New York City mayoral dandidate Zohran Mamdani celebrates his Democratic primary victory with leaders and members of a number of city labor unions. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Maryland is traditionally a top-down state politically.
Until recently, the state’s political landscape has been dominated by senior Democrats, whose centrist, establishment politics continue to hold sway in the State House and in many local governments. Young, aspiring politicians are frequently told, implicitly if not explicitly, to wait their turn before seeking higher office. Even in a state legislature with Democratic supermajorities, progressive initiatives are often held at bay.
So the pulses of young progressives in Maryland quickened considerably last week when a 33-year-old self-described democratic socialist, Zohran Mamdani, emerged as the unlikely victor in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City and is now the frontrunner in the November general election. And the Democratic establishment and donor class, in the city and beyond, are assessing whether to embrace Mamdani and his movement or continue strategizing for ways to suppress it.
“It’s certainly an exciting moment because it’s a people-powered victory very clearly – an underdog story,” said Montgomery County Councilmember Kristin Mink (D), a leading progressive voice in local and state politics. “Any time we see a number of people engaged and able to defeat big money, it’s important to take note of that.”
It’s hard to extrapolate much from a single local election – especially one in such a unique environment as The Big Apple, where Mamdani’s principal primary opponent was the uniquely flawed former governor, Andrew Cuomo. But pundits across the political spectrum are calling the primary results an earthquake – and earthquakes can have reverberations far from their fault lines.
As the 2026 election cycle heats up in Maryland, and as Democrats here and nationally continue to reel from the 2024 election and its profound implications, it’s worth examining whether Mamdani’s message and winning coalition provide some lessons that can be applied here.
Mamdani’s victory was partly generational and partly ideological. The state assemblyman from Queens had an expansive economic agenda that focused on affordability and the New Yorkers who are struggling to survive in a hyper-expensive city. He highlighted proposals for rent freezes, free transit, affordable child care and government-sponsored grocery stores in food deserts, among others.
Mamdani’s thoroughly modern campaign, fueled by nontraditional media outreach, produced an array of responses from Maryland political leaders on social media last week.
Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D), a fellow Indian-American, offered congratulations on X to Mamdani “and everyone who fought alongside him. You stood up for the underdog – and won.”
Ian Miller, a 23-year-old member of the Baltimore County Democratic Central Committee who has frequently clashed with party insiders, on Facebook called Mamdani’s victory “the Gen Z Obama moment.”
Former U.S. Rep. John Delaney (D) offered a more nuanced analysis on X, recognizing Mamdani’s appeal to “base” Democratic voters, but asking, “How do people reconcile the fact that (more centrist) Andrew Cuomo’s campaign was funded by mega donors and he won the low income neighborhoods and (more progressive) Zohran’s campaign was grass roots and he won the wealthy neighborhoods?”
Some national political analysts said they saw Mamdani’s victory as reflecting economic jitters across all classes – and the pent-up frustrations of younger Democrats who don’t see senior party leaders standing up to President Trump and other MAGA Republicans. Do some of the same conditions exist on the ground in Maryland that helped propel Mamdani to victory? Where can political parallels be drawn between New York and the Free State?
Larry Stafford, executive director of the group Progressive Maryland, said New York voters produced results that have already been evident in pockets of Maryland in recent years.
“I see this victory as part of a trend that’s emerging,” he said. “Like a lot of movements, first it goes forward, then it stumbles back, then it moves forward again.”
Generational change
There is no question that Maryland is in the midst of a generational shift politically. It began with the departures of Attorney General Joe Curran (D) and Comptroller (and former governor) William Donald Schaefer (D) following the 2006 election, and has accelerated with the retirements of multiterm U.S. Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D) and Ben Cardin (D), the deaths of record-serving House Speaker Michael Busch (D) and Senate President Mike Miller (D), the defeat of four senior members of the state Senate in 2018 Democratic primaries, and the retirements of three Democratic members of Maryland’s U.S. House delegation last year.
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The state made history in 2022 by electing its first Black governor and attorney general, its first female state comptroller and its first woman of color to serve as lieutenant governor – each considerably younger than their predecessors. Two of the state’s new members of Congress, Reps. Sarah K. Elfreth (D-3rd) and Johnny Olszewski Jr. (D-2nd), are 36 and 42, respectively. Brandon Scott was the youngest mayor of Baltimore ever elected in 2020, when he was 36 years old.
