Portside

Zohran Mamdani was never supposed to win. Up against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – a well-funded candidate backed by real estate interests and AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) – the Democratic Socialist Mamdani ran for New York City mayor on what was considered too radical a platform. At its core was rent control, defunding the NYPD (New York Police Department), public investment in affordable housing, city-run grocery stores, and uncompromising support for Palestinian liberation. And yet, against the odds and elite consensus, he won the Democratic primary and is set to become the mayor of New York City after the election in November.

Although his unexpected victory is being heralded as an isolated success in the face of rampant fascism, Mamdani’s win is part of a pattern. It follows Jeremy Corbyn’s 2024 campaign as an Independent MP for Islington North, as well as Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the New Popular Front’s surge in France’s legislative elections a year ago. The lesson is clear: when left-wing candidates commit to popular demands, hold firm on their values, and build power at the grassroots level, they win.

For too long, liberal and centrist strategists have insisted that the only way to beat the far right is to mimic it – to concede on immigration, retreat on Palestine, and maintain a commitment to neoliberalism. These campaigns prove the opposite. They were all successful because of their refusal to cede ground. They offered constituents bold programs and principled politics through serious grassroots organising, and people responded. It’s a strategy the Left should learn from and emulate everywhere.

Three Campaigns – Three Principles

Across three different countries, political systems, and electoral landscapes, the campaigns of Zohran Mamdani, Jeremy Corbyn, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon succeeded because they offered voters something they weren’t getting from the political establishment: hope, clarity, and the promise of real material change. Despite their differences, these campaigns were rooted in three key principles that any future left-wing movement would do well to remember.

I. Lead with Popular, Ambitious Policy

Each of these campaigns rejected the tired liberal strategy of simply opposing the far right or “defending democracy” from a safe, managerial centre that stands for little beyond rhetorical opposition. Instead, they built momentum on the strength of manifestos that addressed the real crises facing working people.

Mamdani’s campaign put housing justice front and centre. He called for universal rent control, a moratorium on evictions, and plans to build affordable housing financed directly by the city. He demanded divestment from the NYPD and reinvestment in care, transit, and climate infrastructure. These weren’t fringe ideas. A Community Service Society survey published in February found that 78 per cent of New Yorkers supported “good cause” eviction protections, and 81 per cent supported rent stabilisation.

Similarly, Corbyn’s 2024 independent campaign in Islington North was a rejection of political centrism and a continued commitment to grassroots, issue-driven politics. Instead of softening his message, he ran on rent controls, reversing NHS privatisation, public ownership of utilities, abolishing the two-child benefits cap, and investing in local transport and housing – all grounded in decades of consistent organising. Just a month before the election, an Ipsos poll found that 71 per cent of Britons supported introducing rent controls in the private sector. As far back as August 2023, a majority (61 per cent) of the British public believed utilities should be publicly owned and operated. Corbyn spoke directly to working-class needs and won in a landslide, defeating Labour’s candidate, Praful Nargund, by more than 7,000 votes.

In France, as leader of La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), Mélenchon was a key force behind the New Popular Front, which brought together a broad coalition of left-wing parties – including the Parti Socialiste, Les Écologistes (the Greens), and the French Communist Party – in a rare moment of electoral unity after Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament and called for snap legislative elections in June 2024. The New Popular Front presented arguably the most radical mainstream platform Europe had seen in years: reducing the retirement age to 60, raising the minimum wage to €1,600, freezing prices on essential goods, and hiring 500,000 new public sector workers in health and education. These policies resonated, especially in the wake of Macron’s widely unpopular pension reforms.

What all three campaigns understood is that people aren’t apathetic but rather that they’re rarely offered anything worth voting for. When the Left leads with policies that speak directly to people’s lives, turnout goes up, engagement deepens, and the establishment panics. In France, the panic was so pronounced that Macron refused to allow the New Popular Front to govern after it emerged as the largest bloc in the legislature, plunging the country into an ongoing political crisis.

II. Stand Firm on Principles – Especially on Palestine

If there was one issue the political establishment implored each of these campaigns to back down on, it was Palestine. And in each case, they refused and were stronger for it.

