Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race is more than an improbable municipal election win; it is a template for Democratic revival, one that can marry socioeconomic policies and message discipline to unambiguous moral clarity.
I first interviewed Mamdani shortly after Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris left the Democratic Party in tatters. Already a declared candidate, the unabashed democratic socialist spoke with hyperfixation on affordability and the need to reorient the Democratic Party away from Wall Street and toward the working class. I interviewed Mamdani multiple times over the next year, including amid a surge of Islamophobic attacks in the final weeks of the mayoral campaign.
Mamdani’s victory is a rebuke of an ugly fear permeating American politics. Voters responded to his message that treated dignity and pocketbook concerns as inseparable from some of the pressing moral issues of our time, such as deportations of immigrants and the genocide in Gaza.
The significance of Mamdani’s triumph, and the lessons it underscores, cannot be fully appreciated without understanding the political context in which it happened. His campaign was fought under the shadow of organized disinformation and overt bigotry.
His campaign was fought under the shadow of organized disinformation and overt bigotry.
For months after his primary win, Mamdani faced an onslaught of Islamophobic attacks and thinly veiled suggestions that his faith and background made him unfit to govern — a pattern documented across mainstream media outlets as well as individuals online. Those criticisms were not incidental; they were designed to distract from the substantive arguments at the heart of the campaign and to erode the very principle of equal citizenship.
Compounding that climate, the pro-Israel advocacy group known as the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, has established a “Mamdani Monitor” — an unprecedented public tracker that promises to scrutinize the incoming administration’s appointments, policies and funding decisions.
The head of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, says the organization wants to make sure that Mamdani “doesn’t create an environment where Jewish people are unsafe.” To be clear, watchdog coverage of public agencies and officials is a legitimate democratic function. But the monitor’s very name and focus on a single Muslim mayor-elect raises questions about the ADL’s motivations at a time when every major-city administration is making dozens of personnel and policy decisions.
Why is the ADL putting the scourge of antisemitism — which predates Mamdani’s victory and will surely outlast him — squarely on his shoulders when the group has never done such individually targeted initiatives against other elected officials, in New York or elsewhere?
Is it because the mayor-elect has been a staunch critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom the International Criminal Court has accused of committing war crimes (and who is on trial on corruption charges)?
The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the monitor this week as hypocritical and anti-Muslim, noting the bigotry in singling out one Muslim mayor for an industry-grade surveillance project. Its critique that such a monitor promotes a double standard is not an argument against protecting Jewish New Yorkers from hate; it is a plea for consistent standards and for safeguards against normalizing extra scrutiny of Muslim leaders. Democracy cannot function if certain people and communities are policed more heavily than others simply because of their religion.
For the record, Mamdani has repeatedly denounced violence against Jews, including acts of vandalism committed the day after his election victory. Even if Greenblatt and the ADL are committed to defending Israel, they could do so without exploiting the fears of Jewish Americans to benefit Israel. Doing so at the expense of a mayor-elect for speaking out against Israeli actions undermines our democracy.
Democrats should lean into a politics of competence combined with moral clarity.
So, what should Democrats learn from Mamdani’s win — and from the backlash that has followed?
First, offer substantive economic solutions that improve everyday life for voters. Second, invest in grassroots organizing that builds durable, multiracial coalitions. Third, fight prejudice and defend pluralism proactively, not performatively. Democrats should lean into a politics of competence combined with moral clarity. Demonstrating that progressive governance can deliver safe streets, economic prosperity, secure neighborhoods and thriving schools will blunt the arguments of fearmongers. In America today, winning office does not end efforts toward delegitimization. President Donald Trump spent four years out of office undermining and delegitimizing the 2020 election he lost — and he continues to disparage the result. Heading into 2026, Democrats should not cower from this fight, nor should they allow legitimate concerns about hate to be used as political cover to attack policies of duly elected officials. If the party can take this model seriously — funding grassroots power, articulating concrete economic remedies and fighting bigotry consistently across all communities — Mamdani’s victory could evolve from an anomaly to a turning point. New Yorkers have chosen hope over fear. The rest of the country should follow their lead.
Ayman Mohyeldin is a host of "‘The Weekend: Primetime" and an MS NOW political analyst. 
