3 days ago
Zohran Mamdani's surprising surge fueled by pocketbook promises, social media savvy
At a recent canvassing event for mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in Sunnyside, Queens, a campaign staffer kicked things off by asking how many of the three dozen volunteers on hand were about to go knock doors for him for the first time.
Nearly half of the canvassers raised their hands in response.
To the surprise of many in New York's political establishment, Mamdani, 33, has leap-frogged other more-established candidates to become the leading progressive running in the June 24 primary. Polls have shown him consistently ranking as the second-place candidate behind front-runner Andrew Cuomo, and some recent surveys even indicate the ex-governor's lead over Mamdani is shrinking.
A key factor behind Mamdani's surge is the groundswell of support he has generated from young, left-leaning voters. As of mid-May, his operation had mushroomed to include over 20,000 mostly young volunteers, a bigger field team than any of the other 2025 mayoral campaigns bolster. Waves of newcomers showing up to canvass events has become a trend, especially in recent weeks, according to his team.
'You are our generation's Fiorello La Guardia,' one of the Sunnyside canvassers, a man in his 20s, told Mamdani, a western Queens Assembly member who was up-until-recently a relatively unknown political figure in the city.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, told the Daily News he has indeed borrowed a page from La Guardia's playbook, focusing his candidacy on a set of easily digestible policy proposals: Freeze the rent for stabilized tenants in the city, drastically expand free child care for all residents and make public buses free. To pay for it all, he's proposing to raise taxes on corporations and millionaires.
'It's a fight that Americans across ideologies want to see in this moment,' Mamdani said as he walked away from the Sunnyside canvass to catch a cab to a campaign stop in Brooklyn.
'And what has made me proud to be a progressive for the entirety of my political career has been the sincerity at the heart of these commitments — that you don't just believe in something when it is convenient, but you, in fact, are committed to it and fighting for it if necessary.'
Mamdani's momentum is in part born out of a social media strategy that speaks to the sensibilities of younger voters. He typically posts short, oftentimes comedic videos about himself and his policy platform that regularly go viral.
In one, he interviewed exuberant Knicks fans outside Madison Square Garden after they beat the Celtics on May 16 to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. Mamdani, a onetime amateur rapper who went by the stage name 'Mr. Cardamom,' said that was a spur-of-the-moment decision he made while watching the game with a staffer over dinner.
'They won, and we thought, 'Let's go,'' he said in one of several interviews with The News from the campaign trail over the past few weeks.
The popularity of Mamdani's populist proposals isn't just rooted in a savvy social media presence.
It comes as studies show affordability remains a top issue on New Yorkers' minds, with rents at all-time highs, prices for basic goods like groceries elevated due to President Trump's tariff-heavy trade war and social safety net programs benefitting the city's most vulnerable at risk due to Trump's federal funding cuts.
'I never used to be as far left as a Bernie [Sanders], but those are the only people who are looking out for us,' said Anita Hennessey, a 61-year-old child care worker who told The News she will rank Mamdani at the top of her mayoral primary ballot after speaking to him during a recent campaign stop.
Diana Moreno, a 37-year-old Mamdani volunteer, told The News in between knocking doors on a recent weekend while carrying her newborn baby, that too many New Yorkers are thinking of leaving the city because they can't afford to stay.
'Things are too expensive here, and this is exactly why I'm supporting this campaign because so many working people like myself, especially couples who have kids, like the couple that I was knocking the doors of, they're not staying, they're leaving,' Moreno said. 'As directly and as effectively as Zohran, I don't see other candidates speaking to the needs of working New Yorkers the way that he is.'
Doug Muzzio, a veteran New York politics expert and pollster, said Mamdani has broken through in a much more effective way than other progressive mayoral hopefuls like Brad Lander, Zellnor Myrie and Adrienne Adams because he's not using 'the traditional language and ideas.'
'He's thinking outside the box and he's offering positions that are outside the perceived mainstream,' Muzzio said. 'People have been surrounded by mainstream candidates their whole lives, and here's a fresh voice, a fresh face and a fresh attitude, while the rest of them are stale.'
Mamdani said his own personal situation is a factor driving his policy agenda. He lives in a rent-stabilized apartment with his wife in his western Queens district and they're likely looking to have children.
'We want to have a kid, absolutely, sometime in the next few years, and knowing that it will cost $25,000 to take care of that child is one that makes it a much more difficult decision than it should be,' Mamdani said.
The son of an award-winning filmmaker-author couple, Mamdani at the same time acknowledged he grew up in relatively privileged circumstances and hasn't personally experienced the sort of financial turmoil he argues many New Yorkers are now facing,
'I was lucky in that I did not feel the same kind of betrayal that working class New Yorkers have felt … and yet I know that it can be make or break,' said Mamdani, who'd become the youngest mayor in modern city history if elected.
