The day that Teen Vogue stopped by the campaign offices of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a sudden torrential downpour turned deadly in the span of a few hours — not for the first time in the last few years. The outgoing mayor, according to local outlet Hell Gate, didn’t just appear to be silent on the subject; he was busy going after Mamdani.
Within the white walls of Mamdani's offices, which provided reprieve from the storm, the mood was serious and focused. The candidate was busy talking to media outlets, campaigning on his platform of a change from establishment politics. A whiteboard placed at the front door read “5 DAYS TO ELECTION DAY” in red and blue marker.
We set up shop next to the communal kitchen fridge (labeled “Gracie Mansion,” the name of the mayoral residence, in the campaign’s now signature blue-and-orange styling) and waited for the heavily sought-after candidate, 34, as he concluded a taping across the hushed office in front of a campaign step-and-repeat.
The reminder of the approach of Election Day was likely unnecessary, with early voting well underway. According to the New York Times, at the time of this writing, Mamdani was holding a double-digit lead over opponent and disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo in most polls.
Mamdani has been particularly popular among young people, thanks in part to his anti-establishment campaign and his focus on affordability, as underscored in a new focus group run by ABC News and the Harvard Institute of Politics. While establishment politicians spend crucial time criticizing Mamdani, the candidate seems more focused on plotting change and meeting voters wherever they are.
Without a doubt, a significant part of Mamdani’s success with young people has been demonstrated in the popularity of his in-person events, from a scavenger hunt to a soccer tournament. One of his favorite moments of the campaign, he told Teen Vogue, was reconnecting with his own soccer team, NYC Footy, at “the Cost of Living Classic” a few Sundays ago.
“What I love about these events — and the incredible events team that we have, that has put them on — is that they show that politics is about more than just a question of what happens at the ballot box; it's also about a sense of belonging in the city that you call home,” Mamdani told Teen Vogue. “When people come and they have a chance to play soccer and they have a chance to build a team, they have a chance to see themselves as part of a larger story, part of a larger city.”
The events, Mamdani continued, are “intergenerational moments,” where “people of all ages can come and can enjoy themselves” — a welcome opportunity for a generation perhaps defined by its difficulty in forming community offline, lacking access to IRL “third spaces.”
Those events are a complement to the campaign’s extremely robust canvassing operation. Mamdani ticked off the statistics in rapid-fire: 52,000 volunteers knocking on 1.6 million doors and making 2.1 million phone calls during the primary; today, he claimed, some 90,000 volunteers.
But, he said, it’s not just the numbers. “I think what gets lost in some of the statistics is the stories of friends that have been made, of communities that have been formed,” Mamdani noted. Some of those relationships have been, to his earlier point, intergenerational.
Mamdani’s mother, for instance, has been canvassing for him — and “at one point, she had a regular 25- [or] 26-year-old canvassing buddy that she would complain walked too fast,” he said with a laugh. “Even today, you know, she called me, like, ‘Which poll is right? Which one should we be looking at? Should we be nervous? How should we feel?’” Mamdani ended the conversation as he “always [does], no matter who [he’s] speaking to”: by emphasizing the importance of canvassing itself.
“The best way to deal with any of our anxiety about the elections, the best way to actually understand how to respond to any one poll is to go out there and understand that it's New Yorkers who are going to determine this election," Mamdani told Teen Vogue. "It's New Yorkers who we can speak to at the doors.”
Polling indicates that, for young people, this approach seems to be working. ABC News and the Harvard Institute of Politics’ focus group consisted of voters age 22 to 29 from four of the five boroughs. Two participants now supporting Mamdani had voted for Trump, defying the antagonistic relationship between the mayoral candidate and the president. All of the participants brought up Mamdani’s prioritization of affordability — a focus when at the doors with his canvassing operation — with others citing his position on Israel and, what ABC News described as, his “anti-establishment” campaign.
"I think my life could really improve if he wins," Elyssa F., a 22-year-old Democrat living in Queens, said during the focus group.
“Mamdani speaks for the people and the establishment speaks for the corporations," weighed in another participant, 29-year-old Patrick, an independent voter living in Brooklyn. Underpinning that sentiment is the loud backlash to Mamdani from the city’s billionaire class, who are fighting his campaign to the very end. Republicans, banking on the idea that Mamdani’s message is a losing one, are “work[ing] to make Zohran Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party,” per NBC News.
“The Democratic Party has consistently purported the desire and necessity to engage young people in the democratic and electoral process. However, this election season has shown that many in the Democratic establishment are not interested or encouraging when it comes to new young voters,” Christina M. Greer, PhD, associate professor of political science at Fordham University and an expert in urban politics, told Teen Vogue. “What [Mamdani] has done is not only inspire and mobilize young people, but he has exposed the establishment and some of their calcified views of participation and inclusion.”
When asked what steps he’d suggest for young people outside of New York City who are interested in finding their own campaign to support, Mamdani, unsurprisingly, made clear that he would take their help in the campaign's final stretch over the next few days: “No matter where you live in the United States of America, you can be a volunteer of this campaign,” he said, directing people to the campaign’s GOTV site to help phone-bank.
In terms of finding other local candidates to support no matter where you are, Mamdani took it back to the ideological cornerstone of his mayoral campaign: “The key in determining which one to actually get involved in is to make sure that they are fighting for working people, and that instead of lecturing people as to what they should care about, they're listening to them,” Mamdani told Teen Vogue. “Because that's been at the heart of what we've been doing here in New York City.”
There are difficult questions to be considered if Mamdani wins: His criticisms of policing as a public safety solution and of Israel are part of what made him an appealing candidate to young people, as that focus group implies, but as the media and the wealthy have zeroed in on past comments on those subjects, he’s walked back some of those statements in response to backlash. This is likely part of why his campaign has distanced itself somewhat from the Democratic Socialists of America, a major backer of his political career since its start and a huge part of his mayoral campaign’s base.
It remains to be seen what might transpire under a Mamdani administration. If he prevails, both parties may take away the lesson that the winning message is affordability, and that “socialist” is no longer the “dirty word” it once was. If he loses, a campaign cycle full of Islamophobia — which he has boldly, consistently fought back against — may bode poorly for the communities that Mamdani appealed to directly throughout the mayoral race.
But in the city that never sleeps, it’s not over 'til it’s over — and in this case, that’s 9 p.m. on November 4. Mamdani shook our hands and went on to his next several hours of campaigning; according to the New York Times, he was still going at midnight.
