The Mamdani Model: More Socialist Mayors to Come

I’ve written countless times in recent years about the model established by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to get its members elected to office. It’s a brilliantly cunning strategy that goes like this:

First, the DSA identifies a Democrat-safe, if not guaranteed, district. These are areas where registered Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans; that is, where a Republican candidate has virtually no chance. (RELATED: Mamdani Won, But Socialism Still Lost)

Second, the DSA identifies offices in which the incumbent Democrat — typically, a more conventional Democrat, a party person — is highly vulnerable. That part of the process is crucial. It must be a target of opportunity in which the incumbent can be defeated in the party primary. (RELATED: Electing the Image: Mamdani and the Mimetic Turn in Democracy)

Third, the DSA recruits a member — someone with charisma and political skills — willing and capable of challenging and defeating the incumbent. Someone like an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Zohran Mamdani. Importantly, this person need not be a Democrat. The individual merely needs to be a “democratic socialist.” The individual is morphed into a registered Democrat, joining the party only to subvert and transform it from within. (RELATED: Mayor Mamdani: A Victory for Champagne Socialism)

Many informed Democrats are aware of this slick maneuvering and are not happy about it. You might recall the serpentine James Carville screeching about lifetime socialist Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic Party Primary: “But Bernie’s not a Democrat!” No, Bernie never was. The Senate “Independent” way back in 1980 had served as a formal presidential elector to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party. Bernie in 2016 merely adopted the Democrat label to try to get himself elected president. And many of the dupes that comprise the Democrat rank and file willingly pulled the lever for him, giving him an astonishing 13 million primary votes that year, not far behind Hillary Clinton. (RELATED: Comrade With a Condo: The Mamdani Myth Exposed)

As for the Democratic Socialists of America, they’ve quite cynically done what Bernie did. Many of their far-left members don’t like the Democratic Party at all. Nonetheless, they’re willing to sign up in order to take on, defeat, and displace a more traditional Democrat and hence bring the revolution to that district or city.

A central figure in this strategy was Justice Democrats founder Cenk Uygur, who said, “What we need to do is take over the Democratic Party. We’re going to primary all of the establishment Democrats ….  all vulnerable Democrats.” Collaborating with the DSA and its members-candidates, Uygar declared: “We want hundreds. We want to replace Congress.” He rightly noted that if they could elect to Congress a dozen or two individuals like Congressgirl Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, “People would freak the hell out.”

Uygar said that almost 10 years ago. And people are indeed freaking the hell out.

The model has worked so successfully that there are now a bunch of DSA members — an organization that proudly calls itself “the largest socialistic organization in the United States” and refers to members as“ comrades” — who are elected members of Congress, as Democrats. They include the very worst, farthest-left members of Congress: AOC, the unhinged Ilhan Omar, and the hysterical, sobbing Rashida Tlaib. They even elected the fire-alarm-yanking maniac Jamaal Bowman, one of the few DSA “Squad” members ultimately booted from Congress, particularly for antisemitism (a common trait among DSA candidates).

The DSA has employed this strategy nationwide for a variety of offices at the national and local levels. And most recently, the comrades pulled off quite a coup when one of their own was elected mayor of no less than New York City. There, with the overwhelming assistance of woke, white women under the age of 25, they elected “condo comrade” Zohran Mamdani. (RELATED: Zohran Has Two Daddies)

That electoral-mayoral coup has initiated what I might now dub the DSA’s “Mamdani Model.” Inspired by that huge win in the Big Apple, DSA’s comrades are targeting major cities in which the dopy, incompetent incumbent Democrat has made himself or herself fresh meat for the socialists. The DSA revolutionaries lick their chops at this ripe prey. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: The Mamdani Matriarchy Sets Up Shop In NYC)

To that end, they’ve eyed up two prime targets on the left coast.

In Seattle, just one week after Mamdani’s victory in New York, self-described “democratic socialist” Katie Wilson defeated the utterly incompetent Democratic Mayor Bruce Harrell. Wilson, who in June 2020 advocated for “defunding” and “disbanding police departments,” campaigned on everything from free public housing to government stores, which she would fund by “taxing the rich.” She has been dubbed the “mini-Mamdani.” (RELATED: Cautionary Tales: What Can November 2025 Teach the GOP About November 2026?)

And like Mamdani, she won.

In Los Angeles, it’s another socialist woman. Her name is Rae Huang. She’s challenging, possibly the dopiest and most incompetent incumbent mayor in America: Karen Bass.

In a sane world, the people of Los Angeles would toss out Bass for a Republican opponent. But as with New York City, a Republican essentially has no chance there. They would choose the Devil himself over a Republican. The only person who could beat Bass would be someone else running as a Democrat in the primary. And thus, once again, the democratic socialists have their model and their opportunity.

“I am excited and very humbled to announce that I am running for Mayor of Los Angeles, the second largest city in our nation,” gushes Huang. She says that after two decades of “social justice work and organizing,” she’s “running for Mayor to finally see through the changes the LA social justice movement and I have been building for years.”

And for this social-justice warrior, “social justice” means socialism. The 43-year-old community organizer is campaigning on a platform of gobs of free stuff, from “free” housing to “free” transportation, as well as such nostrums as “climate resiliency and affordability.”

Sound familiar? It certainly should. It’s the Mamdani model, the DSA strategy applied specifically to more big city mayoral races. Will it work?

Likely, yes. These things are never certain, of course. As Alex Adkins noted this week in a smart analysis of the Mamdani win, socialism outside of these big cities is not a winner, and even within the cities, it’s sometimes barely a winner. Nonetheless, the DSA has shrewdly identified the exceptional cases where victory is a strong possibility. The Mamdani model proves it.

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