Scarlett Maguire: What can other parties learn from the remarkable rise of Zohran Mamdani?

Scarlett Maguire is a pollster, and founder of Merlin Strategy.

Almost nine months on from Kamala Harris’ defeat at the hands of Donald Trump, the Democrats remain in disarray. The party is paying the price with its own voters, not just for Trump’s victory but for Joe Biden’s attempt to cling on to the nomination in the face of backlash from seven in ten Americans.

The latest Wall Street Journal poll has found the Democrats’ favourability ratings plummeting to net -30, their lowest rating from voters in more than three decades. Job approval ratings for congressional Democrats have hit an all-time low, and Democrats feel less optimistic about the party’s future than they were a year ago. A vacuum persists at the top of the party and there is no clear successor to the Biden/Harris/Walz ticket, with polls finding Democrat voters widely split on their preferred 2028 presidential contenders.

It is into this vacuum that progressive sensation and self-proclaimed socialist Zohran Mamdani has sprung, coming from a standing start to pull off one of the biggest political shocks of 2025 so far. Mamdani has secured the Democrat primary for the New York mayoral election, and is now the favourite in a crowded, five-way field, to win in November.

His success so far has been nothing short of astonishing. Starting with next to no name recognition and just one per cent of the vote in an Emerson college poll in February, he went on to win just months later, beating former governor Andrew Cuomo by 12 points.

That hasn’t stopped many Republicans being gleeful at the prospect of Bernie Sanders-endorsed Mamdani becoming the new face of the Democrat party in the run up to the 2026 mid-terms. They think that his brand of ultra-progressivism will turn out to be kryptonite to a wider American electorate that firmly rejected the leftward drift of the Biden administration less than a year ago. Indeed, Yougov data shows that whilst the Democrats see the party as not liberal enough, the wider electorate and independents perceive the Democrats to be too liberal already.

Our own Merlin Strategy polling also shows that Mamdani’s identiy and positioning on foreign affairs are toxic to voters, with 33 per cent saying that Mamdani’s statement that Israel has committed acts of genocide means they are less likely to vote for him (net likelihood -6). Likewise, his refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” has a net likelihood of -12 and his self-identification as a “Democratic Socialist” has the biggest negative impact on the likelihood of an American voting for him at net -15.

However, there are things in Mamdani’s favour that others, even his political enemies, would do well to learn from.

American voters are fed up with a perceived gerontocracy amongst political elites, most noticeably manifesting itself in the Democrat party propping up a provably senile man to continue occupying the Oval Office. Far from Mamdani’s youth and lack of experience counting against him, voters see his age (33) as a positive influence on their likelihood to vote for him. In a race against political incumbents and long-standing establishment figures, it helps define him as something voters are looking for: someone who is new and represents something different.

Mamdani’s age no doubt also shaped his strategy to win the Democrat primary. His campaign focused not only on registering new voters (new voters registered increased ten fold from 2021) but there was also a concerted effort to get younger voters to the polls too, with particular success in reaching the under-35s. Reaching and engaging this age group, which swung considerably towards Trump in 2024, will be crucial to Democrat chances in 2024.

In order to better connect with this group, politicians will have to become more digital savvy. Mamdani now provides an example for Democrats, who are reportedly ‘throwing money’ at their digital strategy, how to match Republicans’ success with new and social media in 2024. Mamdani’s success was propelled by his more than 4.5 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, and had an instagram rate 14 times higher than that of Cuomo’s during June, and mentions of him outpacing those of Cuomo by a staggering 30-1. 

Dissatisfaction with the direction the country is going in remains high. Although considerably down from its peak last August, a majority of Americans feel that the country is on the wrong track. Candidates that can  convincingly convey they will bring change and challenge powerful interests are more likely to be able to thrive against this fraught backdrop in public opinion.

Polling on the NYC mayoral race from Wick in partnership with Next Up with Mark Halperin shows that Mamdani has so far successfully branded himself as that change candidate: 52 per cent of likely voters in New York city give him the lead on ‘Shaking up the system,’ whilst 49 per cent say he is best at ‘standing up for working people.’

Mamdani leant into this David and Goliath, anti-establishment message in one of his final videos of the campaign. Walking through New York surrounded by scores of supporters he took his message directly to voters, saying straight to the camera “we’re fighting through the most amount of money that has ever been spent by a super PAC in New York City municipal history, and we’re going to be able to overcome that because of you.”

Although on the surface he could not feel more different to President  Trump, Mamdani’s story so far holds many parallels to the latter’s success in the 2016 Republican primaries. hiss energetic videos, deftness in modern communications and ability to play on his status as a political outsider turned him from an overlooked no-hoper to front-runner of the race. Other politicians battling seemingly impossible odds could do well to take note.