Zohran Mamdani Now Has Real Power. Here’s What He Wants to Do With It.

Being the mayor of New York is an enormous task for anyone, let alone a 34-year-old. But Zohran Mamdani’s ambitions seem to go beyond leading the Big Apple. He wants to help remake the national Democratic Party. And he may succeed. All three of the candidates Mamdani endorsed in New York-area House Democratic primaries won on Tuesday night. Those victories will likely push House Democrats in Washington further left and embolden the increasing successful progressive wing of the party.

With the mayor’s backing, Brad Lander, the former city comptroller who finished behind Mandami in the mayoral race last year, resoundingly defeated incumbent Representative Dan Goldman in the 10th Congressional District. A bigger sign of the mayor’s sway was the 7th Congressional District victory of Claire Valdez, a first-term New York assemblywoman, who easily beat Antonio Reynoso, a former city councilman and longtime figure in the city’s politics. Reynoso had the backing of the district’s retiring incumbent, Nydia Velazquez. Lander could have won without Mamdani’s endorsement, but Valdez almost certainly would not have.

The stunner was the win of Mamdani’s third candidate, activist Darializa Avila Chevalier, who narrowly defeated incumbent Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th Congressional District. Avila Chevalier had never run for office before, while Espaillat is a five-term congressman and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Avila Chevalier’s win was entirely about the political power of the mayor and the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which boosted Mamdani last year and his preferred candidates this year.

It’s not an exact parallel, but Avila Chevalier beating Espaillat echoes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s win over then-Representative Joe Crowley in 2018. This is another sign of voter frustration with establishment Democratic politicians.

Three House primaries alone don’t change American politics drastically. But Lander is a progressive in the mold of Senator Elizabeth Warren and will likely be more supportive of left-wing causes than Goldman. And Valdez and Avila Chevalier are likely to be two of the most progressive members on Capitol Hill, constantly challenging party leadership from the left and perhaps forming an even more progressive “Squad” than the prior version. So Mamdani is building the left flank on Capitol Hill and in the Democratic Party. And Lander and Valdez’s wins will embolden other progressives to run in 2028 and try to knock off more moderate Democratic incumbents.

How this happened is fascinating. Mamdani’s decision to aggressively campaign for his preferred U.S. House candidates was odd and even misguided in some ways. Mayors don’t usually interject themselves into congressional races. A mayor getting his favorites sent to Washington obviously doesn’t help him or her get their agenda passed through the City Council. And in Mamdani’s case, a mayor already hated by the city’s elite establishment made new enemies by endorsing candidates running against two incumbents and a third popular figure in New York politics (Reynoso). New York Attorney General Letitia James was among the one-time Mamdani allies who groused about him playing such a heavy hand in these primaries.

So why did he get so involved, with little personal benefit and considerable potential cost? Because Mamdani is deeply invested in the broader leftist/progressive/socialist movement, beyond his own ambitions. In the run-up to the House primaries, he openly expressed his hopes that progressives winning in New York could inspire a broader reckoning in the Democratic Party. He believes that the party should broadly adopt his populist economic views, focus on affordability and the working class, and skepticism of the Israeli government. While he’s a new figure, Mamdani is following in the footsteps of Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ocasio-Cortez, who have spent the last several years endorsing progressive candidates in races across the country in hopes of building a cadre that changes the party.

“For far too long, our party has seen its job as managing decline instead of delivering material change for working people,” Mamdani said at a rally last week in support of these House candidates, as reported by CNN. “It has seen its job as explaining why we cannot instead of showing how we can, and that old way of thinking will lose on Tuesday. And frankly, it will lose in South Carolina and New Hampshire. It will fall short of 270 electoral votes, because the party of the past will not be what leads us into the future.”

In a later part of the speech, he said, “People often ask me what I think of the state of the Democratic Party. This slate here today is our answer.”

On Election Day, Mamdani said, according to the Associated Press, “It’s not just a question of electing more Democrats. It’s a question of electing better Democrats. When I look at these candidacies, I see in them a willingness to also put working people back at the heart of our politics.”

Those comments were remarkably direct, invoking this November’s elections, but also the 2028 Democratic primaries (South Carolina and New Hampshire are likely to be early voting states), the 2028 general election, and the broader discourse about the party. I am skeptical that House primaries in New York City in 2026 tell us much about Democratic primaries or the general election in 2028. But Mamdani is arguing that what’s happening in New York is connected to the future. And more importantly, he’s trying to will that view into action.

While Warren, Sanders, and Ocasio-Cortez have been in national politics much longer than the mayor, his stunning and high-profile victory in America’s biggest city has given him a microphone that is perhaps as big as theirs. I wonder if Mamdani will endorse candidates outside of the New York area in the next few years.

There’s another reason Mamdani may be particularly interested in endorsements: He can’t run for president himself. The Uganda-born mayor is the rare powerful, popular figure in American politics who isn’t plotting out his route to the White House. A politician as talented as Mamdani may be frustrated he can’t ever be president. But for the progressive movement, having a famous, charismatic figure who isn’t obsessing over Wisconsin swing voters (as Ocasio-Cortez seems to be doing these days) is very useful. Opposing the head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is a gutsy move. But it’s less risky if being mayor may be your only political job. Mamdani can in some ways be president of the American Left because he can’t be president of the United States.

Mamdani’s victory in last year’s New York Democratic primary for mayor seemed like the perfect combination of great candidate, flawed opponents, and ideal political environment. I thought it was a fluke, or at least a perfect storm. But Valdez and Avila Chevalier aren’t masters of viral video like Mamdani, and their opponents weren’t sexual harassers like Andrew Cuomo. Zohran Mamdani has it. He’s transferred it to other politicians in New York. The big question now is if Mamdani-ism can go national.