What If Socialists Won New York? A Political Scenario

TL;DR

This is speculative political fiction. It imagines a scenario where Zohran Mamdani—a real DSA assemblyman who announced his mayoral campaign in October 2024—wins the 2025 NYC mayoral race. The biographical details, legislative record, and housing crisis data are factual; the election results, volunteer numbers, and governing outcomes are extrapolated scenarios exploring what a socialist municipal victory might look like and what it would mean for American politics.

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Note: This piece is a political scenario written in the style of post-election analysis. All election results, vote totals, and post-2024 events are speculative. Real-world outcomes may differ significantly.

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In this scenario: Zohran Mamdani wins the NYC mayoral race on November 4, 2025, defeating Andrew Cuomo 50.78% to 41% to become the first Muslim and youngest mayor in over a century. The 34-year-old DSA assemblyman mobilizes 50,000 volunteers who knock on 1.6 million doors—outworking what Cuomo's super PACs outspent him in dollars. His victory validates the "dirty break" strategy: running on Democratic ballot lines while building independent working-class organization. The question shifts from "can socialists win?" to "can they govern?"

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Zohran Mamdani wasn't supposed to win. When he announced his mayoral campaign on October 23, 2024shortly after Mayor Eric Adams became the first sitting NYC mayor criminally indictedformer Governor Andrew Cuomo led early polls by 20 points. The real estate industry, which had spent $43.9 million on New York campaigns between 2005-2013 alone, lined up behind Cuomo. The "Fix the City" super PAC poured $17.5+ million into defeating the Queens assemblyman who had passed exactly three bills in Albany.

On November 4, 2025, Mamdani won with over 1 million votesthe first mayoral candidate to exceed that mark since John Lindsay in 1969. Turnout was the highest since 1993. He won four of five boroughs, losing only Staten Island.

This wasn't charisma defeating money. It was organization.

From Kampala to Queens: A Three-Continent Biography

Zohran Kwame Mamdani was born October 18, 1991 in Kampala, Ugandamaking him 34 when elected mayor. His family story intertwines displacement, academia, and film across three continents.

His father Mahmood Mamdani (born 1946 in Bombay, raised in Uganda) was expelled alongside 80,000 other Asians by dictator Idi Amin in 1972. He eventually became the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, authoring influential works including Citizen and Subject and Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.

His mother is Mira Nair, the Oscar-nominated Indian-American filmmaker behind Salaam Bombay! (1988), Mississippi Masala (1991), and Monsoon Wedding (2001). The couple met in Uganda in 1989 during research for Mississippi Masala and married in 1991. Zohran is their only child.

Educational and career timeline:

Period	Location/Activity
1991-1996	Kampala, Uganda
1996-1998	Cape Town, South Africa (father headed African Studies at UCT)
1999	Moved to New York (age 7)
K-8	Bank Street School for Children
2010	Graduated Bronx High School of Science
2014	Graduated Bowdoin College (Africana Studies)
2016	Music supervisor/3rd AD on Queen of Katwe
2018-2019	Foreclosure prevention counselor at Chhaya CDC

The housing counselor role matters. Mamdani spent his days helping Queens residents facing foreclosure navigate a system designed to extract wealth from working families. He saw the same predatory patterns repeated across hundreds of cases. This wasn't abstract policyit was constituent after constituent losing their homes to an industry that spent millions ensuring Albany wouldn't stop them.

The 2020 Upset: 346 Votes Changed Everything

Mamdani defeated Aravella Simotasa five-term incumbent who had held Assembly District 36 since 2011by approximately 346-424 votes (51.2% to 48.6%) in the June 23, 2020 Democratic primary. Results weren't finalized until July 22 due to over 16,000 absentee ballots during COVID-19.

The funding contrast was stark:

Candidate	Funding Source	Amount
Simotas	Corporate contributions	$230,000+
Simotas	NY State Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee	$125,000 (8 days before primary)
Simotas	Uber/Lyft PAC attack ads	Undisclosed
Mamdani	Grassroots donations	Average $36/contribution
Mamdani	Corporate money	$0

Simotas hired Stanley Schlein, a prominent real estate lobbyist. The Uber/Lyft PAC ran attack ads calling Mamdani an "extremist." He was outspent roughly 10-to-1.

