Zohran did not win because of TikTok and podcasts
His victory was the culmination of years of organizing and a platform that resonated with hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.
Within hours of Zohran Mamdani's historic win in the NYC Democratic mayoral primary, social media was flooded with takes attributing his win to social media posting.
"TikTok helped NYC elect a socialist," Mark Dubowitz, CEO of The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a pro-Israel think tank posted to X.
"Lesson of the night: PLEASE DEMOCRATS EMBRACE SOCIAL MEDIA AND NEW MEDIA IT CLEARLY WORKS," centrist Democrat influencer Harry Sisson posted.
"Another big race that shows the key to political comms is being able to do longform podcast interviews and short-form videos," the journalist Jordan Weissmann posted. Matthew Yglesias attributed Mamdani's win to podcasts.
This idea that if Democrats could only leverage the right social media platform they could seize political power emerged in the wake of the 2024 election. Rather than consider the fact that Kamala Harris was a deeply unpopular candidate who clung to wildly unpopular policies, kissed up to Republicans and treated her base like garbage, the message many Democrats seem to have walked away with was: Podcasts!
As I wrote last fall, Democrats can embrace social media and podcasting all they want, they can fund 100 centrist Joe Rogans, but they will continue to lose as long as they cling to an out of touch platform centered around defending a genocide and aligning themselves with billionaires and corporate power. One big reason mainstream Democrats fail to "perform well" online is because the internet is where they're forced to confront the masses of people who disagree with their policy positions.
Establishment Democrats have responded to this by trying to build their own centrist media echochamber, bestowing influencers like Olivia Julianna with tens of thousands of dollars to amplify their messaging.
They have attempted to deplatform leftist creators with actual cultural relevance because they won't show complete fealty to the Democratic party or Israel. The Democrats have also undertaken a wave of legislation aimed at censoring the internet and dismantling the influencer industry. (Bills like the Kids Online Safety Act and age verification efforts will have devastating effects on the creator economy.)
But Zohran didn't win because of podcasts or TikTok or memes. He won because he is a widely charismatic and talented political leader who had a popular platform and slate of policy proposals that resonated with hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.
His victory was also the culmination of years of organizing efforts by the DSA, the Working Families Party, and other grassroots groups. "All the credit for this monumental upset goes to Zohran himself, for being a generational talent, and to NY DSA, who’ve been laying the groundwork by building a bench of electeds for nearly a decade," journalist Lindsay Ballant correctly stated. "This didn’t start in 2025, this started in 2019 when he first ran for office."
"The Left… won this," she said. "They were the ones who organized and built community trust, block by block, positioning Zohran's campaign to catch fire in the media sphere in the first place. It takes an incredible amount of dedication to put all that faith when you're at 1%."
Mamdani also didn't have to pay a bunch of influencers tens of thousands of dollars to boost his talking points, content creators, celebrities, and major media figures got on board because they truly believed in, and wanted to be part of, his movement. As Garbage Day's Ryan Broderick points out, Mamdani didn't even really do that many podcasts.
He went on The City’s podcast in March, and Throwing Fits and Plain English with Derek Thompson this month. Do you think podcast hits helped a socialist win over a third of Staten Island? Be fucking serious right now lmao. Mamdani also didn't really align himself with big donors or even push a big influencer campaign. Most of the celebrities — and even the local podcasters that endorsed him — didn't get involved until the day of the primary.
I’ve also seen the argument that Mamdani won because of his savvy social media strategy, which I also don’t really agree with… Democrats have embraced social media. They over-index it actually. They’re also shit at it. And Mamdani’s big viral moments weren’t really even all that big. He did a cute video about how expensive Halal trucks are now. Another buzzy video where he spoke Bangla. And his biggest video was one documenting his walk across the island of Manhattan. None of these are Brat Summer. They’re, again, just a guy being normal and talking about policy in a way other normal people can understand.
None of this is to downplay the incredible work that Mamdani's digital and video team did. Everyone who worked on the campaign's marketing, design, video, and social content did an excellent job. Much of the content he did put out was brilliantly edited and produced, it communicates a clear message: the everyday cost of living has gotten to high for New Yorkers, and the government should do something about that.
But, as Anthony DiMieri, who produced videos for Mamdani along with his business partner Debbie Saslaw, told social media scribe Rachel Karten last month, "There’s a tendency to Pokemon Go to the Polls and try to hop on a trend that may be immediately stale. People understand what’s authentic. In short, don’t hop on a meme."
Felix Biederman of Chapo Trap House echoed this point. "Something that was highly impressive," Biederman posted, "[Zohran] never condescended. He did not dumb things down into meaninglessness, do shallowly self-deprecating 'I’m uncool but doing a TikTok meme' hits, or any of the billion other things voters find nauseating. He demonstrated real trust!"
"Zohran had integrity, charisma, great policies, messaging discipline, ground game & a tremendous team around him & yes he also did organic social media appearances around leftist content creators because we are all naturally a part of the same movement. Dems don't want that," Twitch streamer Hasan Piker posted. Mamdani also steadfastly refused to throw any marginalized groups under the bus.
As more centrist establishment Democrats continue to reel from Mamdani's win, the lesson they should take is not that short form video or podcasting or whatever new medium is ascendent (livestreaming) is a shortcut to political success.
They need to instead recognize that the establishment Democratic party is deeply and painfully out of touch with the public. Social media posting and podcasting appearances won't do anything if your policies suck. People want to see real political courage and they want leaders like Mamdani to stand up to corporate power and fight for more equality in every sense of the word.
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