Democrats say they need manlier candidates. Doesn’t Mamdani qualify?

If liberals believe masculinity is the key to winning, they could embrace the biggest bro they’ve got.

After two successive women lost the race for president — and with the GOP increasingly claiming the testosterone-fueled “manosphere” — a lot of Democratic insiders are starting to worry the party is a bit too low-T. Even its successful new faces, like Jon Ossoff and James Talarico, might still be too soft. (This might explain why a recent Instagram post from @Democrats showed Talarico gnawing on meat.)

They’re racked with anxiety: Where are the masculine Democrats? They believe American voters need a manly man, someone who isn’t “smoothgroined,” who can drink beer and watch video games and eat a hamburger and have sex without a condom, who “has the solid physicality of a man who makes his living outdoors,” who will bring young men back into the Democratic fold. They want a bro.

But wait: Actually, the newest icon of Democratic power fits that bill almost exactly. He’s a Carhartt-wearing, marathon-running, fully bearded dude who loves to chow down. He’s obsessed with the Knicks and recently made a basketball-themed campaign ad. When he was campaigning last year, he toured the edgy “manosphere” podcast world and easily traded riffs about bench pressing and shitposting. Analysts describe his politics using testosterone-forward metaphors like “muscled,” “power broker,” and “kingmaker.”

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This is, of course, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — who’s able to go one-on-one with President Donald Trump, wears the hell out of a suit, and channels the populist energy of Bernie-bro politics more effectively than anyone else under 80. “His vision, whether you like it or not, is incredibly bold and in your face,” which is a traditionally masculine attribute, says Pawan Dhingra, a sociologist at Amherst College.

“Zohran’s a good hang,” streaming star and certified bro Hasan Piker said of Mamdani in a 2025 interview with the New York Times. “He’s just a dude, and it’s good to be a dude sometimes.”

So, why isn’t Mamdani the Democrats’ new icon of masculinity?

Zohran Mamdani just became a congressional kingmaker

Instead, the pro-masculinity discussion has mostly held up Graham Platner, the controversial Democratic nominee for Maine’s Senate seat, as the butch future of the party. Ken Klippenstein approvingly described Platner as “tatted up,........

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