Zohran Mamdani's video explaining his victory is a perfect example of the strategy that helped him win

Fast Company

5 hours ago

In the week since the New York City mayoral primary, national news reporters, elected officials, and casual observers have been wondering how a little-known, 33-year old state assemblyman beat a former governor of New York for the democratic nomination.
To help them out, that candidate did what he has done best throughout his campaign so far—he made a candid, insightful, charming video explaining how he won.
The data-packed video, which was viewed over 4.5 million times on X alone in its first 24 hours, features the candidate breaking down how he managed to get an unusually large number of new and infrequent voters to the polls. As he spends a sunny day amid the lush greenery, soaring skyline and vivid graffiti of New York City, Mamdani recounts how his campaign sought out Trump voters—'not to lecture, but to listen'—reached out to election-abstainers, and crafted a message targeting citizens of all stripes who felt ignored by other politicians. It's an illuminating video, perhaps most notable for its transparency, authenticity, humor, and his knowledge of New York culture—all of which have been evident since Mamdani released his first campaign video, a viral joint about the rising cost of halal food, which he dubbed 'halalflation.'
The candidate created his videos with Brooklyn-based agency Melted Solids, run by Debbie Saslaw and Anthony DiMieri, who collaborated with videographer Donald Borenstein, campaign photographer Kara McCurdy, and comms director Andrew Bard Epstein. Together, they made campaign material that was as informative as it was accessible, and primed for virality. A typical video, for instance, illustrated exactly what Mamdani plans to do to help small businesses, and precisely why his plans will work, featuring the candidate making his case from within the quintessential New York small business: a deli.
Other videos attempted to defang some of the arguments used against him. In response to attacks on his plan to make city buses free, he put out a video revealing that the famously free Staten Island ferry used to charge its riders a fee. 'When people tell you buses can't be free, don't ask them to take a hike,' he says in the clip. 'Ask them to take a ferry.'
Meanwhile, another factor in the candidate's incredible reach has been his willingness to tailor his message to each segment of his audience.
'We ran a campaign that tried to talk to every New Yorker,' Mamdani says in the new video explaining his victory, 'whether I could speak their language… or just tried.' It's a reference to a series of dedicated videos in which he pitches himself to voters by speaking in fluent Bengla and Urdu, and in so-so Spanish.
Anyone who doubts whether Americans with international backgrounds really care when politicians take the time to speak to them on their own terms need only watch a video clip of the reaction at Bayo, a recent Caribbean music festival at Barclays Center, when Mamdani briefly took the stage and pronounced 'Haiti' the way French and Creole-speaking Haitians would—ayiti. He then talks about two critical issues to Haitians in New York—its place among 11 other countries on President Donald Trump's travel ban, and the president ending temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants.
The masterstroke of Mamdani's campaign, however, may have been when he spent the Friday before the election, June 20, walking the entire length of Manhattan. Over a period of seven and a half hours, he traversed the streets from Inwood Hill to Battery Park, making video content every step of the way. The journey proved a clever opportunity for the candidate to demonstrate how well he knows the city, and how well the city's residents were starting to know him. It's difficult to imagine his key primary opponent, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned amid several harassment allegations in 2021, and held limited public appearances throughout the primary campaign, being able to replicate this feat.
What might be most incredible about Mamdani's videos is the contrast between how the candidate comes across in them and how his loudest critics portray him. Donald Trump, for instance, has taken to calling him a 'Communist lunatic,' adding in a Truth Social post that Mamdani 'looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, [and] he's not very smart.'
During a press conference on Tuesday, in which he threatened to have Mamdani arrested if he defies ICE as mayor, Trump threw his weight instead behind Mayor Adams, who is running for re-election as an independent. In the same press conference, he suggested Mamdani, a naturalized citizen born in Uganda, was ' here illegally.' Trump also mentioned having previously 'helped [Adams] out a little bit,' seemingly referring to when the Department of Justice dropped its corruption charges against the mayor back in April.