Whether you agree with his politics or not, Zohran Mamdani just showed America what it means to run a campaign for the people. In the Democratic primary, he won with about 56 percent of the vote, and in the general election, he captured around 50 percent, defeating Andrew Cuomo, who received circa 42 percent. Mamdani’s victory made him the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of New York City and one of the youngest in over a century. His success was not just the result of numbers but of presence and persistence.
He was everywhere, in neighborhoods, on social media, and on the ground with voters who rarely feel seen. It did not matter whether they were African American, Muslim, Latino, or white. Mamdani talked to everyone and focused on what mattered most: housing, rent, affordability, and the simple dignity of being able to live in the city where you work. He ran a campaign that felt human, local, and authentic.
It is also true that he benefited from a weakened field. Andrew Cuomo, though experienced and once powerful, was weighed down by past scandals that had deeply tarnished his reputation. The third candidate, Curtis Sliwa, was practically invisible in the race and never managed to mount a serious challenge. Mamdani’s opponents may have opened the door, but it was his energy and proximity to the people that carried him through it.
And that is exactly what the Democrats have failed to do in recent years. Their campaigns have been distant and uninspired. That includes the 2024 presidential campaign of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. During that election year, I traveled extensively across the United States, moving my belongings between Salt Lake City and Baltimore, as I was a resident of both states at the time. From Maryland, I crossed Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming before reaching Utah. When I was in Utah, I went down to Nevada, Los Angeles, and up to San Francisco before returning to Salt Lake City.
In all of that travel, through Democratic and Republican states alike, I did not once see the Harris/Walz campaign team. Not once. What I saw everywhere was the Trump campaign. His supporters were visible on the roads, at gas stations, in small towns, and even in places one would expect to lean blue. They were talking to people, handing out flyers, showing up.
The Democratic campaign, instead, chose to be championed by celebrities. And that was not a time for Democrats to stand behind celebrities. It was a time to stand beside the people who were struggling to get by. On the road, I saw families living in motels, white working-class parents with children who no longer had homes. People waited in parking lots, looking for cheap meals, trying to survive. The country was in a state of quiet desperation, and yet the Democratic leadership seemed to exist only in studios and gala rooms. They chose image over proximity. They ran a campaign of distance, not presence.
Trump’s team understood visibility. They were everywhere. Harris’s team was nowhere. And so they lost, not because America had suddenly turned right-wing, but because the Democrats have forgotten how to look people in the eyes.
It is time for the party to move beyond the Obama template. What worked for Barack Obama worked for him. It was his charisma, his moment, and his story. But the Democrats cannot keep recycling that formula and expect it to resonate with a generation that is poorer, angrier, and more disillusioned.
They need their own voice, a new language that meets people where they are: in the subway, in the grocery line, in the streets. As Bernie Sanders said after Trump’s victory, “This is what happens when the Democrats are so out of touch. The Democrats have abandoned the working class, and the working class have abandoned them.” Zohran Mamdani’s campaign showed that when you walk with people, listen to them, and fight for the issues that shape their daily lives, they will walk with you.