The campaign exemplified the DSA organizing model. Mamdani was the only Queens candidate endorsed by NYC-DSA that cycle, part of a coordinated five-person "DSA For the Many" slate. DSA volunteers conducted extensive door-knocking before COVID, then pivoted to relational organizing, phone banking, and multilingual outreach in Bangla and Arabic.

All five slate candidates won:

• Julia Salazar (Senate re-election)
• Jabari Brisport (Senate)
• Phara Souffrant Forrest (Assembly)
• Marcela Mitaynes (Assembly)
• Zohran Mamdani (Assembly)

Mamdani called it "the first socialist caucus in Albany in a century."

District 36 covers western and central Astoria plus northern Long Island Citya heavily renter (80.7%), diverse district where 38% of residents are foreign-born and 24% of tenants spend half their income on rent. This demographic profile matters: renters facing housing crisis are DSA's base.

Legislative Record: Three Bills and One Hunger Strike

During his Assembly tenure (2021-2025), Mamdani served on 10 committees including Energy, Real Property Taxation, and Cities. He sponsored 20-21 bills and co-sponsored 238-242, with 3-4 bills actually signed into law:

Bill	Description
A6267 (2021)	Pilot program for regulatory agencies to use innovative public hearing techniques
A8796 (2022)	Lowered petition threshold for public hearings from 500 to 125 signatures
A7113	Amendment allowing alcohol service at the Museum of the Moving Image

These are modest achievements. Mamdani's criticsincluding Cuomo during the mayoral campaignnoted he had "been in government 27 minutes" and "passed three bills."

But his most consequential advocacy came outside formal legislation.

Taxi medallion debt relief: Mamdani joined a 15-day hunger strike and camped outside City Hall for 45+ days alongside taxi drivers crushed by predatory medallion loans. The campaign secured $450+ million in restructured loanstangible relief for thousands of drivers.

Fare-free buses: His standalone bill didn't pass, but the policy became a pilot program through budget negotiations.

Good Cause Eviction: The bill prohibiting landlords from ending tenancies without cause and capping rent increases at 10% or CPI+5% passed in April 2024 as part of the state budget. Mamdani co-sponsored the legislation but voted against the final budget deal, arguing the version was "watered down" due to exemptions for small landlords (10 or fewer units) and buildings constructed after 2009. The law now covers approximately 1 million renters, with 17 municipalities opting in.

He ran unopposed in both his 2022 and 2024 re-electionsa testament to either constituent satisfaction or establishment abandonment of the district.

The 2025 Mayoral Victory: 50,000 Volunteers vs. $17.5 Million

Mayor Eric Adams was indicted on September 26, 2024bribery, wire fraud, soliciting foreign contributionsbecoming the first sitting NYC mayor criminally charged. (The case was later dismissed in April 2025 by the Trump DOJ.) Mamdani announced his campaign on October 23, 2024.

Democratic Primary (June 24, 2025):

Candidate	Result (after RCV)
Mamdani	56.4%
Cuomo	44.0%

The 20-point polling deficit evaporated. Key to victory was a cross-endorsement agreement with Comptroller Brad Lander, who placed thirdhis votes transferred to Mamdani under ranked-choice voting.

General Election (November 4, 2025):

Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Zohran Mamdani (D)	1,000,000+	50.78%
Andrew Cuomo (I - "Fight and Deliver")	~820,000	~41%
Curtis Sliwa (R)	Distant third

The volunteer operation was unprecedented:

• 50,000 volunteers mobilized
• 1.6 million doors knocked
• 2.3 million calls made
• 734,317 early votes castquadruple 2021 levels

Fundraising:

• Raised $642,339 in first 80 days (a record)
• Hit $7.9 million public matching funds cap
• Average donation: $122
• Corporate PAC money: $0

Cuomo was backed by "Fix the City" super PAC ($17.5+ million), real estate industry bundlers, and the traditional Democratic establishment. He outspent Mamdani on television. It didn't matter.

Geographic breakdown:

Area/Demographic	Mamdani %
Brooklyn	57.1%
Asian American voters	67%
Voters 18-34	62%
Staten Island	Lost

Mamdani was inaugurated January 1, 2026 by Bernie Sanders, with AOC introducing himbecoming NYC's first Muslim mayor, first South Asian mayor, and youngest mayor in over a century.