With the swearing in of a new member last month, the 11-person Prince George’s County Council now has five millennials, led by full-throated progressives Ed Burroughs (D) and Krystal Oriadha (D).
Four years ago, there were none.
“I think that’s to the benefit of the county because we have a younger population,” said Councilmember Tom Dernoga (D), who is 66. “I think it’s better that we reflect the population than with older folks like me, and I’ll be retiring soon so I’ll be replaced by someone younger and we’ll be skewing even younger.”
There have been distinct progressive victories in Democratic primaries over the years in Maryland – some representing significant upsets – though they haven’t necessarily changed the overall political arc of the state.
One such political victory came in 2006, when constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin ousted veteran Montgomery County state Sen. Ida Ruben in the Democratic primary. Now a congressman, Raskin has since become an icon of the left nationally.
Another came in 2018, when former NAACP president Ben Jealous, a lifelong progressive activist and Bernie Sanders acolyte, defeated more established Democratic politicians in the primary for governor. Jealous’ victory came on the same night that a 27-year-old bartender named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shocked a top congressional Democrat, Rep. Joe Crowley, in the New York Democratic primary – so Jealous never quite got his due, especially after losing the general election that year.
“The national landscape never took note of that victory as much,” Stafford said.
That same year, an avowed democratic socialist, Marc Elrich, was elected Montgomery County executive, narrowly defeating a self-funding multimillionaire in the process – and narrowly beating him again in a rematch four years later. Prince George’s voters recently elected a longtime political outsider, Aisha Braveboy (D), as county executive – though it remains to be seen if she will govern as far to the left as some of her allies on the county council would like her to.
Gov. Wes Moore (D) won election at the age of 44, with big ideas to alleviate childhood poverty, create an equitable economy and tackle generational challenges like climate change. But constricted by budgetary challenges, some of his own cautious impulses, and institutional roadblocks in Annapolis, the governor has found that transformational change isn’t all that easy.
Stafford predicted that Maryland progressives will take the winning formulas of certain successful candidates, along with Mamdani’s, and apply it to the upcoming election cycle – and to working with allies inside and out of government.
“It will look different than it has in the past,” he said. “The coalitions will look different.”
Mink, the Montgomery County councilmember, said she believes progressive policy progress can be achieved more easily at the local level than in the State House, because there aren’t so many powerful forces working in opposition.
“It’s much easier to secure a people-powered win at the county level,” she said.
‘Hell yes, it emboldens me’
One 2026 Democratic candidate who is already making the generational case against a long-time incumbent is Harry Jarin, the small business owner and volunteer firefighter who is challenging 86-year-old U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-5th), the longest-serving Democrat in the House of Representatives. Asked in an interview last week whether Mamdani’s victory emboldens him, Jarin replied, “Hell yes, it emboldens me.”
Jarin said that even if Mamdani’s policy prescriptions didn’t appeal to every voter, “he tapped into that insecurity that a lot of younger voters feel and the feeling that establishment Democrats haven’t done anything to address it. It’s voters rejecting the status quo, just as they did in November when they elected Donald Trump. And right now, the establishment Democrats are the status quo.”
Hoyer has not yet said whether he will seek a 23rd full term next year, and several elected officials, including some with close ties to the veteran lawmaker, could jump into a race to replace him. But Jarin said he’s ready to pivot if circumstances change without having to change his strategy.
“Even if he does drop out, I expect he’ll try to shove some other establishment Democrat with no real-world experience down our throats,” Jarin said. “To me, this has never been just about age. For me this has always been about the need to reconnect the Democratic Party with the working class electorate it has lost ground with and continues to lose ground with.
“It makes no difference if my opponent is 86 or 31. My message will be the same: We need people with experience away from the political system to serve in office,” he said.
Another key race where Mamdani’s playbook could come into play is in the Democratic primary to replace Elrich as Montgomery County executive, where Councilmember Will Jawando (D), who is running with Elrich’s endorsement, is almost certain to stake out multiple positions to the left of his principal opponents – who by most standards are pretty liberal themselves.
“The path to success is through people power,” said Mink, who has also endorsed Jawando’s bid for executive. “People are very hungry for electeds whose words, whose actions, whose opinions match the urgency of what’s happening on the ground. There’s important lessons to be learned from New York.”
– Maryland Matters news partner WTOP News contributed to this report.