The Left Is Off The Sidelines

DSA is winning big elections, socialist membership is growing, and our ideas are more popular than ever. The American left is no longer a marginal force.

To put it milder than the spice level of my Indian takeout food, being an American leftist has not been fun in recent years. Our politics have been limited to the margins, culturally and electorally. The leftist campaigns that have emerged have been hopeful long shots or short-term congressional seats that were quickly defeated by big-dollar-backed establishment figures. The movement has grown in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the folly of post-9/11 wars. Still, leftism has remained on the outskirts, easily mocked by Republicans and scapegoated by centrist Democrats. That is, until now.

Zohran Mamdani’s victory was very different from the left’s previous electoral wins. Andrew Cuomo wasn’t caught off guard like Joe Crowley was when he lost to AOC in 2018. Nor did vote splitting result in an accidental victory. If every Curtis Silwa and Eric Adams voter went for Cuomo, he’d still have lost by 30,000. The New York City mayoral election was a nationally visible race between the left, the right, and the center. It had the highest turnout since The Beatles broke up, and the last time a candidate got this many votes, JFK was still alive.¹ The leftist candidate won a resounding mandate because his ideas best matched the electorate’s wishes. There will be endless debate about what Zohran Mamdani’s victory means for the future of the Democratic Party. But there’s one election day takeaway that’s undeniable: the American left is no longer marginal. It is now mainstream.

Mamdani supporters in New York City cheer as his victory is declared.

To the dismay of the haters and losers, of which there are many, Zohran Mamdani won over 50% of the vote — an impressive feat in a multi-way race. The last time there was a three-way race, the winner only received 42.4%.²³ Some naysayers have downplayed Mamdani’s win by saying he only won because of Andrew Cuomo’s long history of sexual crimes “Italianess,” but that’s not true. Cuomo received over 885,000 votes, which is 100,000 more than incumbent Mayor Eric Adams received in 2021 (753,000) and more than double the number Cuomo received in the primary (443,000). New Yorkers had no hesitation in voting for Cuomo. They were simply outnumbered by those who preferred Mamdani’s policies. Cuomo also had the establishment backing of a political titan, not the barren endorsements list of a pariah. The former governor was endorsed by a cross-aisle list of party leaders: Bill Clinton, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, current Mayor Eric Adams, former New York Governor David Paterson, the sitting President Donald Trump, and the Queens County Democratic Party. Although they might not have explicitly endorsed him, Cuomo received indirect support from New York Senator Chuck Schumer, as well as The New York Post, The New York Times, the entire Republican Party, and 70% of the Democratic Party, who attempted to undermine their own nominee. (So much for “Vote Blue no matter who!”) Disgraced outcasts usually struggle to find influential supporters. Andrew Cuomo did not.

Nor was Andrew Cuomo unfunded. By accepting New York City’s public matching funds, both campaigns were limited in how much they could spend, but corporate cash came in big for Cuomo. PAC money spent on the 2025 NYC mayoral election doubled from 2021, rising from $40 million to $81 million. Michael Bloomberg alone donated $13.3 million to Cuomo. When all was said and done, Team Cuomosexual spent $65 per vote. Mamdani’s votes cost less than a fourth of that at $15.81. And he got many more of them.⁴

Pandemic aside, the term “Cuomosexual” was the worst thing to happen in 2020.

The most prominent form of anti-left cope has been to dismiss Mamdani’s style of politics as only workable in liberal New York City. Writing in The New York Times, Binyamin Appelbaum claimed the election “does not demonstrate the viability of progressive candidates outside of a few big cities and coastal states.”⁵ Jonathan Chait said it has “literally zero information about how to beat Republicans.”⁶ There’s no doubt New York City is to the left of most of America. But when we see who voted for the socialist, we see his campaign courted the demographics Democrats have spent a year trying to win back. Following the 2024 election, much ink was spilled and keyboards were typed, arguing that the Democrats needed to win back workers, young people (especially young men), and Latinos. Well, Zohran Mamdani’s affordability-focused agenda has the answer.

