In just a few months, Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman and Democratic Socialist, has gone from a long-shot fringe candidate to a national figure — securing an upset win in the June primary, where voters 18-29 had the highest turnout of any age group.
Now, on the cusp of Election Day — where polls show him the clear frontrunner over his closest rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — Mamdani is counting on that youth coalition to show up again. But his pledge to address rising costs appears to be resonating with young people far outside of the five boroughs. It’s a message that many Gen Z and millennials say speaks to their most pressing concerns at a time when many feel hopeless about their leaders and yearn for new voices willing to break with political norms.
“When a candidate is able to speak to the concerns of the populace and validate those concerns … I think that that has a big impact, especially when it comes to young people,” said Ruby Belle Booth, who studies young voters for the nonpartisan research organization CIRCLE.
Almost like there is a large, unmet demand for leftist politicians at the national level. Hmm, no, couldn’t possibly be it.
I don’t even know if it’s that. I wonder how much of it is just “shit is clearly bad… Let’s please just try something different and see if it helps.”
We’ve been doing the exact same stuff for so long and everything gets worse. The current administration’s solution is to just go backwards and try the old stuff that didn’t work again and see if it will work now somehow.
wonder how much of it is just “shit is clearly bad… Let’s please just try something different and see if it helps.”
It’s kinda both from how I see things. When Bernie wasn’t given a chance by the DNC in the primaries in 2016, the Bernie supporters flocked to vote Trump. The Sanders to Trump pipeline is real. Slavoj Zizek made a great point that people want someone outside of the neoliberal status quo, and Americans got that, but with Trump. Americans are kind of at the crossroads of what they really want.
Yeah, it seems like the left and right agree that shit needs to change, but the right has been convinced it’s the left’s fault instead of it being the mega-rich.
When Bernie wasn’t given a chance by the DNC in the primaries in 2016, the Bernie supporters flocked to vote Trump. The Sanders to Trump pipeline is real.
clinton supporters formed a literal PAC to get mccain elected because they hated the idea of a black president that much.
Historically they make noise but don’t actually come out to vote though.
Republicans don’t vote for democrats either, but the party keeps courting them anyway.
This is why establishment dems are as opposed to him as the republicans.
We’re seeing in real time how the system does NOT want things to get better for us, and the people who are supposed to represent us are representing their own agendas and preservation of the system that lets the administration dine in gilded ballrooms while we literally starve.
Mamdani got to the national stage through grassroots campaigning and involvement from people who care. You CAN make a difference if you get involved on a local level and get active in your community.
This has been a problem since Obama was elected, and before. The d’s do not want progressives. That’s what happened to Sanders. We need a new party.
Also a better voting system where you just rank at which place you want each candidate and it doesn’t divide the votes. At least for local voting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
https://youtu.be/l8XOZJkozfIWe need a new party.
That would be ideal, and maybe it can happen, but we can also do what some of the actual progressive democrats in the party want, which is overhaul the party, eject the elderly old liches who don’t want change, build an actual progressive foundation of local leaders and state representatives so that we’re no longer propping up these worthless, geriatric, out-of-touch democrat leaders.
Again, we have to stop attacking the top of the pyramid, we have to start carving out the base so it collapses. It’s not as fun and exciting as starting a new club with new rules and hoping it takes off, but it takes advantage of existing power structures and political investment, it just takes doing that hard thing nobody wants to do which is getting far more involved than just ranting on social media every four years.
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But widespread support will matter when they try to deport, imprison, or execute him. The uprising would need to be national.
Crazy to think people want representatives who actually put forth ideas to HELP THEM…
I saw a DSA Mamdani sign up in a train station in California yesterday, he’s definitely got national exposure.
I’m old enough that I look at him and think “oh he would be such a nice son in law” 😄
I’m 35, I live in North Carolina, and the only TikTok videos I watch are Zohran Momdani’s… Just give me something to hope for, people. And I’m not unique. There are a Fuck Ton of me.
I met a waitress in Paris who reminded me to vote for him. I was syrprised someone overseas cared that much.
I remember when I was in college and people were clamoring on the Ron Paul bandwagon, entirely because he was a high profile politician from a bright red state that wasn’t rabidly pro-war. Like, the demand for something that wasn’t (Republican: KILL’EM ALL!) or (Democrat: Let’s only kill as many people as is fiscally sensible) was so overwhelming that Paul’s dogshit economic and social politics failed to register for millions of people who probably should have known better (myself included).
Over twenty years later, I feel like we’re getting something of the reverse. A guy whose politics would normally rub GenZ / GenA liberals the wrong way and whose faith/tan would enrage young conservatives is getting a Katamari-like following across the political spectrum entirely because he’s outside the increasingly narrow R/D divide.
Good for Zohran. Hope he wins.
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I like the guy and he deserves to be a national leader but I hope Dems don’t push to alter the Constitution so he can run. Bad enough we have Krasnov in the Whitehouse, we don’t need someone like Musk to run.
National leader in this context doesn’t mean president. It just means somebody with clout that people listen to, and can focus public attention on specific issues.
Musk can’t run he was born in South Africa. He’s an Apartheid Nazi
That’s what the person was saying. Mamdani can’t run either since he wasn’t born in the US. They don’t want Dems to try to change the constitution because they think that means president Musk
Got the message
I’m not even a youth, I can’t bit him but I fucking would.
This guy has triggered the Right. Very high chance he will be assassinated at some point.
But I have little confidence genzennials will actually vote. They just talk about it on social media because they can then complain how they’re getting fucked by Boomer politicians.
You ain’t fixing anything with blaming the youth. Youth need to be encouraged to vote and most of them will vote for trustworthy politicians which are very rare. Hopefully Mamdsno influence many other politicians if he succeed and do most of his promises
