Zohran Mamdani’s New York State Assembly Victory Shows What Winning Socialist Campaigns Can Look Like
Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialists of America–backed candidate for New York’s state assembly, has officially won his race. His campaign shows us what a serious socialist electoral bid looks like: class-conscious politics, an uncompromising program, and deep face-to-face organizing. There should be many more like it.
Zohran Mamdani in New York. (Photo by Kara McCurdy.)
A swath of electoral upsets in New York City saw the DSA for the Many slate winning a clean sweep of its races, electing four new democratic socialists and reelecting another by a wide margin.
Among the victors is Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a twenty-eight-year-old housing counselor and Queens DSA member, who unseated ten-year state assembly incumbent Aravella Simotas. The race was clear-cut: an unapologetically socialist candidate running on bold demands like housing for all, up against an establishment candidate failing to keep up with one of the most progressive districts in the country.
After years of Simotas taking corporate donations and rubber-stamping austerity budgets from New York governor Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani and groups like the DSA resolved that Astoria would put a stop to politicians, who took money from real estate interests and police unions, running working-class families out of their city with rising rents and over-policing.
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