In the final days before New York’s mayoral election, every politico and news junkie seems to be looking for a lesson in Zohran Mamdani’s rise. How exactly did an obscure legislator overcome the collective power of the political establishment, win New York City’s Democratic primary, and become the general-election front-runner to lead the United States’ largest city?

Those looking to replicate his success want to know: Was his secret sauce the super-slick ads? Was it his populist message spotlighting the city’s affordability crisis? Was it his uncanny ability to draw attention to himself? Or was it his sunny charisma and energetic youth in an age of decrepit gerontocracy?

All of these factors undoubtedly contributed to Mamdani’s shocking ascent, but most of those positives might never have mattered absent the most significant but least discussed factor of all: public money.