Zohran Mamdani’s rise from nowhere to the Mayor of the World’s most diverse city is a remarkable journey. A week before the final results, the army of youth volunteers campaigning for him were aware of the prize at stake.
The leader has focused on people’s problems, and hence a group of youngsters have been actively involved in his campaign and helped him get the landslide victory. A member of his team, Juulie, who was campaigning a week before the win, went door-to-door to make sure that the people of the city knew that Mamdani was the Democrates candidate for the elections and not just a person who got famous on social media.
The volunteers focused on Mamdani’s policy of providing affordable housing to the city’s population. On Tuesday, popularly known as the social media guy, Mamdani became the first South Asian Mayor of New York City in the era of Donald Trump. When Mamdani started his campaign, no one had the slightest idea that he was even capable enough to fight against candidates like Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Silwa.
But his foot soldiers have made the impossible come true. Every night they gathered in Bushwick, and every nook and corner of the city to spread his word. Mamdani’s army grew to 1,00,000 until the night of the election, creating the biggest on-field political moment in New York’s political history. Talking about the volunteers in his winning speech, Mamdani called them “an unstoppable force”.
He stated how every door knocked and every difficult conversation removed the cynicism that defines modern politics. Amidst a serious downfall of the Democrats and Kamala Harris’s defeat last year, Mamdani’s rise was a much-needed boost to the Democrats, as it shows them the way ahead. From being ranked just above “Someone else” in the opinion polls, Mamdani has done the unexpected.
His volunteers consisted of a diverse group of youngsters, facing the problems of unemployement and high rents. The New Yorkers were ready for change and wanted a leader who would voice their opinion, which they saw in Zohran. Bernie Sanders, who was Zohran’s inspiration for democratic socialist politics, said that he is modelling “a different kind of politics”.
