Zohran's Historic Win: 16 Takeaways

After decades of defeats for working people and the Left, it almost felt like a dream to witness Zohran Mamdani make history last night. Sometimes the good guys win. As David Hogg wrote last night, “BREAKING: Not everything has to suck.”

Absorbing the key lessons of this campaign is essential for the fights ahead, not just in New York City, but across the United States. Here’s an initial list of the biggest takeaways.

1) Zohran’s victory is a nationwide political earthquake. Huge numbers of voters are sick of the Democratic establishment, and there’s no good reason why his playbook can’t be widely repeated elsewhere. The party’s decrepit old guard is vulnerable, its unpopularity delivered us Trumpism, and it deserves to be displaced everywhere.

2) By stubbornly hammering on proposals to make the city affordable, Zohran was able to break beyond the Left’s college-educated base. He won all across the city, including in neighborhoods like Sunset Park and Woodhaven that swung rightwards towards Trump in 2024. Economic populism is our best weapon to win back working people and to overcome Trumpism. Blame the billionaires, not immigrants or transgender people.

3) We should always ignore the pundits and political hacks who try to convince us that transformative change is impossible — or that the best we can do is chase after a mythical political center, rather than winning the battle of ideas and ambitiously raising voters’ expectations.

4) Billionaires tried to buy this election and they lost badly. It turns out that the oligarchy is not invincible.

5) Pundits will try to spin this as purely the result of Cuomo’s unpopularity or Zohran’s charisma. That’s part of the story, but only part. In addition to the resonance of his policies and crystal-clear message on affordability, there’s no way he could have won without the tireless ground game of 50,000 volunteers and the New York City Democratic Socialists of America and other allied organizations. Knocking 1.5 million doors is an astounding feat.

6) Young people were the heart of this campaign. Last night, tens of thousands of them got to experience the ecstatic feeling of making history through collective organizing. Feeling that even once is enough to make you an organizer for life. This youthful social movement has the energy and ambition to make New York social democratic again.

7) Social media is extremely important for capturing the attention of wide