After a historic victory last fall, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked 100 days in office earlier this month.
So far, it’s going pretty well: His approval numbers are broadly positive, he’s begun to deliver on some of his key campaign promises, and he weathered his first major challenge as mayor after NYC endured two serious winter storms earlier in the year. (He’s also successfully charmed President Donald Trump not once but twice.)
Mamdani’s track record also suggests some questions for the Democratic Party as it heads into the midterms. Among them: Is Mamdani’s success a glimpse into the party’s future? How much of it can be replicated outside of New York or on a national stage? And how much is the party willing to listen?
Ben Rhodes was a deputy national security adviser and close aide to Barack Obama. He’s now an author and co-host of Pod Save the World, a podcast about world news and foreign policy. Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram, asked Rhodes what lessons the party can draw from Mamdani and which candidates are sticking out as possible Mamdani-esque successes.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
You’re here to help us understand how [Mamdani]’s being perceived within the party. How’s he being spoken about inside that Democratic tent?
It’s interesting because there are two cleavages in the Democratic Party. One is between left and center. But the other is more about body language. Do you understand what is happening? Do you understand the scale of the danger that Trump poses? Do you understand the scale of the disgust that people feel for the Democratic Party and politics in general? Do you understand the need for generational change?
I think that Mamdani has excited just about everybody that is either on the progressive end of the spectrum in the party or who’s just eager for newer, younger faces who understand what’s going on, who do politics in a different way, who don’t feel like repurposing of the old talking points for the umpteenth time. And so there’s a bunch of people that see him as an opportunity, someone to follow, someone to emulate.
Then I think there’s Democrats that are terrified of Zohran Mamdani because of all those things. Let’s just take Chuck Schumer, who’s the stand-in for a lot of the Democratic establishment that people are frustrated with — who didn’t even endorse Mamdani, even though he is from New York. Obviously he’s ambivalent about Mamdani’s politics on Israel and Palestine. He’s reluctant to let go of the reins to a new generation in the same way that we saw Joe Biden be reluctant in his time in office. He’s internalized these fights between the left wing of the party and the center and is worried about the ascendancy of a democratic socialist and losing control of an agenda that is usually dictated from Washington, not the other way around.
I think Mamdani has been — I don’t want to say polarizing, because the Schumers of the world can’t really speak out against Mamdani anymore because he’s so popular at this point. But I do think that there are people that are ambivalent and then there are people that are excited and the number of excited people is the growing quotient.
Looking at him next to a figure like Schumer, the contrast is so apparent in two buckets: One, he’s a much better communicator. And then two, he seems to be way better at dealing with the president.
Are these the two buckets that Democrats who are in office or maybe even aspiring to national office are most focused on?
Those are two of the primary buckets. There’s obviously questions about what does the Democratic Party stand for on certain issues.
But the standing up to the president, let’s just start there. Mamdani has proven what a lot of Democrats suspect, which is that our leadership has completely failed to figure out a way to deal with Trump. They’re either railing against him in public and not able to do anything in private, or they’re trying to cut a deal in the old-fashioned way.
“He’s singularly talented and he has that kind of uniqueness that Obama had.”
That has not worked, and so I think Mamdani shows, “Hey, you can be smart about this and be completely uncompromising and Trump will actually respect you more.”
On the communication side, it helps that Mamdani is a charismatic politician. It helps that he’s a very likable politician. He speaks like a normal human being. And the Chuck Schumers of the world do not. It’s always some kind of seemingly poll-tested phrase about the middle class that is designed to offend the least people and therefore says absolutely nothing, whereas Mamdani just sounds like a normal guy, like an authentic person who’s just telling you what he believes, and I think people trust that he’s telling you what he believes.
People have heard him take stances that were controversial. I actually think in this case, his positions on Gaza helped validate his positions on affordability because people are like, “Well, this guy’s willing to go out and pick some really big fights and he’s not going to budge. I’m more likely to believe that he’s going to fight to lower my rent because he has principles that he’ll stand on.” And people don’t trust a lot of the mainstream Democratic politicians that they will actually be there when the fight comes.
You worked for a guy who was singular. Is Mamdani sort of singular? I mean, he’s 34 years old. He’s a former rapper. He loves sports, he loves culture. He understands social media. You can’t implant that into a Schumer or even Schumer’s team, necessarily.
He’s singularly talented and he has that kind of uniqueness that Obama had. His background is different. He presents differently. Now, I actually think that where it can be replicated, even if you don’t have Mamdani’s singular talents or background, is the authenticity and generational point: Younger people that just sound normal and look normal.
If you look in the Democratic Senate primaries, some people have overperformed often against the party establishment’s choices: Graham Platner in Maine. Graham Platner sounds like a normal guy and he’s 30 years younger than Janet Mills, the governor of Maine, who’s the preferred candidate of Chuck Schumer and the Democratic campaign committee. If you look at Michigan: Haley Stevens, a very conventional politician, is the preferred candidate of the DSCC. There are two candidates, Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed, who present as more normal.
And this isn’t a left-center thing. This is just a younger and more authentic kind of politician.
As someone who worked for the previous generational politician in the Democratic Party, does it bum you out that [Mamdani] being born in another country might limit how much of a generational politician he gets to become?
It crossed my mind. I will say, it does make him an interesting figure. We’ve never had a figure, at least in my recent memory, who could end up being such a prominent politician at such a young age with a ceiling that is lower than the presidency. And what he chooses to do with that is quite interesting.
Is it just, “I’m a New York City guy and that’s what I’m doing. I’m running through the tape as mayor, and then I want to work in the city?” Is it “I become a New York state politician?” Is it “I become some kind of national figure separate from being president?”
It does in some ways free him of a burden in some respect. Because you’ve seen this with AOC, with any young politician. I mean, they’re already talking about [Sen. Jon] Ossoff in Georgia or if [state Rep. James] Talarico wins [in Texas], they’ll start talking about the presidency the next day.
It frees him up where every move that he makes isn’t like, “Is he positioning himself to one day run for president?” And so in that way, something is lost, but something is potentially gained too.
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