Building Power, Not Brands

Coverage of Zohran Mamdani’s insurgent campaign for New York mayor has been omnipresent in progressive circles for months, but it erupted into the mainstream after his stunning primary victory. While both mainstream and left-leaning outlets dissect the historic and strategic dimensions of his campaign, right-wing and tabloid media predictably fixate on manufactured controversies and personal attacks. Yet, what truly set Mamdani apart—what propelled him from outsider to frontrunner—was his uncompromising, politically courageous messaging on affordability. This resonated not only with New York’s diverse electorate but also with working people across the country.

Social media presence is not enough

In an era when the Democratic Party often seems adrift—lacking vision, courage, and a moral center—Mamdani’s platform stands out. He unapologetically centers the needs of the working class, demands wealth redistribution, reaffirms LGBTQ+ rights, and, crucially, places Palestinian human rights at the heart of his campaign. The energy he has generated recalls the electric moments of Bernie Sanders in 2016 and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. But let’s be clear: authenticity, charisma, and a killer social media game are necessary, but they are not sufficient.

Like AOC before him, Mamdani communicates with rare clarity and purpose. But unlike her, he was no political novice: four years as a state legislator gave him both a base and a blueprint. He leveraged grassroots fundraising to unlock public campaign funds, but money and media savvy alone do not build movements. They do not win elections. What does? Relentless, face-to-face engagement with voters—especially those who have been written off, beaten down, or made cynical by a system that has failed them.

This is not theoretical. When I ran for Flagstaff City Council in 2014, I upset the status quo as a progressive immigrant—at a time when “progressive” still meant something—by doing exactly what Mamdani has done: knocking on thousands of doors, having real conversations. In 2020, running for Congress in the middle of a pandemic, our campaign “punched above our weight,” earning 41.3% of the primary vote against an establishment incumbent. The secret? Thousands of one-on-one conversations. Policy vision matters, but it is the hard, relational work—the listening, the dialogue—that turns apathy into turnout and long shots into winners.

Mamdani’s campaign mobilized 50,000 volunteers to reach voters, resulting in the highest turnout in New York City’s mayoral primary history. This is not just a strategy; it is a blueprint for democratic socialists and progressives everywhere.

Mobilize from the ground up

In Slovakia, on the other hand, most parties keep voters at arm’s length, speaking at them from podiums, billboards, and TV screens, rather than with them in their neighborhoods. Engagement is transactional and fleeting—ramped up only in the months before an election, then abandoned. Even self-described progressive parties do little more than bring their political leaders from Bratislava to highly produced events in the regions, attended mostly by supporters only. Simply put, the first interaction with a voter can’t be asking them for a vote without any prior history of involvement in the community. The reason SMER remains so dominant is its robust regional networks and local leaders who engage, formally and informally, with the electorate outside of the campaign season.

My perspective, shaped by years in U.S. progressive campaigns, reveals the glaring opportunity in Slovakia: build local party structures that engage voters year-round, elect local champions, and mobilize from the ground up. This is how you win—not just elections, but hearts and minds. 

In the U.S., where the social safety net is threadbare, progressive campaigns have begun to weave mutual aid into their organizing. This isn’t charity; it’s solidarity. It connects immediate needs—clean water, warm blankets, food—with the deeper structural injustices that create them. It transforms voters from passive recipients into active agents of change, building the kind of trust and community that gets people to the polls.

Consider Zach Shrewsbury’s U.S. Senate run in West Virginia, who just announced his second candidacy for the 2026 cycle. An underdog in 2024, he won counties where his campaign’s mutual aid efforts—delivering water and supplies to Appalachia’s forgotten—were most active. Or look at Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old TikTok star and fierce advocate for Palestinian rights, running for Congress in Illinois. She rejects the candidate-centered, media-driven “vanity project” model, focusing instead on mutual aid and grassroots organizing. Contrast that with another young social media influencer and former Kamala Harris staffer, Deja Foxx, whose campaign in Arizona, heavy on identity politics and digital ads and light on policy substance, refused even to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza and lost in the special primaries just this week. The difference is stark: one campaign builds community and power; the other builds a brand.

Mutual aid and direct, peer-to-peer voter contact are not just tactics—they are the future of people-powered politics. They distinguish genuine movements from cynical self-promotion. For progressives and democratic socialists, in the U.S., Slovakia, and beyond, the formula is clear: pair bold, authentic messaging with relentless, on-the-ground engagement. This is how we build a new politics—one rooted in human rights, anti-colonialism, and solidarity. This is how we win.