On November 4th, Zohran Mamdani went from partying on the streets of New York to becoming its newly elected mayor. Despite President Trump’s endorsement of his opponent Andrew Cuomo, NBC News cites that Mamdani won 50.4 percent of the votes, 9 percent more than Cuomo.
Out of all the boroughs, Mamdani lost only Staten Island—the borough with the highest home ownership and median income—hinting at the coalition challenges ahead. His platform is unambiguous: free bus fares, rent freezes, and aggressive taxation of the wealthy to fund it all as stated on his party’s website. And despite New York being home to the largest population of billionaires in the world, will his plan succeed?
The stakes are high. A 1 bedroom apartment in New York city averages 4k a month following rental market trends, consuming 60% of the average household income which is double HUD’s 30% affordability benchmark. For workers under 25 earning $43k a year, that is just plain unaffordable and untenable. Perhaps that is why youths turned out for Mamdani, with youth voter turnout surging to 28 percent, up from 11.1 percent in 2021 with ¾ of youth voters backing Mamdani. As costs of living surges, people like Peter Thiel argue that capitalism is no longer working for young people, pushing them towards socialist-leaning candidates like Zohran Mamdani.
And what better way to reach out to his core youth voter? His campaign weaponised social media, cultivating a sense of community and belonging, and leveraging the politics of envy to mobilise 104,764 to volunteer . This 34-year old is a figure who makes politics feel accessible and insurgent.
Wired has labelled Mamdani as “The Internet’s Mayor” but how does his win play out for the democratic party? With the 2026 midterms approaching, Mamdani’s win offers the party both a playbook and a warning. His success demonstrates that economic populism—when paired with genuine grassroots mobilization—can energize dormant voters, particularly the young. In the Democratic party that is searching for its identity post-Biden, perhaps the playbook of playing up bread-and-butter issues may work, at least in deep-blue states.
But what works in Brooklyn may not work in Pennsylvania. Mamdani’s coalition – young renters, minority voters, progressive activists – may vote for mayors in concentrated districts but not for wider races like the Presidential elections. Mamdani’s policies may work in places where there are billionaires to tax but it may be a harder sell in states where the rich is a doctor down the street – take Staten Island. What could be worse is if Mamdani ends up to be a failure, either because the math doesn’t work out, or he is rendered ineffective by politics. The Democratic party may need his energy, but they fear his overreach.
If anything, Mamdani’s campaign looks uncomfortably similar to the UK’s Reform Party under Nigel Farage – not in ideology, but in method. Both weaponize social media to bypass traditional party structures. Both cultivate a sense of betrayal by elites. Both promise simple solutions to complex problems and mobilize volunteers who feel locked out of the existing system. Yet Farage and Mamdani would agree on one thing: “The system is not working.”
Reform’s success in the 2024 UK general election—winning five seats and 14 percent of the vote came from the same digital-native insurgency that drove Mamdani to victory. Just like Mamdani, Farage’s videos went viral. Young men, particularly, flocked to Reform’s anti-establishment message. The tools are the same but the targets are different. Mamdani channels anger toward billionaires; Farage channels it toward immigrants. But, they both understand that modern campaigns are won by making politics feel like a movement, not a transaction. Both grasp that social media allows outsiders to bypass party gatekeepers entirely.
For establishment parties—Democrats in the US, Labour and Conservatives in the UK—this is the real threat. It’s not just that insurgent candidates can win anymore, it’s that they can build campaigns faster, cheaper, and with more intensity than traditional parties can muster. Volunteer armies organized through WhatsApp groups and Discord servers can outwork paid staff. Viral moments are more important than large advertising budgets. Manufactured authenticity trumps slick productions.
Mamdani and Farage represent opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, but they share the same insight: in an age of distrust, authenticity beats competence, and belonging beats policy. The parties that learn this lesson will survive. Those that don’t will keep losing to insurgents who promise to burn it all down—whether from the left or the right. And we could all be worse for it.