Mamdani faced relentless attacks for his support of Palestinian liberation. Andrew Cuomo, backed by corporate donors and pro-Israel lobbyists, framed him as antisemitic. But Mamdani didn’t budge. He stood shoulder to shoulder with organisers, called for a ceasefire, and openly endorsed the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As early as November 2023, he participated in a five-day hunger strike outside the White House to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. His solidarity led to a now-viral clip from a mayoral debate, where he was singled out and asked whether he believed in a “Jewish state of Israel.” His refusal to back down in the face of this hostile questioning only strengthened his popularity – especially among young voters and communities of colour.

Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party was effectively destroyed by a coordinated campaign to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Yet despite years of media smears, his consistent solidarity with Palestine helped mobilise mass youth and Muslim support. According to a February 2024 Survation poll, 85 per cent of British Muslims said a party’s position on Gaza would be “very important” in deciding their vote, and only 60 per cent of those who backed Labour in 2019 – when Corbyn was leader – said they would do so again. His refusal to bend on the issue, even under intense pressure, demonstrated that integrity matters and that people notice when you hold your ground.

Mélenchon, too, defied elite consensus, not just from the outside but from within the New Popular Front coalition, too. The Parti Socialiste publicly criticised his description of Israel’s assault on Gaza as “genocidal,” and corporate media seized on internal disagreements as proof of “left-wing chaos.” But rather than dilute his position for optics, Mélenchon stood firm – and on 7 July 2024, voters rewarded him and his coalition for it.

These campaigns didn’t win despite their positions on Palestine, they won because of it. It’s a reminder that the Left gains nothing by sanitising its politics to appease hostile media or elite donors.

III. Grassroots Organising Can Beat Corporate Cash

None of these victories came from ad campaigns or billionaire backers. They were built on a foundation of movement infrastructure, including volunteers, local canvassing, mutual aid networks, and door-to-door engagement.

Mamdani’s field operation was powered by tenants’ unions and community organisers. His campaign couldn’t match Cuomo’s super PAC in fundraising, but it knocked on over 120,000 doors – many in districts with historically low turnout. His messaging wasn’t crafted by consultants but shaped through conversations with the people most affected by policy failures.

Corbyn’s 2024 campaign similarly thrived on grassroots organising. Thousands of volunteers ran phone banks, trained canvassers, and engaged working-class voters on a scale rarely seen in British politics. Supporters came from across London (and beyond) to campaign for him. The campaign mobilised activists, young voters, and trade unionists across Islington North. The result was a monumental win, with Corbyn securing a vote share nearly 15 percentage points higher than Labour’s, despite early polls indicating he was trailing.

In France, La France Insoumise organised across immigrant-heavy suburbs and rural communities alike, using WhatsApp groups, citizen assemblies, and mutual aid networks to build trust. Mélenchon’s campaign reached voters long abandoned by traditional parties – particularly in the banlieues, such as the northern Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, where voter registration drives and local rallies built momentum from the ground up.

In all three cases, people gave their time and energy not just because they liked the candidates but also because they believed in the movement.

Trust Comes from Clarity

None of these campaigns succeeded because they had more money, better press, or institutional support. They won – or made significant electoral breakthroughs – because they were rooted in clarity, conviction, and a commitment to reaching people that the political establishment had long abandoned. And they didn’t relent when they were attacked, smeared, and misrepresented.

Mamdani was vilified for standing with Palestine during a genocide. Mélenchon was dragged by coalition partners and the press for using the word “genocide” at all. Corbyn was kicked out of his own party and subjected to one of the most sustained character assassinations in British political history. And still, none of them backed down on policy or messaging. That refusal to concede, to apologise, to soften is what binds their success together. They didn’t hide their politics behind euphemisms, and people responded.

These campaigns showed that clarity and credibility isn’t a liability. That momentum cannot be manufactured. It comes from doing the work, year-round, on the ground, with and for the people you claim to represent.

The Right Isn’t As Popular As You Think

Mamdani’s primary victory is another important reminder of the fact that even in the midst of the rampant rise of the far-right, fascism is not an inevitability. We’re constantly told that people are drifting to the right. That the working class is reactionary. That support for nationalism, hostility towards refugees and asylum seekers, and austerity is just the new normal. But that story falls apart the moment you look at what people actually say they want.

