This Time, They’re the Ones Panicking
A socialist is leading the mayoral race in New York City. The Democratic machine is panicking, the billionaires are lining up, and still the campaign grows.
Zohran Mamdani is not supposed to be here. Not in this race, not in this moment, not with these numbers.
A 33-year-old state assemblyman, Muslim, Ugandan-born, openly pro-Palestine, DSA-backed.
This is a man who supports BDS and universal childcare in the same breath. Who quotes Tony Benn, campaigns on free buses and public groceries, and speaks like someone who still believes the point of politics is to make life better.
When he launched his campaign last October, Mamdani was polling in the low single digits. No press. No splashy endorsements. No establishment friends. Just a handful of organizers, a shoestring budget, and a belief that something deeper was waiting beneath the surface.
And then came Cuomo.
The disgraced former governor — evicted but not humbled — reemerged in March with Bloomberg money, Clinton-world ties, and the grotesque confidence of someone who still believes the world owes him power.
His return was supposed to end the conversation. Cuomo doesn’t run to compete. He runs to bulldoze. To remind everyone who’s in charge.
But this time, something strange happened.
Instead of folding, Mamdani surged. At first in whispers. A viral video here, a neighborhood meet-and-greet there. A platform that didn’t triangulate. A tone that didn’t apologize. His campaign didn’t just avoid the usual Democratic cringe — it offered something else entirely: clarity, joy, and an actual plan.
By May, the whispers turned to numbers. Polls showed Mamdani leading among voters under 45. Leading among the college-educated. Leading among first-choice ballots. His name ID was still low, but his favorability was sky-high. Cuomo, by contrast, had universal recognition and barely broke even.
You could feel the tone shift.
Suddenly the attacks came. Baseless accusations of antisemitism. Shadowy opposition research. Subtle media framing designed to stoke fear — not of Mamdani’s record, which is principled and public, but of his worldview. That he might mean what he says. That he might actually govern as a socialist in the financial capital of the world.
But none of it has landed. Because this isn’t just a campaign anymore. It’s a movement with 35,000 volunteers. It’s housing organizers in Flatbush, uncles in Queens, disillusioned Gen Z voters in Bushwick who never thought anyone would speak for them. It’s what Bhaskar Sunkara called a democratic horizon — not just a protest vote, but a plausible future.
Yes, Mamdani still faces a steep climb. Cuomo is polling strong among older Black and Latino voters, buoyed by decades of name recognition and the old machine loyalties. But that’s changing too. Slowly. In conversations. In door-knocks. In that glance from a grocery store uncle reading a flyer twice.
Because underneath all the spin and spectacle, The Democratic Party trained its base to expect less. To think small. To mistrust ambition. Hillary Clinton didn’t lose to Trump because she promised too much. She lost because she promised so little, and expected it to be enough.
Mamdani refuses that logic. Like Sanders before him, he doesn’t see big ideas as liabilities. He sees them as a minimum requirement for a livable society. Free public transit isn’t utopian. It’s what cities like Vienna and Tallinn already do. Public grocery stores aren’t radical. They’re insurance against corporate price-gouging. Universal childcare isn’t unaffordable. Tax the rich — who, in this city, are not exactly in short supply.
But what makes Mamdani’s campaign potent isn’t just policy. It’s the tone. He speaks without bitterness. Organizes without condescension. And his team understands something essential about this moment: voters are not apathetic — they are exhausted by spectacle. They want real things.
That’s why Mamdani terrifies the establishment. Not because he’s unelectable. But because he’s the opposite.
For decades, socialist politics in America were framed as moral victories. Campaigns that clarified, pushed the needle, won the debate. Winning the election? That wasn’t the point. It wasn’t allowed to be.
This time, it is.
And the proof is in who’s panicking.
Bloomberg. Langone. Ackman. A parade of billionaire ghouls who thought Cuomo’s candidacy would be a coronation. Who assumed the grassroots had given up. Who are now dumping money into Super PACs trying to convince voters that the man with a plan is dangerous, and the man with a harassment scandal is safe.
It won’t work.
Because people remember the pandemic. They remember Cuomo’s book deal. They remember the nursing homes. The smirks. The condescension. They remember being told, over and over, that politics is about what can’t be done.
And now, for the first time in a long time, someone is telling them the opposite.
It won’t be easy. The mud will fly. The party might sabotage its own primary if Mamdani wins. Wall Street will howl. But the dam has already cracked. A socialist is leading the mayoral race in New York City. This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a fact.
And he is going to win.