Zohran Mamdani Shows How Democrats Can Win

By embracing progressive stances aggressively.

Zohran Mamdani just showed Democrats how to win: not by hedging or hiding, but by being forthright, unafraid, and morally grounded—even on issues as politically loaded as Israel. While most Democrats still treat Gaza like a radioactive word, Mamdani didn’t flinch. And that clarity, not caution, is what carried him to victory.

In a sharp and deeply reported piece for Slate, journalist Aymann Ismail describes watching Mamdani on the ground during key moments in the campaign. One of the most telling came when Mamdani appeared outside the ICE field office in Newark, New Jersey, where Mayor Ras Baraka had just been arrested.

As Ismail reports, Mamdani—who holds no office in New Jersey and can’t even vote there—grabbed the bullhorn and cut through the noise, calling on the crowd to show solidarity with the mayor. It was, as Ismail puts it, “a burst of authority” that made every camera focus on Mamdani and suggested to him that something big was coming.

According to Ismail’s reporting, Mamdani’s eventual defeat of Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor was powered not by institutional muscle or corporate cash, but by organizing. Cuomo, backed by donors and establishment super PACs, spent $25 million attacking Mamdani, trying to paint him as dangerous and extreme. But Mamdani’s campaign, Ismail notes, knocked on 1.5 million doors with the help of 50,000 volunteers. It was people power versus money—and people won.

In describing Mamdani’s ground game, Ismail recounts joining him during the final nights of Ramadan, watching as the candidate navigated Chaand Raat celebrations in the Bronx and Queens. What stood out to Ismail was how Mamdani handled voter questions about Gaza—not with calculated deflection, but with direct, thoughtful answers. “Where other Democrats slip into canned empathy,” Ismail writes, “Mamdani leaned in.” He didn’t sanitize his views. He spoke candidly about the “moral cost of dodging hard truths.” And crucially, he didn’t look to handlers for permission.

Ismail points out that Mamdani went further than almost any national Democrat when it came to Israel. He publicly supported the student encampments that Mayor Eric Adams sent the NYPD to dismantle. He pledged to honor the ICC warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And when asked about his position on the state of Israel, Mamdani insisted on equal rights for all people—not the usual mealy-mouthed appeals to “balance.”

As Ismail observes, this is where Mamdani drew a stark contrast with national figures like Kamala Harris, who was advised to steer clear of Gaza entirely in 2024—and went on to lose to Trump. Mamdani didn’t avoid controversy. He embraced moral clarity, and voters responded.

Of course, there was backlash. Ismail describes how right-wing figures reached for the oldest, ugliest playbook: Islamophobia. Just minutes after Mamdani’s win, the far-right branded him a “terrorist.” Charlie Kirk invoked 9/11. Elise Stefanik warned of “dangerous insanity.” But as Ismail writes, those slurs now sound more like “pathetic cope” than effective attacks. They didn’t land.

Instead, Mamdani’s policies—and the fact that he was the one outside the ICE office protesting, not just tweeting—became the story. Ismail argues that this election became a referendum on immigrant rights, and whether Democrats were still willing to fight for them. Mamdani proved that at least one is.

In a more personal moment, Ismail reflects on what Mamdani’s campaign meant to Muslim New Yorkers—many of whom, he notes, have been surveilled, harassed, and politically sidelined for decades. He shares how even his own father, once a Bush voter, had grown so disillusioned he stopped voting altogether. Mamdani’s victory, he writes, may be the first sign in years that meaningful inclusion and political power are possible for communities long excluded.

Even now, Ismail observes, Mamdani draws more ire for being a socialist than for being Muslim. But that, too, is part of his appeal. The voters who powered his win didn’t recoil from his identity or his ideology—they were hungry for someone who spoke to their values with urgency and without apology. Housing, affordability, public safety—Mamdani didn’t just have talking points. He had a vision.

And it worked.

Ismail closes by wondering whether national Democrats are paying attention. Because Mamdani didn’t win despite being outspoken on Israel, Gaza, and immigration—he won because of it. That’s the playbook now, whether the party is ready to admit it or not.

One last point. I think this strategy, for now anyway, will work better nationally or statewide (California, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Washington) and a few other deeply blue and progressive states. But I would edit it in purple states and House districts, which Democrats need to take Congress.

Campaigns need to be tailored to what will work in a specific constituency. But nationally it can work. Had we nominated Bernie Sanders, we would have been spared the whole Trump era. Centrism excites no one. Nor should it. And, other than the tiny Orthodox Jewish community and Jewish senior centers, neither does embracing Israel.

Hopefully, the Democrats will never again nominate another Kamala Harris who betrayed her own values by embracing Biden’s positions on Israel. That didn’t cost her the election, but the timidity it evidenced may have. Democrats better learn from what happened in New York Tuesday. All it takes, for most of them, is to simply say out loud what most Democrats think: about rapacious capitalism, the phony border issue, Israel, and the host of other issues which they tiptoe around.

Especially rapacious capitalism which is the slavery issue of our day and which enslaves every working American, regardless of race or creed, and which, along with racism, is the source of all our problems and which has, to a very large extent, turned the USA into, to use Trump’s term, a “shithole country.”