New York City isn’t a one-to-one comparison to the American electorate, but there are certainly lessons for national Democrats to learn from Tuesday’s election. Of all fifty states, New York had the largest shift toward Trump between the 2020 and 2024 elections. Trump lost it by 23 points in 2020, but only by 13 points in 2024.⁷ Most of his newfound vote share came from New York City, where Trump won the highest vote share of any Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988.⁸ The president’s most significant gains came from the Bronx, where he gained 21 points on his Democratic opponents between 2020 and 2024 (making it the largest pro-Trump swing in the state), and Queens, where he increased his vote share by 16%. After the 2024 election, Queens College political science professor Mona Kleinberg called the pro-Trump shift “A referendum on Democratic leadership in New York City.”⁹ Kleinberg couldn’t have been more right. A year after the iconic boroughs with the largest Republican gains in New York, the state with the largest Republican gains in the entire country, the Bronx and Queens rejected both the center and far right politicians in favor of a leftist by 12 and 5 points, respectively. Anyone who tells you that has “literal zero” implications for how to win nationally is huffing copium. (Or in this case, Cuomopium.)

More details on how Mamdani performed strongly where Kamala Harris was weak come from excellent reporting from Mother Jones:

In parts of the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick, home to many young and left-leaning voters, overall turnout matched or exceeded 2024 totals, and nearly all those votes went to Mamdani. That’s a major achievement for an off-year election, and a reflection of the mayor-elect’s appeal among younger Americans who opposed Trump and were unenthusiastic about the Democratic Party.¹⁰

They also note how Mamdani outperformed Harris, who shares the mayor-elect’s Indian heritage, in South Asian neighborhoods.

In one heavily Bangladeshi precinct on Hillside Avenue, Mamdani ended up winning more raw votes than Harris on Tuesday, despite 14 percent fewer people showing up…

Mamdani, despite running against a prominent Democratic former governor, scored a 24 percent improvement on Harris’s vote total in one precinct in Brooklyn’s “Little Bangladesh,” where turnout was just as high as last year.

Unsurprisingly, Andrew Cuomo’s base of support came from traditionally conservative demographics. He won precincts with majorities of homeowners (51%), car commuters (53%), mostly White residents (52%), and those who’d voted for Trump in 2024 (63%). Mamdani won majority-minority precincts, as well as renters (57%) and public transportation commuters (62%).¹¹ Most impressive was Mamdani’s ability to win over Latino voters between the primary and general elections. Cuomo won the Hispanic-heavy Bronx during the primary by about 18 points, but Mamdani won it in the general by 11 points — a shocking +29 point swing.¹² Rather than dump $20 million into a search for a “liberal Joe Rogan,” perhaps the DNC should follow the lead of the candidate who won young men with margins Vladimir Putin’s election riggers would think were too obvious.

If the left’s election-day victories were limited to Zohran Mamdani, I would write a different article. Don’t get me wrong. I’d still be thrilled that the center of global finance is now a Soviet Caliphate. (All Medicare-For-All supporters must now pray facing New York five times a day.) But it would be a single victory, not a sign that the American left has escaped the prison of obscurity and leaped onto the Star-Spangled main stage. The reason I am claiming the left has reached that point is because progressive and socialist politics are succeeding, both electorally and culturally.

Of the twenty-two candidates endorsed by DSA’s National Election Commission, half have won their races so far, with a few still outstanding.¹³ DSA-member Denzel McCampbell won a highly-watched Detroit City Council seat, while Kelsea Bond was the only Atlanta city council candidate not facing an incumbent to win without a runoff.¹⁴¹⁵ According to one popular election-tracking account, candidates affiliated with left-wing parties won fifty-three city council elections across the country, giving the left a 65% win rate.

On election night, it appeared progressive challenger Katie Wilson had lost the Seattle mayor’s race to incumbent Bruce Harrell, a more traditional Democrat. Many establishment voices pointed to Seattle as proof that leftist politics were unfeasible and that Mamdani’s win was an outlier. Well, I hope they enjoyed that narrative while it lasted. As the final votes have been counted, Katie Wilson’s victory looks all but certain.

