In 2016, Barack Obama said of the grueling process of policymaking that his job was to “steer the ocean liner two degrees north or south so that 10 years from now we’re in a very different place from where we were.” New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani might not be steering an entire ocean liner. But he’s no doubt captaining a hefty cruiser, and, far from steering one degree at a time, he seems to be taking it wherever he pleases, without having to wait.
Since his inauguration in January, Mamdani and his office’s responsiveness to local problems has gone viral. No issue — be it a pothole, broken water fountain or … the male loneliness epidemic? — seems to be out of his reach. Mamdani’s mayoral Instagram is covered in charismatic videos of him, beaming smile and all, fixing water fountains during heatwaves, announcing free tickets to the U.S. Open and setting up new trash bins. Mamdani has paired these ground-level wins with a steady flow of more systematic local changes, which he has likewise thoroughly advertised on social media. Among them are a $4 billion plan to repair the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and an expansion of childcare subsidies.
The steady stream of local wins is, for one, an effective way for Mamdani to redirect attention from the specific campaign promises he hasn’t been able to fulfill (Does anyone remember that thing about free buses?). More importantly, though, they’ve helped him sustain a political honeymoon that only seems to be growing stronger. If they’re going to want to maintain momentum into 2028, progressives running for federal office, including Michigan senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, will need to follow Mamdani in directing their focus at highly visible, uncontroversial local reforms and hope they can join Mamdani’s wave of momentum.
Just this month, a Suffolk University poll had 56% of New Yorkers reporting a positive view of Mamdani. An additional 17% reported they believed he was doing a “fair” job. Sixty-one percent of respondents also reported that he was doing “better than expected.” Compare that to his 46% approval rating shortly before his inauguration. Even nationally his popularity has exceeded that of other progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — though a large portion of likely voters are still undecided on him. The growing positive sentiment also seems to go hand-in-hand with Mamdani’s perceived commitment to his office: After his first 100 days, a Marist poll 74% of New Yorkers reported that they thought Mamdani was working hard as mayor. The belief that Mamdani is putting in the effort to deliver at least some kind of result could be what’s underlying his recent surge in popularity.
Rather than diving into hot national issues, Mamdani is slowly selling his brand of little big government in a way that most voters can digest. When the first association the public has with “democratic socialism” is potholes being filled, they’re more likely to be inoculated against opposing attacks that use the term “socialism” as a threat. Mamdani’s growing success could, on its surface, be seen as a sign that public sentiment is yielding to an incoming wave of left-wing political dominance leading up to the midterms. Progressive candidates for federal office, El-Sayed among them, are going to want to replicate this formula should they be elected. But it’s not going to be as easy.
El-Sayed has the charisma and the savviness to take advantage of social media as a tool of advertisement, no doubt. But he’s not running for mayor of Detroit. He’s running for U.S. Senate, and public sentiment towards members of Congress, far from that of locally elected officials, is deeply tied to national-level political divisions. El-Sayed’s campaign messaging reflects the broader scope of the office for which he’s campaigning. Rather than proposing new busways or a couple public grocery stores, he has a simple and effective populist slogan: “Money Out of Politics, Money in Your Pocket, Medicare for All.” Mamdani has struggled with just trying to implement free buses. There’s no expectation that El-Sayed would be able to deliver Medicare for All, or really anything, before the 2028 election.
Luckily for El-Sayed and other progressive candidates for federal office, research has shown that big, populist campaign promises can remain effective after an election as long as the elected official makes a clear, continued effort to introduce their signature policy, framing the process as an ongoing battle. Thus, step one is for newly-elected federal progressives to take a page out of Mamdani’s book and make full use of social media to deliver updates on their continued attempts towards their campaign promises. This strategy might be enough for progressives to maintain their existing momentum with their base. It won’t, however, be enough to normalize the left-wing brand in the eyes of the broader public. That requires the kinds of agreeable local wins that only someone in Mamdani’s position can directly deliver.
The good news is that the burgeoning progressive moment is taking hold at the local and state levels. Looking just at candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America in 2026, more than half have been running for local office or for the state legislature. If even some of these candidates find success in November, this election can be the first step towards building a network of local representatives of the left-wing brand who have the opportunity to pursue apparently small wins and sell democratic socialism to their local communities.
As for potential federal officeholders like El-Sayed, this local network is where they’re going to have to invest their time, because Michigan potholes aren’t going to be fixed from Washington, D.C. Fostering highly visible partnerships with local leaders will build a visible association between federal progressives and the steady flow of “small” wins that local officials have the ability to deliver. Progressives should frame these as collective victories produced by their entire movement such that no progressive’s office is too high to deliver practical results. If they do all of this effectively, the left will be able to keep fueling their honeymoon and to build themselves into the political mainstream, one pothole at a time.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
