In just a few months, Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman and Democratic Socialist, has gone from a long-shot fringe candidate to a national figure — securing an upset win in the June primary, where voters 18-29 had the highest turnout of any age group.

Now, on the cusp of Election Day — where polls show him the clear frontrunner over his closest rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — Mamdani is counting on that youth coalition to show up again. But his pledge to address rising costs appears to be resonating with young people far outside of the five boroughs. It’s a message that many Gen Z and millennials say speaks to their most pressing concerns at a time when many feel hopeless about their leaders and yearn for new voices willing to break with political norms.

“When a candidate is able to speak to the concerns of the populace and validate those concerns … I think that that has a big impact, especially when it comes to young people,” said Ruby Belle Booth, who studies young voters for the nonpartisan research organization CIRCLE.

    • aceshigh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      7 months ago

      This has been a problem since Obama was elected, and before. The d’s do not want progressives. That’s what happened to Sanders. We need a new party.

    • AmbitiousProcess (they/them)@piefed.socialEnglish
      6·
      7 months ago

      You CAN make a difference if you get involved on a local level and get active in your community.

      And this is the VERY key part. Local organizing almost always makes larger impacts, because most people, to be perfectly honest, don’t give a shit about any form of organizing in their local community. It’s easier to cast a ballot for a federal candidate, “chip in” (as all political fundraising emails love to overuse so fucking much while setting the default for every donation to like $50 or some bullshit after asking 20 times a week) a few bucks, and be done with it, than it is to walk down to every house over a few block radius and have a chat with any person who answers the door about a local candidate or policy.

      To use Zohran as an example, he’s already gotten hundreds of thousands of votes, but as of one of his campaign’s emails yesterday, got just 1,000 people to canvass today (a day they were trying to break the record for most doors knocked in a single day, which is meant to attract a large swath of anyone who wants to canvass for him).

      One person in a thousand canvassing for him is infinitely more impactful to the end result than one person voting by ballot.