In an election cycle where the Democrats won multiple mayoralties and governor positions across the U.S., Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York stood out. Mr. Mamdani’s triumph was singular because of his unabashed “democratic socialism” platform, which defeated well-funded Democratic establishment candidate Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent. His win reflects the growing electoral viability of a political tradition hitherto marginalised in U.S. politics: socialism.

Zohran Mamdani-backed candidates excel in congressional primaries

On the surface, Mr. Mamdani’s key promises — rent freezes, public groceries, universal childcare, fare-free buses, and affordable housing — would seem to be standard welfare-state policies familiar in European political economies or Global South democracies. But Mr. Mamdani has pledged to fundamentally restructure the relationship between New York’s city government and its 8.5 million residents, reflecting an ideological clarity rooted in democratic socialist principles, much different from the largely pragmatic Democratic Party mainstream.

What exactly is ‘democratic socialism’? How does it differ from European social democracy— particularly the Nordic model? And how does it differentiate itself from the ‘revolutionary socialism’ associated with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin?

Political movement

Mr. Mamdani, like many democratic socialists, holds dual membership — he is both a Democrat and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which is not a political party but rather an advocacy platform and membership organisation. The DSA adopted a new programmatic vision at its 2025 National Convention titled ‘Workers Deserve More’. The programme declares its mission to unite workers into a powerful political movement to win the battle for democracy, with the ultimate goal of putting workers in charge of government through a new democratic constitution based on proportional representation that ends the role of money in politics.

This differs fundamentally from European social democracy. The Nordic model seeks to reform capitalism through robust welfare states, progressive taxation and strong labour protections while keeping the capitalist market economy intact. While U.S. leaders like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders identify as “democratic socialist”, their platforms often align more closely with European social democracy. The DSA, however, aims to gradually replace capitalism itself with “social ownership” of major industries. The programme explicitly identifies capitalism as “the cause of violence, unemployment, and a climate crisis that poses an existential threat to life on earth”, arguing that billionaires control and profit from basic human needs like housing, healthcare, and education.

Yet, this doesn’t mean nationalising every enterprise. A democratic socialist economy would feature democratic planning of major investments — infrastructure, energy, telecommunications — alongside market exchange of consumer goods. Large concentrated industries would be publicly owned and managed by worker and consumer representatives, while many consumer-goods industries would operate as cooperatives. The goal is democratic economic participation — “a government by, for, and of the working class”. Democratic socialists also reject Marxism-Leninism’s ‘vanguard party’ revolution, instead using existing democratic processes — elections, legislation, mass mobilisation — to achieve change. This commitment to pluralism and civil liberties distinguishes them from authoritarian regimes that claimed the socialist mantle.

Mr. Sanders emphasised throughout his presidential campaigns that many programmes U.S. citizens now consider essential — social security, the minimum wage, Medicare — were denounced as ‘socialist’ when first proposed. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms faced fierce opposition, and ‘democratic socialists’, in Mr. Sanders’s view, only seek to complete Roosevelt’s unfinished project. His refusal to abandon his democratic socialist identity while running competitive national campaigns legitimised socialism in mainstream discourse — DSA membership surged from 6,500 in 2014 to over 85,000 today, with over 13,000 joining in the eight months following Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory.

Mr. Mamdani’s main promises exemplify ‘decommodification’, key to the principles of democratic socialism, which means the removal of essential human needs from private market provisioning and treating them as social rights. His rent freeze treats housing as a right in a city where 68% are renters facing crippling cost burdens. Municipal groceries, universal childcare, fare-free buses, and 200,000 units of permanently affordable housing all transform essential needs from commodities into social rights. These policies follow models already tested in other American cities but represent the most comprehensive decommodification agenda ever proposed for a major U.S. metropolis.

Beyond economics

Democratic socialism extends beyond welfare economics. The DSA’s 2025 programme centres racial justice, noting that “black and brown workers in racially segregated communities bear the brunt of capitalism’s cruelties, suffering especially from poverty wages, discrimination, deportation, and unemployment”. Current priorities include “defeating the far-right, protecting the rights of the working-class, from the U.S. to Palestine, and fighting for democracy”, reflecting an internationalist stance connecting struggles for justice across borders. Environmental sustainability is equally central, combating climate change while rejecting the fossil fuel industry’s “greed and profiteering”.

The DSA was founded in 1982 through a merger of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the New American Movement by Michael Harrington, whose 1962 book The Other America helped inspire Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty. Harrington, who served as the DSA’s chair, envisioned a multi-tendency organisation that could unite various progressive constituencies such as trade unionists, civil rights activists, feminists, and anti-war progressives, who were fractured during the Vietnam War.

Unlike European socialists who built labour parties, American progressives confronted what Harrington called the Democratic Party’s “left wing of the possible”. This “realignment strategy” is about building progressive power within the Democratic Party while maintaining independent socialist identity—remains contentious. Critics argue it leads to co-optation; supporters counter that electoral irrelevance serves no one.

The DSA has achieved significant electoral victories, with Congressional wins by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, followed by Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush among others. At the municipal level, democratic socialists have captured city council seats from Seattle to Chicago to Philadelphia.

Yet, Mr. Mamdani’s triumph stands apart. New York City, with a budget of over $100 billion and a population exceeding that of 40 U.S. States, represents one of the most complex and influential examples of American urban governance.

For a democratic socialist to win this prize demonstrates that the movement has transcended niche activism to achieve mainstream electoral viability.

Mr. Mamdani’s victory, for democratic socialist thinkers, validates the theory that substantive reforms and structural transformation require a combination of strong unions, community organisations, and the socialist movement. The prerequisites for success in economic struggles or workplace democracy require organised popular strength and the fact that an estimated 90,000 volunteers mobilised behind Mr. Mamdani’s campaign, suggests that a movement was responsible for catapulting him to power.

Zohran Mamdani’s tenure as New York’s Mayor will now be watched closely to see whether his version of democratic socialism can actually govern, whether “decommodification” can be implemented at scale, whether a city can be run by and for working people and whether the unfinished agenda from the New Deal, as Mr. Sanders put it, can be realised in the U.S.’s largest city.