Other voters expressed openness to Mamdani's pitch, but worried he's not breaking through to enough of the Democratic electorate.
'I like him … I just don't think a lot of people know who he is,' retired Department of Correction worker Sheryl Watts said before listening to Mamdani speak to the congregation she's part of at the Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Springfield Gardens on a Sunday morning last month.
Mt. Pisgah's pastor, Rev. Johnny Ray Youngblood, whose church is in a section of Queens that voted overwhelmingly for Mayor Adams in the 2021 election, urged Watts and other congregants to keep an open mind about Mamdani.
'I heard in this man something I have not heard in the other candidates,' Youngblood told congregants as Mamdani stood besides him. 'Do not count him out as just any other candidate, because he is not.'
It's one thing to promise rent freezes and free child care.
But skepticism around how Mamdani would make good on his pledges is prevalent in some corners of the electorate, as he'd have to overcome serious fiscal, legislative and regulatory obstacles to enact his platform.
Critics are especially skeptical of Mamdani's ability to pull off his promises because he has no experience as a government executive and has only gotten three bills passed into law during his four years in the State Assembly.
'How are you going to pay for things?' Leslie Gevirtz, a 72-year-old retired journalist, asked Mamdani while walking by the Sunnyside canvass, prompting him to text her a link to his seven-page taxation policy plan.
Gevirtz wasn't convinced.
'That's what bother me,' she told The News of what she saw as Mamdani's half-baked blueprint for how to bankroll his proposals.
To make city buses fare-free and provide fully subsidized child care for all New Yorkers between six weeks and 5, Mamdani has proposed to increase taxes on millionaires and corporations in the city to generate $10 billion in new annual revenue.
Such increases would need support from Gov. Hochul, who has been hard pressed to back tax hikes and is unlikely to soften that stance as she faces what's expected to be a tough reelection race next year.
The Democrat-controlled state Legislature, which would also need to sign off on any tax hikes, could be more amenable. The Assembly and the Senate included proposals for tax hikes on millionaires and corporations in their initial budget bids this year — but Hochul blocked both.
'It's a non-starter for the governor,' a high-ranking state legislative source told The News of the concept of tax increases in 2026.
Mamdani has said he's confident in his ability to negotiate with Albany stakeholders and told The News he's willing to compromise on aspects of his agenda if that's what it would take to get them through. For example, he said he's open to dialing back his proposal to jack up income taxes by 2% on city residents earning more than $1 million per year.
'If we were to get to a point where 1% is what it looks like in the first year, that allows us to begin so much of this platform,' said Mamdani.
The push to freeze rent on all stabilized tenants for at least four years is perhaps Mamdani's most actionable plan.
Increases on stabilized tenants are set by the Rent Guidelines Board, which is made up of mayoral appointees. So Mamdani could make good on his freeze vow simply by stacking the panel with members who commit to enact no rent increases.
The stabilized landlord lobby is vehemently opposed to a freeze, arguing it'd make it impossible for small property owners to maintain their buildings. That lobby would invariably fight tooth-and-nail, including by filing lawsuits, to block any rent freeze.
Amid rising tensions across the city over the war in Gaza, Mamdani has accused Israel of conducting a genocide as part of its war against Hamas, which has left more than 50,000 Palestinians dead. Israel launched its offensive after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
He has also at times described himself as an 'anti-Zionist,' voiced solidarity with Palestinian civilians and said recently he believes in Israel's right to exist as a state 'with equal rights for all,' as opposed to a Jewish state.
Mamdani's stance on the issue has become a major focus on the campaign trail, with moderate-leaning figures, including Mayor Adams and Cuomo, accusing him of aligning with antisemitic ideals.
Mamdani, who is Muslim, has dismissed those accusations as false and politically motivated. He says he's committed to fighting antisemitism, pointing to a commitment he made in his public safety plan to increase funding for hate crime violence prevention in the city by 800%.
Still, tensions boiled over recently when a heckler wearing a 'Make America Great Again' cap tried to bum-rush Mamdani while shouting 'antisemite' at him as he was speaking at a Working Families Party rally in Brooklyn's Fort Greene Park with Lander, Myrie and Adrienne Adams.
'I know typically the advice is just to keep going,' Mamdani said as the heckler was in the middle of interrupting him before being removed by organizers.
'But to be the first Muslim elected official to run for mayor, it means dealing with the most ridiculous [comments], and these are some of the ones that we're hearing in this moment.'
