Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City is one of the highest-profile victories for a socialist candidate in American history.
In the “capital of capitalism”—the largest city in the most powerful imperialist country on earth—over one million people voted for a self-described democratic socialist, in what The New York Times correctly described as a “surge of anti-establishment discontent.”
The significance of this political earthquake can hardly be overstated. Ever since Bernie Sanders began his first presidential campaign in 2015, socialist ideas have been making inroads into the American working class. But Zohran’s victory is one of the clearest signs yet of the enormous shift in mass consciousness that has taken place over the last decade.
“Democratic socialism” has become mainstream
Just nine months ago, Zohran was a virtual unknown polling at 1%. But his calls for freezing rents for rent-stabilized apartments, free city buses, affordable childcare, and city-owned grocery stores—not to mention his opposition to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza—rapidly attracted wide support. He amassed a 42,000-strong volunteer base that propelled him to a stunning Democratic primary upset over establishment favorite—and eventual Trump endorsee—Andrew Cuomo.
Since then, his volunteer base has swelled to 104,000 people. They collectively knocked on three million doors and made 4.4 million phone calls in the lead-up to election day. The New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—which has around 10,000 members across the city, including Zohran himself—formed the backbone of this volunteer base.
In the end, Cuomo’s $40-million campaign, including constant TV and radio attack ads, was no match for Zohran’s ability to mobilize volunteers and tap into the rage felt by millions of working-class New Yorkers at the rising cost of living, obscene wealth inequality, and the heinous crimes carried out by Israel with the backing of US imperialism.
Zohran won the votes of many white-collar workers, but also won the majority of lower-income neighborhoods. This included winning a large majority of neighborhoods in the Bronx, where over one quarter of residents live in poverty.
According to the Mamdani campaign, 6,568 people agreed on the spot to volunteer for him after being approached by canvassers. Another 8,389 people agreed to volunteer as a result of phone banking. This shows the degree of enthusiasm for a candidate who is seen as a genuine fighter for those long denied a political voice. Above all, his program highlighted the need “to lower the cost of living for working-class New Yorkers.”
The “democratic socialist” label was not an incidental factor, but rather, a central component of Zohran’s success. A CNN exit poll revealed that 85% of Mamdani’s roughly one million voters consider themselves “democratic socialists.” All told, 25% of New York voters identified with this label. This comes after a September poll found that an astonishing 74% of likely Democratic voters across the country see “democratic socialism” as the term that comes closest to their political viewpoint.
Zohran also won:
- 65% of first time voters in a mayoral election
- 59% of renters
- 59% of respondents who said their families are financially falling behind
- 66% who said cost of living is the most important issue facing NYC
- 33% of voters who said they have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party
- 65% of voters who have an unfavorable view of both parties
- 76% who said opposing Trump was a reason for voting
- 9% of people who voted for Trump last year, and 9% of self-identified MAGA voters
All of this confirms what the Revolutionary Communist International has been saying since Trump’s reelection last year: the US working class has not “shifted to the right” in any fundamental sense. Rather, the crisis of American capitalism, and above all the crisis of the US economy, is pushing workers towards anti-establishment politicians willing to take on the status quo.
The rising appeal of left and right populism is a distorted reflection of the desperate search for solutions to the problems facing all workers. In this case, we see a peculiar situation in which a self-described socialist is running within the capitalist Democratic Party, due to the absence of a mass workers’ party in the US.
In a city where Zionist Democrats have called the shots for decades, Zohran’s election is also an important victory for the Palestine solidarity movement. In fact, Zohran’s call to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal if he comes back to New York—dismissed by the bourgeois media as an absurd proposition—was supported by 63% of primary-election voters.
In his victory speech, which he began by quoting the great American socialist, Eugene Debs, Zohran promised to deliver on his bold promises and even flaunted his democratic socialist credentials:
When we enter city hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them. A great New Yorker once said that while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme, and let us build a shining city for all. And we must chart a new path, as bold as the one we have already traveled.
After all, the conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.
Thirty years ago, all of this would have been absolutely unthinkable in the US. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the American ruling class triumphantly declared that socialism was a thing of the past. But theirs was a pyrrhic victory. We live in a completely different world now. Any lingering misconceptions that the American working class is somehow impervious to socialist ideas can be laid to rest for good. It is abundantly clear that socialist politics are back on the agenda in this country.
The fight has just begun
Immediately after news of his victory broke, reports of jubilant celebrations in packed bars across Brooklyn and Queens hit the airwaves. New York DSA unveiled a triumphant poster declaring “Socialism wins.”
Undoubtedly, Zohran’s election is a symbolic victory against capitalism and Zionism. But now is not the time to get complacent. The reality is that genuine socialism has not yet won. A long, hard battle against New York’s capitalists and the entire US ruling class awaits.
From the moment he won the primary in June, the bosses have threatened a strike of capital against a Zohran-led New York. Trump has suggested he’ll withhold federal funding for the city. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul—a Democrat who hesitantly endorsed Zohran to gain leverage—has continually hinted that she’ll block any new taxes on the rich. Meanwhile, the bourgeois press have published hundreds of articles slandering and attacking Zohran.
