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.
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.