Zohran Mamdani Won, and 10,000 People Signed Up to Run for Office
When Zohran Mamdani stunned the political world and defeated longtime front-runner Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination for mayor, overcoming millions of dollars in spending against him, the ripples were felt nationwide. Run for Something felt it too. The organization was formed after Donald Trump first won the presidency and has been focused on focused on recruiting and supporting young progressive candidates ever since. Amanda Litman, the group’s co-founder and author of the book When We’re in Charge, says the organization saw thousands of people sign up in interest of pursuing political office after Mamdani’s victory.
I spoke to Litman about whether Mamdani’s campaign can serve as a blueprint for future candidates and how the Democratic Party should course-correct ahead of the midterms and 2028.
What was the impact of Mamdani’s victory that you’ve seen?
His focus on affordability, on joy, on really loving New York — like loving the place you’re running to lead — made it feel like a contagious movement and I think it transformed the electorate. The biggest voting blocs were folks under 35. It’s not the kind of thing you expect, especially for a municipal primary in an off year. Now, the impact of that beyond the impact on New York City, which I think will be monumental, after Mamdani won, Run for Something saw more than 10,000 people raise their hands to run for office in the two weeks afterward. That’s the biggest organic surge of candidate recruitment we’ve ever seen. It joins what is now more than 60,000 people who signed up since the election and more than 220,000 since 2017.
We’ve had more people sign up since November than we did in all of the first three years of Trump’s first term, and we’re likely to exceed the entirety of his first term by September is my guess. To put even more context on that, the first year of Run for Something in 2017, we had 15,000 people raise their hands. Ten thousand in the two weeks after Zohran won is huge.
Were you surprised at that kind of reaction to his campaign?
We always expect wins to beget wins because they are inspiring. They bring new people in. I do think his in particular felt so moving for so many people across the country. One, because it felt unexpected. Two, because people across the country had seen his content, even if you weren’t in New York City getting your door knocked. My door was knocked probably every three days for a month. You could see the videos he was doing online; you felt like you were part of it. And three, it was going up against an Establishment that felt like it was unbeatable. The millions of dollars in super-PAC money, the Cuomo brand, as rotten as it was, it felt like a mountain that could not be climbed. And to see someone do it and do it so handily makes you think, Well, maybe I can win too.
Since his win, many are looking to Mamdani’s campaign as a possible blueprint for future campaigns, with some focused on his specific political platform while others are honing in on his extensive use of social media. What lessons should Democrats take away from what Mamdani has accomplished?
Well, first, I think it’s worth saying his style of communicating is possible because of the substance. He was able to do the kinds of campaign ads that he did — on the street, talking to voters — he did because he had such a clear frame that he was bringing to the campaign. He so clearly knows his values, so he can let other things bounce off of it without losing that core sense of self. I think that is a really powerful lesson for any candidate. When you look back over the past couple of years, the candidates who flounder are ones who do not know who they are or what they believe. The ones who are able to show up well, even if you don’t always agree with them, clearly have a point of view and a sense of values. So I think that writ large is a good lesson for really any leader but in particular for candidates.
For the Democratic Party generally, I think one of the things he did so well was he focused on voters and why they should want him to win, not why he wanted to win. He made it so clear that if he wins, here’s what you’re going to get: You’re going to freeze the rent; free buses; free child care. You could picture it. You could see what it would feel like and know how it would affect your life. And I think this is something that local candidates actually uniquely can do better than federal ones. But again, talking not about a better economy but a better way of living is a good takeaway here. The third thing, I think, is that who the candidate is really matters, which feels like a really obvious thing to say, but boy, do so many national Democrats forget that. His personality, his authenticity, his charm, and again his values, and his charisma made it so that he could be a really effective communicator. If the candidate doesn’t genuinely believe that and also it doesn’t smell true from them, it’s not going to work. Voters can smell bullshit, and I think he never gave off the odor whereas now Cuomo is trying to adopt the same kind of messaging around affordability. It’s like, “My dude, you don’t care. We don’t care.”
Your organization helps to recruit and support young, progressive candidates seeking to run for office for the first time. What are some of the trends that you’ve been seeing since last year’s election?
One, all 50 states, all kinds of communities — not always fully ideologically aligned on policy, but they all tend to share pretty similar values. No. 1 issue we’re hearing people talk about is housing, far and away the most common thing. In particular, especially because we exclusively work with millennials and Gen Z, they are talking about housing from the perspective of renters. They’re talking about rent continually going up or being unable to buy a home or even imagine ever buying a home. This is true in cities, suburban communities, rural areas. Or they’re talking about being stuck in their starter home and not able to move as their family is growing, and they are very frustrated with the status quo that has kept that possible. Second thing I would say, more so this year even than any other year, is we are hearing candidates pretty explicitly say, “I’m done waiting my turn.” I’m not gonna wait for gatekeepers. I’m not interested in being told to get in line. I’m done waiting my turn. Final thing, I would say that we are hearing from candidates or maybe it’s noteworthy that we’re not hearing from candidates is it’s not really about Trump. He is the water they are swimming in, but he is not the bait that’s getting them hooked. They want fight against Republicans. They want fight against inaction. They want fight against the status quo. They are not running to stop Trump exactly. They are running to solve really specific problems in their communities. I think that is what makes them really compelling candidates, the ones that ultimately get on the ballot and go through the process.
