I was a skeptic.
Not of progressive politics—never that. But of the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, the movement that produced Zohran Mamdani. As an activist and political organizer, I’ve watched too many of their purists operate from a place of cold ideological rigidity, more interested in being right than in bringing people in. There's a certain brand of leftist who makes everyone—including other leftists—feel like a disappointment for not conforming completely. Over the years I have found these folks exhausting and unhelpful in procuring the change so many of us align on and ultimately want. Bernie Sanders, for all his brilliance and righteous fury, never cracked the warmth problem—and I say that having watched him up close on multiple campaign trails (you can read about the experience of meeting him backstage at a rally in my book, Era of Ignition.) The DSA members who rallied around him had caught the same chill: a brand of purity politics so focused on being right that it forgot to make room for anyone still finding their way, anyone with slightly differing points of view. You can't build a majority out of a litmus test. You have to actually unlock the door.
Then came Zohran.
What Mamdani did—what he does—is bring infectious joy, inclusion, and a fresh playfulness to the fight worth fighting for. He is, in the most literal sense, a warm front moving through: the kind that doesn't announce itself with thunder but simply raises the temperature until you realize, almost without noticing, that you've taken off your coat, you feel like coming in. He campaigns like someone who genuinely believes we can win, we deserve to win, and we can do it together, despite our differences. That belief is contagious in the way that actual conviction always is. Mamdani talked about free buses and universal childcare and a rent freeze for New Yorkers the way you talk about something that is simply right—not radical, not impossible, just right. And so far he is delivering on those ideas.
Since taking office on January 1st, he has moved with quiet, relentless urgency: free childcare for two-year-olds, $34 million in tenant repairs and settlements, protected time off expanded for 4.3 million workers, and just this last week, a two-year rent freeze for 40% of New York City apartments. All while absorbing a level of hatred that would have leveled most politicians, including, in March, a homemade explosive device left outside Gracie Mansion.
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But he kept going. And this past week, every candidate Mamdani backed in the New York primaries won. Brad Lander. Claire Valdez. Darializa Avila Chevalier, who unseated a nine-year incumbent. A clean sweep. Not a fluke…a movement.
Because that’s what this is. Not a political moment, not a lucky candidate; A movement, built on the radical idea that government should work as hard as the people it serves and we can be joyful in executing it. “This is pothole politics,” Mamdani told a crowd of supporters this spring. “Our 2026 answer to sewer socialism—where government is not too busy, not too self-important, not too mired in paperwork to fix the problems of this city, no matter their size.”
The DSA and I will probably never be official—my husband notwithstanding—but the Mamdani movement? I'm fully in. And to the naysaying New Yorkers and establishment Democrats who still can’t get behind him: I say this with love, but it’s time for a reckoning. What he has modeled—refusing corporate money, refusing to bend to powerful lobbying organizations, maintaining an unbreakable spirit in the face of people who want nothing more than for him to lose in every way possible—is not naïveté. It’s a blueprint.
The warm front has arrived. And it feels so good to be here.
Who in your city is building something breathtaking, something the naysayers said couldn’t be done, and doing it with a kind of infectious joy despite the odds? Research one local candidate, one city council race, one school board seat worth fighting for, then lean into that fight. Share their name and one sentence about why they matter. Turn inspiration into infrastructure.
Share in the comments below so we have an aggregate of the best candidates out there, all the way up and down the ballot.
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