This wasn’t supposed to happen. When Zohran Mamdani launched his mayoral campaign in late October 2024, the candidate himself was probably the only person in the city who thought he could win. Donald Trump’s election two weeks later cemented the mainstream consensus that New York City and the nation were turning decisively rightward. Pivoting to the “moderate center,” we were told, was the Democratic Party’s only chance at electoral survival. Even the most optimistic of Mamdani’s leftist supporters thought that