Winning With Hope, Not Fear: The Real Lesson of Zohran Mamdani’s Victory
The media are flooded with speculation that Zohran Mamdani is now the model for all new Democratic candidates, as if only social democrats can be elected. It’s utter foolishness, and I wonder why reasonably sophisticated observers fall for it.
Nevertheless, Mamdani is a model in one important way. It isn’t his politics, youth, or charm. What mattered was his ability to connect with the deepest desires—and perhaps anxieties—of a majority of voters in a way that gave them hope for a better future.
Political operatives who rush to embrace every charming young candidate with vaguely leftish views will fail. They will have missed the point. Candidates who can win are candidates who reach deeply into the desires and anxieties of the voters they hope to represent. They work hard to understand those desires. They work hard to be recognized as one of the people—living among them, working with them, sharing their hopes and their worries—and they offer potential solutions that are more than the same old thing.
For defenders of American liberal democracy to field candidates who can win, they must support those who, like Mamdani, connect even more effectively—through hope and reasonable expectations for a better future. Many political pundits insist fear will always defeat what they dismiss as Pollyanna fantasies. They point to Mamdani as nothing more than an exception.
Yet consider Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson in his first three years, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, and Biden. Each won by appealing to hope, then followed with determined efforts to deliver on it. Each had successes and failures, but each expanded opportunity for more people, strengthening the nation. I reluctantly include Reagan—whose rhetoric ignited some of the brush that became today’s MAGA fire—but he did generate a renewed feeling of hope for America’s future.
So back to the question of imitating Mamdani. Candidates who treasure liberal democracy must understand and be part of the culture, desires, and anxieties of the constituents they hope to represent. Sophisticated advertising and social-media outreach may be required in modern campaigning, but even more essential is old-fashioned retail engagement—face-to-face, door-to-door, and group-to-group. From rural communities to inner-city neighborhoods, voters are persuaded when they believe they are known by the candidate, and they know the candidate in return.
Cuomo tried to fake it, as many candidates do, but this time voters saw through him. They believed Mamdani was authentic. Whether he can sustain that belief will be tested in the years ahead. The mayor of New York has a great bully pulpit but limited authority to act.
What’s true in New York City cannot simply be replicated elsewhere. Every place has its own reality. Here in southern Virginia, successful candidates must do more than advocate for the military. They must speak to the hopes and concerns of enlisted personnel, junior officers, and their families. That is far more important than promising a new carrier or submarine. At the same time, many voters recognize that their social and economic welfare does not necessarily benefit from the vast sums invested in the military, and they too deserve to be heard. It’s a modern version of the old town-and-gown conflict: each prospers from the other, but each is suspicious of the other’s advantages.
What patriotic liberal democracy cannot tolerate are appeals to prejudice and the pointing of accusing fingers at vulnerable, marginalized people. We cannot tolerate blaming society’s problems on powerless or imaginary enemies. The ultra-right has long claimed their opponents favor a world with no standards or limits. It is utter foolishness, but we have all heard it many times.
The alternative is for candidates who defend liberal democracy to speak clearly about the high moral standards embedded in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the American ideal of respecting the dignity and rights of every human being, regardless of condition or status.
Democrats may have an opportunity to recover the House, possibly the Senate, and build momentum toward 2028 if their candidates pay attention to these dynamics—and firmly resist being harnessed to a campaign cart driven by overly self-confident political operatives. The same may be true for genuine conservatives who no longer have a party to call home but could become strong independent candidates.