Across the US, UK, France, and beyond, the evidence is overwhelming: people support the very things establishment parties dismiss as “unrealistic.” Public services, climate action, fair wages, rent controls, and an end to genocidal wars. If the right is winning, it’s not because they’re offering more; it’s because the “Left” is not offering anything at all.

A July 2024 Data for Progress poll of swing-state voters found overwhelming support for progressive policies. Sixty-three per cent backed a cap on rent increases. Sixty-two per cent supported a single-payer healthcare system that would guarantee healthcare and eliminate all medical debt. Seventy-two per cent wanted to expand Social Security by taxing the rich at the same rate as the working class. Fifty-nine per cent supported building at least two million units of affordable housing. And on Palestine, 70 per cent of all US voters – including 83 per cent of Democrats – supported a ceasefire in Gaza as far back as May 2024. These are not fringe positions. Yet, what dominates the political agenda is border crackdowns, fossil fuel subsidies, and bipartisan silence on war crimes. Not because that’s what people want but because Democrat leaders – like Starmer’s Labour Party – refuse to offer anything else.

A March 2025 Oxfam/YouGov survey found that 78 per cent of UK adults support a 2 per cent wealth tax on fortunes over £10 million, and 67 per cent believe the richest should pay more in taxes. YouGov polling from September 2024 showed that 66 per cent of Britons backed nationalising the railways. In June 2024, Ipsos found that 71 per cent of the UK public supported rent controls. Meanwhile, TUC polling in June revealed that 63 per cent of the public backed a windfall tax on banks to fund public services.

Yet Starmer’s Labour government has dropped or resisted nearly all of these policies, branding them too radical. At the same time, it has facilitated Israel’s genocide in Gaza and is now proscribing Palestine Action, a non-violent direct action group, as a terrorist organisation. Unsurprisingly, public trust in the Labour government has collapsed, and Starmer’s popularity continues to plummet. As a result, Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform Party is gaining ground.

When “centre-left” parties try to outflank the right on immigration, they don’t neutralise the far right but rather validate it, and in doing so, they direct popular rage downward to the most marginalised. The far-right thrives in that vacuum. Not because people prefer fascism but because they’re offered no serious opposition to it.

But when the Left presents itself with clarity and confidence, offering tangible, material change, the results are evident. In Islington North, Corbyn’s independent run drew a bigger vote share than the Labour, Conservative, Reform, and Liberal Democrat candidates put together. Mélenchon’s coalition won more seats in the French legislative elections than Macron and Le Pen’s. Mamdani’s campaign brought out record numbers of first-time and previously disengaged voters.

In fact, in the immediate aftermath of the US elections, New York appeared to have shifted right. In 2020, 37.7 per cent of the state voted for Trump. By 2024, this rose to 43.3 per cent. The Democratic vote fell by 600,000 in 2024. But Mamdani’s landslide victory in the Democratic primary – despite Cuomo’s super PAC – makes it clear that this wasn’t a red wave but a collapse in faith. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted just two weeks ago found that 62 per cent of Democrats believe the party needs new leadership.

So, the people are not the problem. The politics they’re being offered is.

…

Make no mistake, when Mamdani becomes mayor of New York City, corporate lobbyists, real estate interests, and both major parties will do everything they can to obstruct his agenda. Just as Macron has refused to let the New Popular Front legislate in France, Mamdani will face sabotage, stonewalling, and relentless media attacks. But that doesn’t diminish the significance of his campaign or the lessons the Left can learn from it.

Because the lesson from Mamdani, Corbyn, and Mélenchon is clear: the Left wins when it stops compromising. Not by chasing the political centre but by showing up with clarity, courage, and a program worth getting out to vote for. People aren’t drifting right, they’re being abandoned. But when you offer them something real that speaks to them, they show up in droves.

Future left-wing campaigns, no matter how big or small, should take note. Build movements from the ground up. Refuse to back down on core principles. Refuse to let the right set the terms of the debate. Because no matter what the strategists or the pundits on legacy media outlets say: Socialism is good politics.

Hamza Shehryar is a writer and journalist. He covers film, culture, and global politics.

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