The pressure of the Democratic Party, bourgeois media, 300,000-strong municipal bureaucracy, and the landlords and capitalists will only increase from here. While Cuomo may have been defeated, hundreds of high-ranking city-government bureaucrats remain at their posts, and will continue to fight in the interests of the capitalists and landlords under a Zohran mayorship.
By all accounts, Zohran Mamdani is motivated by a sincere desire to lower the cost of living for ordinary people. But history shows that to transform society, good intentions are not enough. To succeed, we need a scientific understanding of how capitalist society operates and what kind of enemy we’re up against. This is why the RCA has continually opposed socialists running as Democrats—an institutional party of the class enemy. While we join the majority of working-class New Yorkers in celebrating the noxious establishment candidate’s defeat, we could not lend our support to Zohran’s campaign as long as he was running in the Democratic Party.
Zohran is entering enemy territory, and he will need a serious strategy to succeed. To start, he should keep in mind his own past statements about the goals of the socialist movement. As he told a YDSA conference in 2021:
What the purpose is about this entire project is not simply to raise class consciousness, but to win socialism. And obviously raising class consciousness is a critical part of that. But making sure that we have candidates that both understand that and are willing to put that forward … We have to continue to elect more socialists. And we have to ensure that we are unapologetic about our socialism.
Zohran was exactly right when he said this. All history testifies that weakness in the face of the class enemy only invites aggression. Only a strategy of bold, unapologetic class struggle—relying solely on the strength of the working class—can succeed.
But it must be said that, so far, Zohran has not heeded his own advice. Since the June primary, the capitalists have moved might and main to rein him in, and in a series of closed-door meetings, Zohran has given them a friendly hearing. As The New York Times Magazine detailed in October:
[Since June] Mamdani has engaged in a second primary of sorts, meeting quietly with city power brokers to consolidate support and box out his main rivals … Some of it was reported. Much of it wasn’t.
For months now, Mamdani has been meeting privately with former leaders in city government, business executives, heads of New York arts and cultural institutions and skeptical local Democrats. The talks are pitched as get-to-know-you discussions with the new political star. But they also serve a dual purpose, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. In them, Mamdani has sought to present himself as a new type of leftist, a listener who understands his shortcomings and is willing to grow. He has acknowledged his lack of managerial experience and asked for advice. He has sought common ground …
Robert Wolf, [a] Partnership for New York City member and a major fund-raiser for the Democratic Party, [said] he has begun texting with the candidate, becoming an informal pulse check for the city’s finance and business community. Wolf also met with Mamdani for an hour at his campaign office this month, an in-person follow-up to an hourlong Zoom meeting in August.
“Zohran, to me, is more of a progressive capitalist,” Wolf [said], adding that he was convinced by their private interactions that Mamdani understood the importance of the private sector thriving in his New York.
The Financial Times reported similarly on the eve of the general election:
Mamdani has been working hard since the primary to broaden his appeal and prove to New Yorkers that he is no firebrand, assiduously courting constituencies that were initially hostile to his campaign such as big business and Wall Street.
He initially scared the moneyed elite by promising to raise taxes on New York’s wealthiest residents and businesses, proposing a 2% tax on incomes over $1 million that would generate $4 billion in tax revenue, and an increase in the state’s corporate tax rate to 11.5%—the same level as in neighboring New Jersey—producing about $5 billion annually.
But since the primary, “his message has become much more nuanced,” says Kathryn Wylde, head of Partnership for New York City, an advocacy group representing some of the city’s biggest private-sector employers.
Courting the class enemy is a dangerous game. The pressure put on him during these back-room meetings has already led to backtracking on Zohran’s part.
Over the summer, he vowed to “discourage” his supporters from using the slogan “globalize the intifada,” apologized to a large group of NYPD officers in a closed-door meeting for his statements during the 2020 George Floyd uprising, and quietly hinted that a rent freeze might need to be revisited after four years.
He also assured “business leaders” that he’s not committed to taxing the rich, and he’s open to funding his programs through spending cuts of some kind. On top of this, he has dropped strong hints that he’ll keep billionaire heiress Jessica Tisch as police commissioner.
Former US President Barack Obama himself called Zohran twice over the summer. After praising his campaign, Obama reportedly gave advice on what kind of “infrastructure” Zohran would need to prepare in order to govern, and offered to be a “sounding board” for his proposals in the future.
In his last year in office, Obama approved a ten-year $38 billion military aid package for Israel, which would later be used to slaughter tens of thousands of Gazans. He’s hardly a worthy “sounding board” for a candidate who won in large part due to his support for Palestinian rights.
