Trying to Make Sense of the Popular Front Strategy in Light of the Reaction to Zohran Mamdani's Victory
July 15, 2025
Oakland, Tuesday morning, July 15th. I recently returned from my first real (i.e., not working) vacation in six years. I am a little grumpy about political events, as you can tell from the tone of this piece. It was hard to get back into this, especially as events seem to change so rapidly. But I had to start my post-vacation with addressing this issue first.
The hard lesson communist Resistance fighters learned after World War II is that as soon as their need for your help has waned, your capitalist allies will turn on you faster than you can imagine. And they will ally with fascists to defeat you, if necessary. In America, you can extend this lesson to socialists, although socialists rose to the be the most common opposition in Western Europe after the war - even winning some elections from time to time. No historical lesson fits exactly with any current day conditions.
Last month, I was in New York City the day after the Democratic primary visiting my daughter. In a surprise to most, State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani handily beat former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the first round of the ranked choice election. Cuomo’s team reportedly believed that they needed to win the first place votes by about eight points to ensure victory, and thought that if Mamdani got within five points they were in trouble. The clear Mamdani victory paved the way for a very early concession from Cuomo. He and his team knew they were beat; there was no way he would prevail once the second and third place votes were counted. And they were right – when a victor was declared a week later on the third round of ranking, Mamdani had beaten Cuomo by twelve points, 56-44. Mamdani was the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City!
While for many people, Mamdani might have seemed to come out of nowhere – he was polling one percent in February – he is a product of (and participant in) decades of organizing by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). You can read more about that here. Mamdani has made affordability, even if it means creating socialist programs, the centerpiece of his campaign, something neoliberal Democrats have opposed for decades. In fact, many Democrats immediately began attacking Mamdani after he won – usually with slanderous accusations of antisemitism because he – like so many voters that sat out the election in 2024 – opposes the fascist Netanyahu regime and empathizes with the Palestinian people in Gaza.
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was one of the early slanderers, which she has recently attempted to walk back. You may remember that she demanded the resignation of Minnesota Senator Al Franken after accusations of sexual harassment were made against him. Well, she endorsed Cuomo, who resigned from the governorship after over a dozen of sexual harassment accusations were made against him. Like a lot of centrists in the party, she is principled only the point it does not conflict with her class interests.
The reaction to Mamdani’s victory left me with a very bad taste in my mouth for Democrats. I have been either a member or supporter of DSA since the early 1990s. Turned off by the neoliberal turn of Clintonism and its role in normalizing right wing politics by moving the center to the right, I worked to elect left-wing politicians and parties. I was legal counsel for a state Green Party for a couple of years. Since the election debacle of 2000, I have argued for a popular front with Democrats in elections and worked to help them win. The Timmons case made it clear to me that we could not avoid working with Democrats, and the stakes were getting higher and higher as fascists gained ascendency within the ranks of the Republican Party.
One of the hardest things I have had to do in the last 25 years is convince young progressives to hold their nose and vote for Democrats. It’s an antifascist vote, I would tell them – and I believed that. But what we see in the aftermath of Mamdani’s victory is that establishment Democrats would rather work with a corrupt mayor like Eric Adams or a disgraced former governor like Cuomo than a democratic socialist who won the primary with a 12 point margin.
These people have been wringing their hands about what’s gone wrong electorally. Obama’s solution is to “buckle up.” A host of centrist Democrats think, as usual, the party should move to the right. Yet, Mamdani’s campaign has set out the template, if they are willing to see it:1
Focus on affordability, and take that where it takes you. City-run grocery stores? How is that not better than market-produced food deserts? Seriously. Sometimes I think even Democrats would rather have people suffer than criticize capitalism. We know Republicans have no problem with suffering, but Democrats are supposed to be different.
You don’t have to focus on “culture war” issues, but do not sell out immigrants and gay and trans folks. Show up for them and have their backs. But don’t just virtual signal while ignoring issues that impact everyone. Trans folks need affordable housing, health care, and food, too. It is not hard to message support for marginalized groups and support beneficial economic policy for everyone if you are serious about both.
Get out and meet voters, even ones you assume are against you. When Bernie Sanders was first running for office in Vermont he met with all sorts of people who thought he was some strange commie from New York. Many of them because supporters because they understood from engaging him in face-to-face dialogue that he was on their side. Cuomo hardly talked to voters at all. Mamdani and his supporters hit 120,000 doors, and the candidate showed up - often without fanfare - at all sorts of community meetings.
And have some integrity. Walk the talk.
