategy and leadership as a tool for many. In the city, which has long been guided by caution, voters have chosen courage. They chose the memory, forgetting.
They remembered Bodegas. They remembered prayers in the cold. They remembered how they felt left behind – and what they felt to fight. And this time they didn’t just protest. They voted.
The question is now whether the Mamman coalition can control. If it can, it may not just change New York. This can change what is possible everywhere.
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Katrina Vanden Hievel
Publisher, Nation
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Neither Bill Clinton nor Jim Klibourne, nor all billions of Michael Bloomberg could save Andrew Kuoma from the defeat he deserved.
Surprisingly, he translated it into a real -life victory that will forever change the way of conducting elections.
Mammani outlined a strategy. The left should now follow his example and the primary Richie Torres, Hockey Jeffreis, Chumer Shumer and many others.
In the reproach of the cynical democratic insider and the New York Times editorial page, voters supported the democratic socialist for the mayor of the country’s largest city.
