Fourteen hundred delegates from around the country attended the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) convention in Chicago last month under the shadow of Donald Trump’s expanding authoritarianism. Votes there reshaped significant internal practices, established political guidelines for the coming years, and demonstrated widespread agreement on the centrality of stopping the genocide in Gaza, building up labor unions, and growing the socialist movement. At the same time, some decisions pointed to strategic and tactical tensions under DSA’s big tent, at a time when Zohran Mamdani’s campaign and potential mayoral victory in New York City will both shine a spotlight and hang a target on DSA.

Mamdani’s campaign electrified the convention. City and state chapters buzzed with ideas about how to “Mamdani” their own locale. New York City DSA’s Zohran-related merch was a hot commodity, spotted all over the convention floor. All eyes are on New York — not only on Mamdani himself but on how NYC-DSA, labor unions, and community groups will mobilize to defend him and win his most popular reforms in office.

Early on in the proceedings, Detroit congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s keynote speech highlighted Mamdani’s victory and placed US politics squarely in the frame of Israel’s genocide. Listening to her and watching delegates’ reactions, it’s obvious how she has earned political respect and genuine affection as one of DSA’s most outspoken national leaders. Scanning the packed meeting hall for her Detroit comrades, she asked, “Where are you?” As the chapter’s delegates stood and cheered, she continued, “That’s my family! They believed in me when nobody had ever heard my name.”