In early polling for the New York City mayoral race, democratic socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani is emerging as a serious contender. He’s ahead of the corrupt incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who now is running as an independent, and the progressive Comptroller Brad Lander. However, Mamdani still runs behind former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has overwhelming name recognition, some early union support and a commanding double-digit lead in the polls. Who is Zohran Mamdani, and what is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) organization to which be belongs? DSA’s history My memories go back to the early 1960s and Michael Harrington, the activist and author who was best known for “The Other America” (1962). Harrington wore many hats, and I remember his charisma, eloquence and work to create the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). He believed in the style of socialist forerunners like Eugene Debs (who ran for president of the United States five times in the early 20th century) who held that in order to change the consciousness of a nation, one had to build an organization, start a publication to convey the group’s views and orate in a thousand small halls to crowds of hundreds, eschewing violence for electoral politics. Debs was clearly more successful politically, but Harrington left a powerful intellectual and moral legacy. That legacy was inherited by the DSA, born of a 1982 merger between DSOC and the New America Movement, itself a descendant of Students for a Democratic Society. The DSA supported grassroots movements and progressive elements in the Democratic Party. It was a minor political force until the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a proud democratic socialist, after which its membership swelled from about 6,000 members in 2015 to more than 90,000 in 2021. There are now some local New York officials who are DSA members. And of course U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a congresswoman from Queens, is a DSA member. No longer a political outsider, Ocasio-Cortez is gifted at arousing support from the progressive Democratic base. Since 2021, however, DSA’s membership has declined to just under 78,000, as of 2023. This was before DSA’s widely condemned response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, which led to many resignations and an organizational fiscal crisis. Early this year, the DSA’s national director Maria Svart resigned but claimed to be “cautiously optimistic” about the DSA’s future and professed a belief that “claims of DSA’s demise are premature.” Still, the group’s leadership has become increasingly sectarian and hardcore. At its 2023 national convention, DSA delegates elected at least six revolutionary Marxists and/or communists to the 16-member governing National Political Committee. Electing leaders who are publicly bent on mass proletarian revolution demonstrates that the membership body is interested in absurd political fantasies, not building a politically viable socialist movement that is also fiscally responsible. Mamdani’s story However, Mamdani grew up on the Upper West Side with fond memories of Riverside Park and small stores on upper Broadway. He went to Bank Street and then graduated the Bronx High School of Science (which I also attended), is a member of the Democratic Party and has been an assemblyman from Astoria, Queens, since 2021. And he is young (33 years old), personable and not given to revolutionary rhetoric or shrill posturing. His mayoral campaign has turned out to be the first in the crowded field to hit the city’s $8 million spending cap for the June 24 primary. Mamdani’s campaign reached the spending cap through roughly 18,000 donors, along with the city’s projected matching funds program, at the fastest rate of any candidate in the city’s history. He has especially gained traction among younger voters. Watching him being interviewed on television, he can trenchantly attack Cuomo for giving tax breaks to the rich while being governor and for perpetuating the myth of being a steady hand while being as corrupt as Adams. In fact, Mamdani, who sees Cuomo as his biggest political threat, views Cuomo as an extension of Adams. His platform is committed to a more equitable city of rent freezes, expanding affordable housing programs (“200,000 union-built, permanently affordable, rent-stabilized homes”) and advocating free-fare buses. In addition, he proposes expanding no-cost child care and creating city-owned grocery stores to lower food prices. Basically, Mamdani is running against government cuts and the rise in the cost of living, which has priced out many lower-income people from being able to live in the city. Mamdani’s plan calls to increase corporate taxes by 4.5 percent, which campaign officials said would collect $5.4 billion from corporations, while another $4 billion would come from taxes on the wealthy. Of course, the higher taxes are more easily advocated than achieved. Mamdani might not win the nomination, but he is a fresh voice who can court controversy by being outspoken about Palestinian rights, which at the same time has strengthened his appeal to progressive activists. He has stated that “at its core a mayor is a delegate, a liaison and a messenger.” Fine words, but first Mamdani must win a primary vying with other progressive politicians that share his criticisms of Adams and Cuomo. And what I am most interested in is what progressive and effective candidate can beat Cuomo and best govern the city. It could be Mamdani, but his strongest competitor is the much less charismatic, competent city Comptroller Brad Lander, who might be more politically feasible than Mamdani.