Mr. Arm. Please thoroughly cook that crow before you eat it. I'd hate for you to get sick!

Once Wilson’s victory is certified, the left will have gone two for three in major mayoral races. The lone loss comes from Minneapolis, where Omar Fateh fell short against incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey. You might remember that race for the attention it got after Fateh won the party endorsement, only for Frey’s political allies to strip it in an all-too-common case of centrists ratfucking leftist challengers. (Pardon my language, but it’s the actual term.) As the Minneapolis race shows, leftists still don’t have the institutional power of centrists, which has historically been used to quash progressive challenges. It will take time and effort to build up institutional capacity. Fortunately, that work is already underway.

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Outside of the electoral arena, the left has gained considerable ground. Last week, the Democratic Socialists of America crossed 86,000 members, making it the largest anti-Zionist organization in the country. The Party for Socialism and Liberation announced a slate of candidates following Mamdani’s win, marking a notable turn towards mass electoralism in the party’s strategy. These developments are natural occurrences of the left’s growing political presence. 66% of registered Democrats have a favorable view of socialism, while the favorability of capitalism has fallen to 42%. It’s no surprise that a national poll found 53% of Democratic voters prefer politicians described as “similar to Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani,” while 33% favored those “similar to Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Nancy Pelosi.” Independents remain unmoved on socialism (polling between 41% and 38% over the last five years), but their favorability of capitalism has fallen from 57% to 51%. Clearly, support for socialism hasn’t overcome the last century of anti-communist propaganda, purges, assassinations, and counter-intelligence programs. But the decreasing favorability of capitalist reality indicates the left has room to grow. When I was younger, every politician bragged about “running the government like a business.” You don’t hear that much anymore, for good reason. Favorability of big business has nosedived since its peak in 2012, falling from 58% to 37%.¹⁶

But even if we put all the electoral victories, polling data, and DSA growth aside, a notable sign that the left is a mainstream political faction can be found in the hysterical centrist response to Zohran Mamdani’s victory, and the growing left wing political bloc behind it.

After Eric Adams won the mayorship in 2021, he was quickly anointed as the future of the Democratic Party. Jonathan Chait claimed it signalled the end of “defund the police” politics. But now that a leftist has won the same race four years later — and defeated Adams in the process — Chait claims the race has “literally zero” ramifications for national politics.¹⁷ Funny how that works! Both Chait and Fareed Zakaria tried to throw water on leftist energy by falsely comparing the margins of Mamdani’s three-way race to a two-way race.

“But New York is a liberal bubble. (Mamdani won with 50 percent of the vote; Democrat Bill de Blasio won his 2013 mayoral race with 73 percent.)” — Fareed Zakaria, The Lessons Democrats Need To Learn To Win Again¹⁸

“A win is a win, but Mamdani’s nine-point margin is deeply unimpressive in a city where Democrats usually win.” — Jonathan Chait, What the Left Still Doesn’t Get About Winning

I’ve never understood the thought behind making yourself stupid to argue a nonsensical point. Any reader will know that a multi-way race leads to lower margins than a two-way race. This shoddy argument convinces no one who wasn’t looking to be convinced, and it shows neither author respects their readership. But hey. If your career and ego are dependent on centrists maintaining control of the Democratic Party, then desperate times call for desperate measures. The left is surging, and the establishment is feeling the pressure. A new poll from YouGov found that every single one of Zohran Mamdani’s iconic policies receives strong net approval at the national level.¹⁹

• Raising taxes on corporations and millionaires: +45 net-approval

• Implementing free childcare for every child aged 6 weeks to 5 years: +42

• Raising the minimum wage to $30 by 2030: +25

• Freezing rent for lower-income tenants: +41

• Creating a network of government-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low rather than making a profit: +25

• Permanently eliminating the fares on public buses: +18

(Net approval = strongly support + somewhat support - somewhat oppose - strongly oppose)

Chait, Zakaria, and a host of other establishment-friendly mouthpieces have tried to claim that socialist politics only work in deep-blue areas. This poll categorically disproves that claim. Blatantly lying is the only way centrists can downplay the left’s popularity, which is why they’ve been doing it more and more lately.

