What Every Democrat, Everywhere, Should Take from Zohran Mamdani’s Upset

Five lessons for anyone running for office anywhere in the country.

On Tuesday night, Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist, shocked the political world by wiping the floor with Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral primary.

And then everyone lost their effing minds.

Republicans and the MAGA right went full racist. They called Mamdani a “jihadist,” threatened to deport him (he’s an American citizen), and MAGA activist Laura Loomer said that Mamdani’s election would lead to another 9/11.

While many younger, more progressive Democrats cheered Mamdani’s win, much of the Democratic establishment began to panic about the political ramifications of electing a Democratic Socialist with Mamdani’s positions, record, and past statements. As Alex Thompson and Andrew Solender wrote for Axios in a story with the provocative headline “Democratic establishment melts down over Mamdani's win in New York”:

Driving the news: On Wednesday, many Democratic lawmakers and officials either denounced Mamdani or notably declined to rally around him. Republicans—including President Trump—crowned about Democrats embracing a Democratic Socialist who has called for reduced police funding and sided with Palestinians in the Gaza war.

The top two Democratic leaders in Congress, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, both New Yorkers, declined to endorse Mamdani even as they applauded his victory.

New York Rep. Laura Gillen, from Nassau County, called Mamdani the "absolute wrong choice for New York."

Rep. Tom Suozzi, also from Nassau County, said he had "serious concerns."

Other House Democrats from New York who hadn't backed Mamdani were mostly tight-lipped Wednesday.

There’s a real concern across the party that Trump and the GOP will weaponize Mamdani in congressional races across the country. If you've heard me rant on Pod Save America or seen my posts on social media, you know that I find this reaction nonsensical and counterproductive.

I am not worried about Zohran Mamdani. I am excited by his victory. I’m impressed by the campaign he ran, and I’m inspired by the movement he built. I believe there are lessons in his win for every Democrat running for office in every part of the country—from places as blue as New York City to as red as rural West Virginia.

Before you delete this post or try to have me committed, hear me out. I am not arguing that New York City is a model for purple, let alone red districts. Trump made gains, but Kamala Harris still won the city by 37 points. I’m not arguing folks should run as Democratic Socialists or adopt Mamdani’s policy agenda.

I will also stipulate that Mamdani is a unique political talent. He is a great communicator, comfortable in his own skin, and skilled in the ways of the modern media ecosystem. Not everyone can make a video on food truck permitting reform go viral.

But when someone pulls off a political upset of this caliber, the campaign should be studied for lessons that can be applied broadly.

Here are five key lessons:

1. Never Stop Communicating

Feel free to chalk this up as confirmation bias, but for a while now I have been advocating for Democrats to adopt an “Everything, Everywhere All at Once” media strategy. The gist of it is that politics is now a war for attention, and if you want to get your message out, you have to always be communicating. Do everything, go everywhere. Never stop.

I get no credit, I had no influence (I can’t emphasize this enough), but this is the exact approach Mamdani brought to his campaign. He was omnipresent. He took every media opportunity possible. He went on podcasts like Pod Save America and

The Bulwark

. He debated abundance with Derek Thompson on Plain English. He went on the show Subway Takes. He posted videos with local influencers as well as his own content. But he was also always available to the local media. If anyone wanted to talk, Mamdani was available.

This is the only way to communicate in this media environment. Too many Democrats are too risk-averse or spend too much time overthinking their message or media strategy.

2. Simple, Memorable Policies that Communicate Your Values

Those who say Mamdani won because of his charisma and cool TikToks are oversimplifying the matter. He had a great message, and the message was built on a very compelling policy platform. The core elements of that platform are:

• A rent freeze

• A pilot program of city-run grocery stores in food deserts

• Free buses

• Higher taxes on the rich to pay for it

You can disagree with the political appeal or the substantive feasibility of these proposals. They, of course, won’t work for every candidate (free buses doesn’t really translate to a rural district). They won’t be the platform for the whole party. The lesson is not the individual policies. It’s why they worked for Mamdani.

His policies were memorable, easy to understand, and communicated his values. Every voter knew that Mamdani wanted free buses and a rent freeze. Those policies signaled that lowering the cost of living was his top priority. Trump’s plan to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it was nonsensical, but it served a similar purpose.

Kamala Harris had a website full of economic policy ideas. They were all written by very smart people. They were substantively sound and would have helped millions if implemented. But can you name one of them?

3. Focus on the Cost of Living

The cost of living is the issue of our time. The costs of housing, healthcare, and education have been rising faster than wages for a very long time, but the post-pandemic inflation-driven spike in groceries and other consumer goods has compounded this crisis. This Gallup chart shows that these concerns dominate people’s lives.

Mamdani’s entire campaign was laser-focused on reducing the cost of living. There were no other issues on his website. He turned every opportunity into a discussion of how to reduce the cost of living.

The candidate that the public trusts more to address higher prices will win every election. It’s why Trump won in 2024, and it’s why Mamdani won in 2025.

4. Insider vs. Outsider, not Left vs. Right

Mamdani ran a proudly progressive campaign. He didn’t try to sand down the edges of his policy proposals or his ideology. He ran as a proud Democratic Socialist, but he also won a lot of more moderate voters—people who never would have previously considered voting for a Democratic Socialist.

There was an important ideological component to the race, but that was not the only dynamic. Zohran Mamdani was also an outsider running against a broken, corrupt political system. It helped that Mamdani’s main opponent was himself a broken, corrupt politician who embodied everything people hate about politics.

Not every candidate can or should emulate Mamdani’s ideological positioning, but they should run as an outsider. It’s not an accident that the change candidate has won all but one presidential election since 2004. The one exception was Barack Obama in 2012, and one could argue that he still represented change to most of the public.

5. Running to Win vs. Running Not to Lose

The Mamdani campaign felt different than your typical campaign for many reasons. Many of them are unique to Zohran and his talents as a communicator and politician. But there is one difference in particular that is very important: Zohran Mamdani was totally unafraid of losing. Too many Democrats—and this is one of my criticisms of Kamala Harris’s otherwise valiant campaign under very challenging circumstances—are so afraid of losing that they can’t win. We are unsure of ourselves and worried about what Trump, Fox News, or even people on our own side will say about us. The decision-making is more focused on reducing the likelihood of the worst-case scenario than achieving the best case. No matter what you are running for—from president to school board—the odds are that you are probably going to lose. That’s the nature of politics. To win, you have to take risks; try things; and adopt higher-variance strategies.

Trying not to lose is a terrible way to win.