After enduring so much hand-wringing from Democratic leaders about Mamdani, it seemed that some were starting to figure out a way to get behind him. Democratic House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (who represents Brooklyn) aired his reluctance to endorse Mamdani, but also defended him from unhinged attacks from Trump. Several important labor unions, some who had endorsed Cuomo in the primary, fairly quickly endorsed Mamdani. More and more local officials and party organizations endorsed him. I began to get the feeling that perhaps the initial panic among donors and leaders would subside into at least a grudging acceptance. But then Cuomo inserted himself back into the conversation - and establishment New York Democrats like former governor David Paterson and comptroller H. Carl McCall have made public statements opposing Mamdani.
On Monday, Cuomo made it clear that he is going to stay in the race and challenge Mamdani in the general election. New York is one of the only states that uses fusion voting, a method of counting votes where candidates can appear on multiple party lines and get the aggregate of all votes. This helps smaller parties and those who support them get influence by demonstrating how much voting support a candidate gets from the supporters of a particular party or ideology. This year, Mamdani will be on the Democratic and Working Family party lines. I encourage everyone to vote for Mamdani on the Working Family Party line. You can show your support for progressive alternatives to capitalism and opposition to establishment Democrats by doing this. But even if you vote on the Democratic line, it will count.
Cuomo created his own party to hedge his bets this year. He had until a few days after the primary to take his name off the November ballot, but refused to do so. Now, he is staying in the race. He is calling out to Adams (incumbent, but running as an independent), Sliwa (Republican nominee), and another candidate who is polling less than one percent to all agree to drop out of the race in September in favor of the one of the four who polling shows has the best chance to beat Mamdani in November.
While folks on the left have been engaging Democrats in a popular front electoral strategy to contain fascism, establishment Democrats act like they are in a coalition with Hindenburg to contain socialism. If you don’t understand the reference, read Turner’s Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power: January 1933. You might think Democrats would be the historical analogue for the Social Democrats, but sometimes they act more like Germany’s Conservatives of the early 1930s.
Is this unfair? Maybe to a few people, but I don’t care at this point.
After decades of supporting centrist candidates and listening to overpaid consultants and social media sycophants tell us “vote blue no matter who,” when it comes time for one of our candidates to win Democrats line up against him. How can any of us ever convince anyone again that they should vote for a candidate they don’t really like?
I have argued here that we should take a harm reduction approach to voting, and I believe that. However, I am not sure that is persuasive to most voters. It’s too abstract for most. Would Gazans be better off if Harris had been elected? Undoubtedly, in my opinion. But how much better? Would she have turned on Netanyahu and refused to arm him unless he withdrew? I doubt it. Would the regime have kept killing Gazans? Probably. Would fewer people be killed? Maybe. Would more aid get to the Gazan? Sure. For a lot of voters, this isn’t enough to get out and support her.
After a campaign of telling us what an existential threat Trump was (which was correct, by the way), Democrats immediately pivoted to a business as usual attitude after the election. Don’t fool yourself into thinking this did not make at least a few voters out there feel like they were lied to during the campaign - and make plenty of others feel like these Democrats really did not care about how a Trump Administration would impact them. Schumer could have stopped the budget process from proceeding, but did not because he claimed that would harm people. This would have forced Republicans to negotiate to stop the government from closing down Instead, we end up with a $900 billion cut to Medicaid and a government that, while not officially closed down, doesn’t do anything anymore except support a police state.
It feels like the popular front strategy has been a failure. Has it really been? I don’t know, but it sure feels that way. Maybe I will cheer up about it should events prove more optimistic. The past few weeks have made me wonder if we really can work with Democrats - and Cuomo’s announcement that he’s staying in the race really concerns me about what Democrats behind the scenes are really up to. It’s not likely, but if Sliwa – who is a dirtbag – is running second behind Mamdani in the September polling, are establishment Democrats going to back him over the party’s nominee? I can’t say right now that they definitely won’t. But if it is Cuomo or Adams finishing second in September, it feels like establishment Democrats will make a full-court effort to stop Mamdani. I hope I am wrong.2
As Michael Thomas Carter notes, the organizing efforts of DSA create an environment where endorsed candidates are the kind of people voters want to support. I will be in New York City this fall helping Mamdani win, just like I was to help establishment candidates Harris, Biden, and others win in earlier elections. And until then – and afterwards – Democrats that sabotage or oppose Mamdani can forget about any help from me. No money, no volunteering, no votes. If they won’t “vote blue no matter who,” then neither will I.
It appears that some centrists would rather lose their way than win by doing things differently. But maybe this just underscores how deep the ideological differences actually are - as well as demonstrating that these centrists are much more ideological than the pragmatists they claim to be.
I also feel like it is a good bet that none of these candidates will adhere to this pledge come September. Cuomo only drops out if he knows he will be embarrassed. Adams and Sliwa are not going to drop out. If either cared about being embarrassed, they would not have run in the first place.