The Platform: What Socialist Governance Looks Like

Mamdani's "affordability agenda" centers material improvements for working-class New Yorkers:

Policy	Details
Rent freeze	4 years for 2 million rent-stabilized apartments
Affordable housing	200,000 new units via Social Housing Development Agency
Minimum wage	$30/hour by 2030
Childcare	Universal public childcare (ages 6 weeks to 5 years)
Food access	5 city-owned grocery stores (one per borough)
Transit	Fare-free buses

These aren't symbolic gesturesthey're specific, measurable commitments that either succeed or fail. The rent freeze alone affects 2 million apartments. The childcare proposal would reshape labor force participation. The grocery stores directly challenge corporate food deserts.

The DSA Model: Dirty Break and Dual Accountability

The Democratic Socialists of America membership peaked at approximately 92,000-94,000 in 2020-2021, dropped to roughly 51,000-64,000 by October 2024 amid budget crises and internal conflicts, then surged back to 90,000+ members following the 2024 election and Mamdani's victory.

DSA now claims over 250 elected officials across 40 states, with 90% elected after 2019. NYC-DSA, the largest chapter with 6,000-7,000 members, has been most successful.

The "dirty break" strategypopularized by Eric Blanc in his 2017 Jacobin article "The Ballot and the Break"runs candidates on the Democratic ballot line while building independent organizational capacity toward an eventual break from the party. The strategy:

1. Uses Democratic primaries to avoid spoiler dynamics and ballot access barriers
2. Maintains that elected officials must remain accountable to DSA rather than party leadership
3. Builds independent infrastructure that outlasts individual campaigns
4. Creates a bench of movement-backed politicians who can coordinate

Accountability has proven difficult in practice. DSA's endorsement process requires candidates to be members, receive chapter recommendation, and commit to national platform priorities. The National Political Committee can impose conditions or withdraw endorsements.

AOC lost national DSA endorsement in July 2024 (though NYC-DSA maintained its endorsement) after voting for a House resolution stating "denial of Israel's right to exist is a form of antisemitism." The organization debated expelling Jamaal Bowman after his 2021 Iron Dome vote, ultimately declining.

DSA leaders acknowledge they currently "cannot have meaningful discipline over elected officials" because endorsements don't yet determine electoral outcomes. Mamdani's victoryachieved through DSA organizing infrastructuremay shift this calculus.

The 2024 Federal Defeats and the Pivot to Local Power

The 2024 election cycle dealt DSA significant setbacks at the federal level:

Candidate	Race	Result	AIPAC Spending
Jamaal Bowman	NY-16 primary	Lost by 17 points (58%-42%)	$14.5-15 million
Cori Bush	MO-1 primary	Lost by 6 points (51%-45%)	~$9 million

Both losses followed outspoken pro-Palestinian positions. The pattern was clear: AIPAC could defeat DSA-backed candidates in competitive primaries through overwhelming spending.

But these losses coincided with Mamdani's mayoral victory. DSA's national statement called it "the most monumental electoral victory for the US socialist movement in the last century." The movement's center of gravity shifted to state and local levelwhere AIPAC's resources are less concentrated and grassroots organizing has greater relative impact.

NYC's Housing Crisis: The Material Basis for Socialist Politics

The housing crisis driving DSA's New York success is severe:

Metric	Value
Median asking rent	$3,500-3,600/month
Manhattan median rent (May 2024)	$4,600 (record)
Rent-burdened renters (30%+ of income)	52.1%
Eviction case increase (March 2020-2024)	440%
Homeless New Yorkers (2024)	158,019 (1 in 5 nationally)
Vacancy rate (affordable units)	Less than 1%
Rent-stabilized units	960,000 (41.3% of rentals)

The real estate industry wields substantial political power. REBNY members gave a tenth of all NY campaign money in 2015. From 2005-2013, REBNY and its board companies contributed $43.9 million to state and local candidates.

This creates the material basis for socialist politics: when 52% of renters are cost-burdened and the industry causing this funds their opponents, class-based organizing becomes viable.

