Lessons from New York

Some you may or may not have been keeping up with the Democratic Party primary for Mayor of New York City. Democratic Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani comfortably beat out billionaire-backed billionaire Andrew Cuomo, by 56% to 44% in the final round after vote transfers. Mamdani, a Muslim born in Uganda to Asian parents, had just under 500,000 New Yorkers vote for him and came from a position of 1% just the autumn before. Cuomo, on the other hand, former Governor of the State of New York who resigned in disgrace after multiple sexual misconduct allegations, had the endorsements of Bill Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, DoorDash (a gigified food delivery service much like Deliveroo who gave $1m to the SuperPAC that supported him), and, among others, Bill Ackman (a Trump-backing billionaire who gave $250,000 to the campaign). All this just for Mamdani to win the Mayoral Primary, to still not be endorsed by many in the Democratic establishment, and to have to face the corrupt incumbent Mayor, Eric Adams, Andrew Cuomo (again, this time as an independent), and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in the full Mayoral election in November. He is also facing serious threats to arrest and deport him, from Donald Trump. So how did he do it, and what can we learn from his campaign? 

"Zohran Mamdani at the Resist Fascism Rally in Bryant Park on Oct 27th 2024" by Bingjiefu He is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Well, the core parts about what went well all interlink and reinforce each other. A good ground game, of knocking on around 650,000 doors and calling over 250,000 people directly relates to the other elements which made him successful. First, it gave the Mamdani campaign the opportunity to connect with ordinary voters across diverse districts. This meant he could prioritise listening to their concerns and forming commitments around those demands. In doing so, he also had a direct opportunity to fundraise. Mamdani raised more than $8m dollars from 18,000 donors city-wide, resulting in him ‘maxing out’ his fundraising, and encouraging potential donors to support his fellow candidates. This highlights firstly that small, regular donors can sustained a grassroots political campaign, and secondly, that by understanding the ranked-choice voting system, he was able to build progressive coalitions across other Democratic primary candidates to support them in a unified front against Cuomo.

This feeds into the second core feature of his successful campaign: good airwaves. Throughout the campaign Mamdani utilised social media and debate broadcasts to effectively communicate his messaging, including helping New Yorkers understand how the ranked-choice voting worked. This also gave space to run co-campaigns with fellow progressive candidates like Brad Landner to inform each others’ supporters to rank their candidate 1st and the other 2nd. Mamdani’s campaign clearly also learned from their listening exercises to appeal to diverse sections of the electorate, doing campaign videos in Urdu, Yiddish, and Spanish, reflecting New York’s multicultural make-up. These videos also were extremely effective in communicating the material demands of ordinary New Yorkers in a short space of time and not in jargon heavy language.

“The simple slogan, “A city we can afford”, understood why so many people switched to Trump.”

This is arguably the most important aspect of why he won. Mamdani’s campaigns centred around clearly articulated demands that reflected the needs of the people of New York. The simple slogan, “A city we can afford”, reflected the listening post-2024 US election he did, and understood why so many people switched to Trump - namely that the cost-of-living was so expensive and they believed he would lower prices on everyday goods like groceries and rents. Mamdani’s policies for implementing this were also easily memorable phrases: “freeze rents”, “free buses”, and “city-owned supermarkets”. These policies targeted the core reasons many people saw their costs outstripping their income and pulled together a holistic solution to their problems. This along with free childcare for all and the establishment of a Department of Community Safety (as opposed to increasing funding for the police), also prioritised the care economy and looked to be compassionate in its approach.

Of course this socialism met as much, if not more aggressive counter fire from liberals and conservatives, as Jeremy Corbyn did (let’s not forget ‘broadband communism’ on the BBC Daily Politics and ‘nationalising sausages’ on Question Time). This alongside relentless questioning about his commitment to Israel (all candidates were asked where there first visit as Mayor would be, and Mamdani said he would prioritise New Yorkers and stay in the city as opposed to the trips to Jerusalem nearly all the others said). Mamdani has been unwavering in his justification for his socialism and his support of Palestine, funding his policies through a costed wealth tax that he frequently compared to neighbouring New Jersey (where it is higher), giving context and establishing a precedent; as well as reflecting the broader population’s rejection of Israeli genocide. 

With the announcement of a New Left party organised by MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, the learnings from Mamdani are crucial. Corbyn already knows much of this from his own ground game in 2017 and 2019, but tightening up the airwaves is certainly one to get a grip of, especially given the smears and aggressive rejection of his politics by the British mainstream media. Mamdani’s youthful energy and clear charisma also helped with this, making the campaign fun, entertaining and energetic. From the brightly coloured branding, to walking the streets of Manhattan in one day, to interviews with kebab vendors, Mamdani showed his ability to connect with ordinary people in his videos.

We can also learn that a more municipalist politics has also enabled Mamdani to engage in a kind of insurgent politics we have seen across Western Europe. Utilising the local scale of city government to enact a democratic socialist politics in winnable places has been an effective strategy from New York to Barcelona to Berlin to Amsterdam. We even have timid examples in boroughs across London, to some extent in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol and Preston - and even in North Ayrshire. We are somewhat hampered in Scotland (and the UK more broadly) by a lack of local democracy. Common Weal and many others across the Scottish Left have opposed and been skeptical of the idea of importing Metro-mayors to Scotland, but I have somewhat come round to it. Not in the sense of supporting the idea of a mini-fiefdom for individuals across the country, but at least making more of a deal out of it. Mamdani running to be Mayor in one of the largest cities in the world has shown that local level politics can be a space for fostering and incubating more and better political leaders. For a country as small as Scotland, we are so desperately lacking politicians who inspire us. If you ask me, ‘Leader of Dundee City Council’ is nowhere near as exciting as ‘Provost of Dundee’. That’s not to suggest that we start having elections for Provosts - but making a bigger deal out of this role, being drawn from the leader of the largest party in local authorities might perhaps encourage a more engaging local-level politics.

Of course, strengthening our local democracy also means supplying it with more resources - we should absolutely be devolving more policy areas to local and city councils, and supporting them with the resources to implement exciting new ideas. The idea of a campaign running on rent freezes, municipal supermarkets and free buses in Aberdeen might seem ludicrous because of how much local authorities have been hollowed out and turned into procurement vehicles, rather than actual centres of democracy with the means to devise and implement progressive policy.

I am sick and tired of seeing people being too timid to take action, because “it’s not the right timing” to launch Corbyn’s new party. I don't think there ever is a right timing, and its clear that it needs a big name like Corbyn to launch and gain traction, but as I’ve said before we must move on from Corbyn and develop new leaders. Or because “Westminster doesn’t let us do anything”. If those in the independence movement would quit looking to Westminster as the source of all our problems, we might see that a bit more decentralisation from Holyrood would improve a lot of the issues in Scotland before we get to independence, and provide a blueprint for how an independent Scotland could look.

Our politics is too insular, with too much navel gazing. If we looked elsewhere, and learned from their organising strategies, we might actually get somewhere, we might actually see that a progressive Left can make headway by listening to ordinary people and responding to their material needs and by organising at the local level.