Obama and the rest of the ruling class want Zohran to play by “their rules”—rules written by the capitalists to secure their wealth and power. Zohran would do best to completely disregard and distrust the “advice” offered by these tried-and-true enemies of the working class. The workers have zero common ground with these people, and absolutely nothing to learn from them. The likes of Barack Obama, Kathy Hochul, Chuck Schumer, Patrick Gaspard, Sally Susman, and their ilk should be regarded with disdain and kept far away from Zohran’s operation. If the capitalists want to hold “get-to-know-you” discussions with Zohran, so be it, but these meetings should be fully open to the public.
Militant class-struggle tactics needed
In October, The New York Times called Zohran a “well-educated and well-mannered son of Manhattan intellectuals,” and approvingly observed that he “listens, asks questions and is amiable,” while he “doesn’t lecture the business leaders, instead absorbing their points of view and, at times, promising to think about their arguments.”
But the capitalist class is a ruthless and determined enemy. They understand that their interests are diametrically opposed to those of the working class. They cannot be “charmed,” reasoned with, or otherwise convinced to support genuine reforms, because reforms are simply not in their class interests. In our era, only all-out class struggle can win serious concessions.
Like all reformists, Zohran seeks to be “all things to all people,” promising substantial reforms to the working class while assuring the capitalists that their profits will be secure. It would be one thing if world capitalism were in the midst of a general upswing, as it was from 1946 to 73. But in an epoch of capitalist decline, this is simply not possible.
In the context of a global crisis of overproduction, US imperialism is losing its edge over rising Chinese imperialism. The capitalists regard even minor incursions into their profits as a serious liability. What’s more, allowing any substantial reforms would risk emboldening the working class to fight for more—appetite comes with eating. Already, there are reports of Wall Street shotcallers “plotting the next move.” The ruling class will fight Zohran’s program—mild and “reasonable” as it may be—tooth and nail.
To quote the Bible, “No man can serve two masters.” In his effort to deliver on his reforms and help the socialist movement take a real step forward, Zohran’s only reliable allies are the workers and youth who propelled him into the mayorship. Zohran has repeatedly referred to the Democrats as “our party.” But from the point of view of the working class and the socialist movement, it’s not “our” party. It’s their party—the capitalists’ party—and understanding this distinction is crucial to success.
The capitalists are ramping up the pressure on Mamdani. By running in the capitalist Democratic Party, he has put himself in a bind. But it is not too late to break with their political framework altogether and transform his campaign into a nerve center for all-out class struggle.
There has never been a better time to break with the Democrats and build a class-independent workers’ party.
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Zohran, a nationally known figure, has been elected mayor of the biggest city in the US. He has behind him an army of volunteers who want a serious fight against the billionaires. With a single Instagram video, he could call on his 100,000 volunteers and five million followers to form a new political party, completely independent of the Democrats. Such a party would not simply be an electoral vehicle, but would organize a serious struggle of the working class.
Given the hatred that millions feel for both bourgeois parties, this would spread like wildfire to every major city in the country, forming the basis for a mass workers’ party in the US. The movement can start in New York, but in order for workers to win, it must spread nationwide. Now’s the time for boldness and audacity—the entire world is watching! The naysayers will argue such a course is “unrealistic.” But what’s unrealistic is the idea that any meaningful change can come through the party of the Clintons, Joe Biden, and Andrew Cuomo.
In staffing his administration, Zohran should rely only on the ranks of the DSA and other rank-and-file field organizers from his campaign, disregarding the attempts of the Democratic establishment to worm their way in. He should pledge to accept only the wage of an average worker, and top city management should do the same.
The administration should see itself, not as a New York–specific entity, but as the focal point for a national struggle against the American capitalist class as a whole. The problems workers in New York face are the same problems that crush workers across the country: low wages, dwindling job opportunities, unaffordable housing, expensive food and healthcare, etc.
Breaking publicly with any association with the Democratic Party and appealing to the working class of New York and the US as a whole would go a long way towards fighting the reactionary “culture war” divisions that plague American workers. On this basis, it would be possible to launch a national struggle for affordable housing with rent capped at 10% of income, well-paid union jobs to rebuild infrastructure, free public transportation, affordable childcare, and a high-quality nationalized healthcare system.
The stakes are high. If Zohran continues along the road of class collaboration, he will inevitably be forced to betray his base, regardless of his intentions. Should this occur, the bourgeois media will highlight all the problems of capitalism in New York City—homelessness, joblessness, etc.—as the inevitable results of “socialism.” This could tarnish the idea of socialism altogether.
On the other hand, if Zohran takes this opportunity to launch a no-holds-barred struggle against the capitalist class, the socialist movement could turn US politics upside down. Not closed-door meetings with the capitalists, but rather, pickets, strikes, mass demonstrations, and general strikes in New York City, Albany, and across the country are the way forward.
The comrades of the Revolutionary Communists of America will be in the thick of these battles, fighting alongside our class. We are eager to discuss the way forward with Zohran’s supporters in New York City and across the country, and will continue to offer our perspectives for how the movement around Zohran can succeed. We will support steadfast action and criticize backsliding. We are confident that, so long as we learn the lessons of the past, the heyday of the socialist and communist movement in America is in the near future.