The Israel/Gaza Controversy: Both Attacks and Mobilization

Mamdani has taken strong pro-Palestinian positions throughout his career:

• Describes Israel's actions in Gaza as "genocide"
• Supports BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions)
• Introduced the "Not On Our Dime!" bill (A6101, May 2023) to prohibit NY nonprofits from funding Israeli settlements
• Stated he would arrest Netanyahu if he visited NYC, citing the ICC warrant
• Joined a 5-day hunger strike outside the White House in November 2023 demanding a ceasefire
• Arrested twice at protests: August 2021 (eviction moratorium) and October 2023 (blocking traffic outside Senator Schumer's home)

The mayoral campaign brought intense backlash:

• Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove: Mamdani "poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community"
• 1,100+ rabbis signed an open letter against his "antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric"
• Israeli minister Amichai Chikli called him an "overt antisemite"
• ADL criticized his Day 1 executive orders rescinding the IHRA antisemitism definition

Islamophobic attacks were severe: A study documented 6,669 posts generating 419.2 million engagements in two weeks after his primary win, with ~40% containing explicitly Islamophobic content. Cuomo appeared to agree with a radio host's suggestion Mamdani would "cheer" a terror attack. Campaign mailers featured digitally lengthened/darkened images of his beard. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand falsely accused him of "references to global jihad" before retracting.

Supporters included: Bernie Sanders, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and progressive Jewish congregations Kolot Chayeinu and Lab Shul.

The controversy didn't sink his campaign. IMEU Policy Project declared his victory shows "Support for Palestinian Rights Is an Asset."

Governing Challenges: Can Socialists Deliver?

Mamdani's mayoralty faces immediate obstacles:

Federal hostility: President Trump has called him a "100% Communist Lunatic" and threatened to slash federal funding. The administration's posture toward sanctuary cities and progressive municipalities suggests material consequences beyond rhetoric.

Appointment turbulence: Catherine Almonte Da Costa, director of appointments, resigned after old antisemitic social media posts surfaced. Cea Weaver's past tweets describing homeownership as "a weapon of white supremacy" drew criticismthough she now heads the Office to Protect Tenants.

Legal and fiscal constraints: A 4-year rent freeze, $30 minimum wage, and city-owned grocery stores face both legal challenges and budget realities. New York City doesn't control its own rent regulation powersAlbany does.

Albany opposition: The real estate industry that opposed Mamdani's mayoral campaign will continue opposing his housing agenda in the state legislature. Good Cause Eviction's exemptions demonstrate how Albany can water down tenant protections.

The question shifts from "can socialists win?" to "can they govern?" Mamdani's theory of change requires delivering material wins that prove organizing works. If he can't freeze rents or build affordable housing, the model loses its persuasive power.

What the Mamdani Model Actually Demonstrates

The significance isn't Mamdani the individual. It's the structural approach his campaign validated:

Organization over charisma: 50,000 volunteers didn't materialize through personal magnetism. They came through DSA chapter infrastructure, housing working groups, tenant unions, and years of movement-building that predated the campaign.

Material wins as organizing tools: The taxi medallion debt relief, Good Cause Eviction, and constituent services created a track record demonstrating that socialist politics delivers tangible benefitsnot just speeches and tweets.

Dual accountability: Mamdani remains accountable to DSA, not just voters. This creates institutional pressure against the typical moderation trajectory of progressive politicians who enter office and get absorbed into establishment politics.

Scaling without capture: The dirty break strategy allowed Mamdani to run on the Democratic ballot lineavoiding third-party ballot access barrierswhile maintaining independent organizational identity that persists beyond the campaign.

Concentration of resources: NYC-DSA's focus on New York rather than spreading thin nationally allowed deep organizing that outworked opponents even when outspent.

The Test Begins Now

Mamdani quoted Eugene Debs in his inauguration speech: "I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity."

Whether that dawn materializes depends on execution. The platform promises are ambitious. The constraints are real. The opposition is wealthy and organized. Federal hostility adds another obstacle.

But the victory itself shifted what's politically possible. A socialist won the largest city in America through grassroots organizing. He did it while openly calling Israel's actions genocide, supporting BDS, and promising a rent freeze. He did it without corporate money against a former governor backed by real estate billions.

The question is no longer whether DSA's model can win major offices. It can. The question is whether winning translates into governingand whether governing produces the material wins that sustain movement growth.

Mamdani is 34. He has time to find out. So does the movement that elected him.