In a lifetime of activism, I have canvassed and phone-banked, raised money, and twisted arms for dozens of political candidates. Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old Indian-Ugandan democratic socialist and presumptive winner of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, is the only one I’ve both supported without reservation and believed could win.

Volunteering for a campaign always teaches you something. Often, it’s discouraging – like the moment my partner and I saw Hillary Clinton’s team selling lawn signs for $25 instead of blanketing Philadelphia by distributing them free, and predicted she’d lose. But the lessons of Zohran’s victory are hopeful for the left and the Democrats – if the party takes them to heart.

“A city we can afford.” Zohran’s slogan is unremarkably moderate and unabashedly progressive. In a city whose median income is rising sharply in spite of a 25% poverty rate, only the rich are comfortable, while everyone else, from students to firefighters to families with more than one kid struggle – or leave.

Asked by a local Fox TV interviewer what a democratic socialist is, Mamdani answered: “To me it means that every New Yorker has what they need to live a dignified life – it’s local government’s responsibility to provide that.” His platform includes a rent freeze on the city’s 2.3m regulated apartments; free childcare starting at six months; no-fare buses; and a $30 minimum wage – about the city’s living wage – by 2030. Basically, he believes life in the city can be easier and happier.

This platform resonates. When you canvass, you ask people what concerns them. A woman with a baby on her hip nodded toward the baby and sighed. I got what she meant. At a shabby industrial building surrounded by new glass towers, a woman descended four flights because the landlord won’t fix the buzzer, or anything else; he’s trying to push out the tenants and sell the lot. She said cheap rent allowed her to start a business, which she feared Mamdani would tax to death. I told her he supported a crackdown on bad landlords and commercial rent control. “Hmm,” she said. By the conversation’s end, I entered “leans yes” in the canvassing app.

Mamdani’s ideas are not pie-in-the-sky. The rent guidelines board, appointed by the mayor, voted 0% increases on some leases in 2015, 2016, and on all leases in 2020, during the pandemic. The Democratic mayor Bill De Blasio got universal pre-kindergarten staffed, funded and full almost immediately upon election in........

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