Even Donald Trump has come around to see the prospect of progressive economics. He responded to Mamdani’s win by denying affordability was an issue, only to spend the last week lambasting Republicans for not talking about… affordability.²⁰²¹

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The electoral wins, the growing sympathy to socialist ideas, exploding DSA membership, and pathetic behavior of our haters tell us that the American left is now a serious contender in the political arena. (“They don’t boo nobodies,” as Reggie Jackson said.) And it couldn’t have come at a better time. With the far right using total control of the government to enrich rich Americans and slap an ICE badge on every unfuckable, unemployable MAGA chud and set them loose to live out their Call of Duty-meets-Fox News fantasies by terrorizing people who actually work for a living, the country has seen the capacity of political power. As evidenced by Trump’s free-falling popularity numbers, they hate the way it’s being used, but they recognize an ideologically committed government can change the country’s direction. Now, they’re rightfully wondering why that ability hasn’t been used to improve lives. Then they watch Chuck Schumer’s “opposition party” roll over backwards and cave in on the shutdown just to protect the Senate filibuster — an arcane institution that no one except one hundred Washington D.C. dorks gives a single shit about. Amidst this chaos, the political left stands out: no wishy-washy cliches about a “healthy Republican Party,” no support for the live-streamed genocide, and a very clear and reasonable value proposition: If you elect us, we will take money and power from the people who have too much and give it to you, who have too little. We’ll democratize the economy and the country. The sinking shame you feel watching your government murder and terrorize with impunity will disappear. In its place, pride. You’ll be proud to be part of something bigger —a movement that recognizes Americans’ fates are intertwined and acts accordingly. An elevation of humanity over profit, of the collective over the privileged few. The only people we’ll tear down are those who have stood on our backs and kept us down.

If that sounds like something you want to be a part of, click here.

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In Solidarity — Joe

1. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/andrew-cuomo/nyc-voter-turnout-surpasses-2-million-for-first-time-since-1969

2. https://www.visiontimes.com/2025/11/04/new-york-city-votes-a-three-way-mayoral-battle-and-six-major-ballot-proposals.html

3. I’m writing this as 93% of the votes have been tallied. Barring any unexpected turns in outstanding ballots, Mamdani’s majority should hold.

4. https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/06/cuomo-mamdani-bloomberg-attack-ads/

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/09/opinion/josh-shapiro-democratic-party.html

6. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2025/11/mamdani-platform-democrats-national/684855/

7. https://abcnews.go.com/538/americas-swing-2024-wide-deep/story?id=116639076

8. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/22/us/elections/nyc-harris-trump-votes.html

9. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/09/trump-new-york-city

10. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/democrat-collapse-realignment-new-york-city-mayor-race-mamdani-trump-harris-2024-corona-queens-jackson-heights/

11. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/04/us/elections/results-new-york-city-mayor.html

12. https://datausa.io/profile/geo/bronx-county-ny

13. https://jacobin.com/2025/11/municipal-elections-democratic-socialism-mamdani-dsa

14. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2025/11/04/detroit-city-council-election-results-2025/87063929007/

15. https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/democratic-socialist-kelsea-bond-atlanta-city-council-district-2-victory/85-9e2d9d18-b65a-4879-9001-32a146227cde

16. https://news.gallup.com/poll/694835/image-capitalism-slips.aspx

17. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/eric-adams-biden-reform-police-defunding-new-york-crime-democrats.html

18. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/11/08/democrats-elections-populism-economy-culture/

19. https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/New_York_Politics_poll_results_ZPaqi4M.pdf

20. https://newrepublic.com/post/202863/trump-doesnt-want-hear-affordability

21. https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/07/politics/affordability-trump-gop-analysis