Five things Mamdani's win tells us about socialist campaigns
A whole lot of myths are going out the window.
Now that a socialist has won the Democratic nomination for New York City’s next mayor, I think it’s a good time to reflect on some of the lessons Mamdani’s win can teach us.
5. LIBERALS WILL CREDIT SOCIALIST WINS TO EVERYTHING BUT SOCIALISM.
When Mamdani won the primary, it was predictable that conservatives were going to spin it in unison as a triumph for dystopian communism. Liberal pundits, however, quickly rallied around their own talking point: Mamdani won, but it wasn’t because people approve of socialism.
“Some on the left have suggested that Mamdani’s victory proves Democrats do not need to moderate,” Eric Levitz wrote for Vox, but that “doesn’t make much sense. Instead, he argued, the only real insights we can take away from this unprecedented victory are banalities like “Being charismatic and good at speaking off-the-cuff is important”.
Similarly, Ezra Klein and Chris Hayes credited Mamdani’s social media savvy. “I think the way he did it was viral videos,” Hayes told Klein. “He’s the first politician I’ve seen who feels truly native to social media,” Klein added.
Over on Taylor Lorentz’s Substack, she walks through a whole parade of liberal pundits crediting the win to these kinds of superficialities. On one hand, this is probably just how liberals are going to have to rationalize the popularity of a Democrat with politics that they’ve historically opposed. But on the other hand, that’s no excuse for socialists to sit by idly and let liberals neutralize their hard-earned victories in the public eye. These wins are our opportunity to legitimize socialist politics, and we have to take them. On that point,
4. SOCIALISTS WIN WHEN THEY ADDRESS MATERIAL PROBLEMS WITH AMBITIOUS SOLUTIONS.
Ever since Trump won with pledges to bring down food prices there has been an odd impulse among liberals to insist that no one really cares about food prices, or that food prices are some kind of second-order concern that we can afford to deprioritize. And we saw this disinterest reflected in Cuomo’s campaign: his “affordability plan,” for example, which only made vague pledges about “innovative programs” to address food costs. Mamdani, meanwhile, saw that good and grocery prices were at the top of afforability concerns voice by voters, and he advanced a specific plan to address it directly through the government. The proposal to create municipal grocery stores was wildly popular with 2/3 support among voters, and was one of many such initiatives that propelled Mamdani to victory.
3. EVERYONE LOVES A WINNER.
One of the most damaging talking points against socialist electability is that even if a socialist wins in the primary Democrats are likely to abandon him in the general election. That is probably as true as it always is — every candidate has hardline opponents — but what’s also clear is that other Democrats will simply rally around the nominee whomever it is.
This is certainly clear in the case of politicians like Elizabeth Warren, who (once again) withheld her endorsement until it no longer mattered but then jumped on the Mamdani bandwagon. What’s been truly remarkable, however, has been to watch how rank-and-file Democrats have been going to bat for him against his critics. Just look at the replies to this clip of Rep. Laura Gillen complaining that “we aren’t socialist.” It doesn’t take much scrutiny to notice that most of her critics in that thread aren’t socialist — but they’re defending Mamdani because he’s the nominee.
2. SOCIALISTS WIN WHEN YOUNG PEOPLE VOTE.
As the New York Times reports today, the age distribution of voters in this primary was a radical aberration from the norm:
Young people are key to Mamdani’s support, of course: today, a national YouGov poll (which is probably representative) has his favorability at +12 among people under 30 and -17 among people over 64.
Given Mamdani’s army of 46,000 volunteers, it is difficult to imagine a socialist candidate replicating his turnout operation at a national level. That’s nearly twice as much manpower as Bernie Sanders had on the ground in the entire state of Iowa in 2020. What’s far more likely is that Father Time will ultimately play the biggest role in shaping the electorate as Boomers, how to say this, age out of the voting population. Back in 2016 I projected how this seems likely to play out:
So if my back-of-the-napkin math is any indication, it is hard to imagine an outcome like this on this nationally in 2028, 2032, or even 2036. Of course, it’s dangerous business making predictions more than a decade into the future, but the age demographics are what they are.
1. BE PREPARED TO FIGHT OUTSIDE OF THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM.
For now, it seems like Mamdani has a clear path to victory in November — but a lot could change between now and then. Previous polls suggest that a significant number of frustrated Cuomo voters may end up defecting to the third party run of Eric Adams. Cuomo himself has declined to pull himself from his independent “Fight and Deliver” ballot line, though it is unclear if he will actually campaign against Mamdani. And capital has come out in force against him, with billionaire Bill Ackman pledging hundreds of millions of dollars to any viable opponent who will step up to stop the socialist candidate.
The most likely outcome of all of these challenges is that they will end up splitting the opposition and giving Mamdani an easier route to victory. But if his challengers can coordinate their efforts, the fight may be far from over. Regardless, Adams, Cuomo, and Ackman have already made one thing clear: the enemies of socialism have no misgivings about using third party ballot lines. Socialists need to respond to this threat symmetrically and be prepared to run their own third party challenges moving forward.
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