Do you think some of that is related to Trump being in his second term and candidates are looking toward a post-Trump presidency?
I think it’s a little bit that we’re in the second term and these are folks thinking about the future. But I also think a good candidate can’t run for office just being against something because it’s not fun enough. It’s not enough glamor; there’s certainly not enough money. It’s really, really hard. So, you have to want to do it for something bigger than just taking on the president because that’s not going to sustain you for the years of work, the sacrifices you have to make, the kind of effort you have to put in. I think that — and the way that we really try to frame this for folks — is you really need to know the problem you care about solving and how the office you’re going to run for will give you power to solve it. Because the No. 1 question you’re going to get asked on the campaign trail is, “Why are you running?” And if the answer is to stop Trump, it needs to be more.
In the aftermath of the Trump administration mass firing federal employees across the government, there were reports that many of these longtime public servants were pursuing their own bids for public office. Have you seen many campaigns or candidates emerge from this group?
We have. So, one of the biggest moments of organic candidate recruitment this year outside Mamdani’s win was the first big wave of DOGE firings in the spring. We saw thousands of people raising their hands to say they want to run, many of whom have been directly affected by the cuts to the federal government. Now, one thing we have actually heard from a lot of them is that the uncertainty about their jobs of — You’re fired, you’re hired, you’re fired, you’re hired — it’s made it very hard to plan. But many of them are still exploring runs for local office, thinking about a new way of understanding their role as a public servant. My expectation is that, especially as we get into 2026, we will see really compelling candidates who do say honestly, “Trump and Elon Musk fired me. I want to serve my community on the City Council, on the school board, in the state legislature, because I know how much it matters to have effective governance.”
Recent polling shows the Democratic Party with record lows in favorability among voters, even lower than the Republican Party. In your view, what is the biggest reason for this disconnect between the party and everyday voters?
I think you look back in the last four years, all the good stuff that Biden did, he couldn’t communicate about it. So, there was no one selling the work. And the horrific stuff that happened under his presidency — the genocide in Gaza, the things he promised and couldn’t get done — those felt like either promises not kept or a betrayal of our values. And I think we are now at a moment when we have spent the last four years talking about the threat to democracy, to the American way of life, to the concept of America from Trump, and we watch our leaders in Congress fold over and over again. If they’re not taking this seriously as a threat, why should the American people? How can we believe them?
And the final thing I will say is that in a lot of places where Democrats do have power to govern — I think about New York as one example — the Democratic leaders who did have ways in which they could make life better for folks didn’t. Rent has gone up and up. Child care has gone up and up. The things that we could feel didn’t get better and the things that we could see felt worse.
I think when you talk about authenticity in a candidate, the reason that authenticity matters is because it allows you to trust that someone is saying what they mean and they mean what they say. It enables trust. People don’t feel like they can trust the Democratic Party to fight for them anymore or deliver for them anymore. That is for any number of reasons: an inability to communicate, not a good story to communicate, fewer results than we might be able to to sell, a betrayal of values in many ways. But when we talk about authenticity, that’s why it matters. It’s not because it’s entertaining. It’s because it enables people to trust you.
Where should the Democratic Party go from here in order to regain ground with voters?
The first is, encourage, enable, empower competitive primaries. Primaries will allow our party to decide what we believe. It will make candidates better. The more you run, the better you are at it. You get more practice, you put in the reps of talking to voters. It is not a waste of resources, and I think the more that party leaders can get their sticky little hands out of these primaries the better. When the primary is over, galvanize around the Democratic nominee, full stop, as we should be seeing around Mamdani in New York. But, when there is a primary, let the voters decide. Trust them.
The second thing I think, for candidates in particular, is focus on the people. Which, again, feels so obvious, but you go back and you watch some of these speeches over the last couple years and the campaign messages and it feels so abstract. It is not enough to stop Trump. We actually have to talk about what we’re going to build out of the ashes of what he has burned down. And, on the local level, we have to talk about what we’re going to deliver for people in a way they can feel and, in as many places that you can, have the receipts to prove it.
The third thing I would say, and this is more broadly for Democrats and also activists and operatives, the thing I think we can learn from Mamdani’s campaign and even looking back on Kamala’s campaign for the final couple months, it has to feel fun and joyful and hopeful. No one wants to go to a party that sucks. You don’t want to go to the rage party. Part of the thing that made Mamdani’s campaign so effective was that it was optimistic and it loved New York City — like that motherfucker loves New York City and I love that! I think that matters. And I think sometimes Democrats and candidates want to critique the thing and talk about the things that are wrong and it feels hard and we are up against such hard stuff and we have big problems to solve. And that can be true, but no one wants to go to a joyless party. When people talk about the scolding of Democrats, I think that gets at what they mean. It doesn’t seem fun. It feels insufferable. Some of that comes from candidates and some of that comes from activists and some of that comes from randos online. And, unfortunately, we’re responsible for all of that, whether that’s justified or not, but thinking about ways to make it feel fun and hopeful even if it’s hard because we can’t let it drown us with misery.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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