Bigger is better
Socialists should run proud in elections they can win, like Zohran
Zohran Mamdani began his campaign with 2 employees. Polls gave him ~4% of the first-round vote. He was a long shot.
New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA) had a plan to win the election. More of a dream, really: Zohran would gather 50,000 volunteers, and they would knock a million doors.
Zohran hit both numbers last week. Yesterday, he claimed that his campaign had “nearly 50,000 volunteers, 1.4 million doors knocked”. Two weeks ago, he claimed 36,000 volunteers, 1 million doors.
That’s crazy. For comparison: About 250,000 people have voted early. 1 volunteer for every 5 early voters.
Why do I care so much about these numbers? Two reasons:
1st: Mamdani’s campaign delivered the goods
Some leftists reject electoralism. They think leftist electoral work saps energy from productive left work, like labor organizing. (This is “Anti-Electoralism”.)
I disagree. I hold that good socialist electoral campaigns can empower non-electoral socialist campaigns.
The reason is simple: Good socialist election campaigns have impacts beyond the voting booth. They have huge secondary benefits: They expand socialist org membership rolls, they persuade people to our goals, and they normalize socialist politics to liberals.
Zohran is three for three:
Zohran expanded DSA membership: DSA-NYC membership grew by 40% since he began his campaign, around 1.25 times faster than DSA grew overall.
Zohran persuaded hundreds of thousands: His message works. That’s why he rose from ~5% to ~50% in the polls, despite being outspent 10-1 on advertisements and outspent 4-1 overall.
Zohran normalized the S-word: Those 1,400,000 door-knocks delivered millions of pamphlets calling Zohran a DSA-endorsed democratic socialist who hates billionaires and loves Childcare For All, just like they do.
Whether Zohran wins or loses, he has durably expanded American socialism in membership, public opinion, and normality. This was a strategic success.
We should replicate that success. We should run proud democratic socialist candidates in elections where we can win.
2nd: Mamdani’s campaign showed why viability matters
Some leftists agree that good leftist election campaigns have the secondary benefits above. However, they disagree what “good” means: They hold that nonviable leftist election campaigns also yield these benefits. Even if the candidate has no chance of winning, they still expand membership rolls, get their message out, and normalize their beliefs. (I call this “Protest Vote Electoralism”.)
This debate is large and complicated. I don’t hope to settle in this post.
I do want to compare the numbers from Zohran’s 2025 mayoral campaign against the Green & the Party for Socialism and Liberation 2024 presidential campaigns:
Zohran, New York State Assemblyman and Democratic Socialists of America member-endorsee, ran the strongest socialist campaign for New York City mayor in 70 years. He has organized 50,000 volunteers and raised $9.1 million from 20,000 donors.
Jill Stein, longtime Green Party of the United States member and organizer, ran her third presidential campaign. She did better than 2012 but worse than 2016. She won 863,000 votes (0.55%), and raised $2.8 million. I can’t find any volunteer or donor numbers for Stein.
Claudia De la Cruz, longtime Party for Socialism and Liberation leader, ran the strongest communist campaign for President in the last 50 years. She won 172,000 votes (0.11%), organized 6,000 volunteers nationwide, and raised $0.4 million.
Remember: Zohran is running in an off-year election, in a Democratic primary, in one city. Stein and Claudia ran in a general election that spanned the country, amidst a massive anti-Biden, pro-Palestine protest movement.
Yet Zohran has 10x the volunteers that Claudia did (and Stein almost certainly had even fewer). Yet Zohran has 20x the fundraising that Claudia did (and 3x Stein). Why?
All three are loud and proud leftists. But only Zohran's campaign had a shot at winning. And that makes all the difference.
Most organizers want to win. Most people won’t canvass doors for a protest vote. Most people won’t donate to a pure but losing campaign. Viable campaigns attract organizers and donors in a way other campaigns can’t.
(That’s why candidates who are both boring and moderate, but electorally viable, can pull thousands of volunteers. For example: NY-17 Dem Mondaire Jones, a progressive who pivoted to the center, still had 4,000 volunteers in 2024. Jones lost, 46% to 52%.)
Bigger is better. If socialists want big campaigns, we should run viable candidates in winnable races. If you agree, then you should join DSA.
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More New Yorkers are voting early, and the voters seem to be on average younger than before. We've also seen a surge of new voters that haven't voted before, and overall turnout is higher. All good signs. This is going to be a real nail-biter.