Zohran Mamdani’s commanding lead in the New York City mayoral election owes much to his ability to tap into the concerns of New Yorkers – putting affordability and housing at the center of his campaign.
But he’s been helped, too, by a superstar social media presence. The charismatic 33-year-old regularly beams out slick videos on TikTok and Instagram that have helped raise his profile and attract a swathe of voters and volunteers.
Mamdani started that social media campaign with a bang. He had already posted videos as a New York State assembly member, but in November came his biggest yet. The first video of his campaign for mayor showed Mamdani walking around New York, talking about the cost of living over a slow tempo hip-hop beat.
It introduced Mamdani to a social media audience – painting him as a young, attractive outsider who was willing to criticize the depths of New York’s problems. And that has been a consistent feature of why his social media videos have worked so well: they look cool, but they’re relentlessly on message. In his debut, Mamdani identified how, in his words, New Yorkers were “being crushed by rent and childcare” while “working people [are] being pushed out of the city they built”.
“A mayor could change this,” Mamdani says. The video is shot in a washout filter, making it look cool. It’s great stuff.
His subsequent videos have hammered home the same message. In November, Mamdani ran the New York City marathon, shooting video as he went.
“Eric Adams has raised the rent 9%. That’s the most since a Republican was in city hall,” a slightly breathless Mamdani tells the camera as he runs.
Another video from the race shows Mamdani dodging in and out of other runners. “If you want to run for mayor, you need to go to every single borough of New York City all the time, today we are the first campaign to hit five in a day,” he says.
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It’s a sense of fun and energy that was certainly missing from the campaign of Andrew Cuomo, his nearest rival. During the Democratic primary, Cuomo struck as a dour figure, rarely appearing in public and instead holding press conferences where he stood behind a lectern, offering vague messages about “change” and the need to “turn things around”.
Mamdani can rarely be found standing behind a lectern. Or standing still at all.
Four days before the primary, he walked the length of Manhattan – about 13 miles – with a camera in tow.
“We’re outside, because New Yorkers deserve a mayor that they can see, they can hear, they can even yell at,” he announces at the beginning.
The video shows Mamdani, wearing a shirt, tie and running shoes meeting dozens of New Yorkers as he walks, with clips selected to show the enthusiasm of people he encounters. He hugs dozens of people, clasps hands and listens to people saying they had voted for him.
It’s uplifting, and it served as another juxtaposition between Mamdani and Cuomo: it’s hard to imagine people mustering the same excitement at seeing Cuomo, who resigned as governor in disgrace after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.
There’s a sense of humor that appeals, too. In August, a video began with the camera swooping up towards Mamdani, who was eating from a bag of Herr’s Sour Cream and Onion potato chips. It was a direct reference to a report that a volunteer on Eric Adams’s campaign had handed a journalist that exact bag of potato chips, containing an envelope with a wad of cash shoved inside.
“Hello my friends,” Mamdani says. “I have to come clean. I have something to hide.”
It was funny – but it wasn’t just a gag. As with many of Mamdani’s videos, there was a call to action. Mamdani continued, saying he had “many things” to hide: “Because we’re doing a scavenger hunt.”
He was announcing a scavenger hunt across New York City the next day. It was short notice, but the video got nearly 2m views and 245,000 likes, and more importantly for Mamdani, brought out thousands of people, who engaged with campaign volunteers as they trekked across the city. (It also, not unintentionally, drew plenty of press attention.)
There’s self-awareness too. A self-referential video posted to TikTok in July had the caption: “Shooting our videos is a little bit different now.” It showed Mamdani apparently in place ready to film a video, but being interrupted by a cavalcade of people wanting selfies. True to form, Mamdani’s team filmed it, ran it, and the video got nearly 100,000 likes.
It’s not only Mamdani’s social media videos that have him as the frontrunner to become mayor. But as the election looms, it certainly isn’t doing his prospects any harm.