How to Win Zohran's Agenda

An Organizing Plan for an Affordable New York

By Eric Blanc, Wen Zhuang, Emily Lemmerman

The prospect of a democratic socialist who has said billionaires shouldn’t exist becoming the mayor of New York City has the ruling class in a tizzy. But Kathryn Wylde, head of one of the city’s most powerful business lobbies, has a message for her rich friends: don’t worry so much.

Wylde, Vanity Fair reported last month, “has been tamping down the hysteria by reminding the city’s titans that many of Mamdani’s proposed policies would need the approval of state government, and that Governor Kathy Hochul, who is up for reelection in 2026, has already shot down the idea of raising taxes.”

Wylde isn’t wrong. There are indeed powerful obstacles standing in the way of Zohran’s ability to fulfill many of his most high-profile campaign pledges. When you’re up against some of the world’s most powerful CEOs and politicians, just getting elected and pursuing smart insider politics isn’t enough to pass ambitious policies—and Zohran’s camp knows this.

So what will it take to turn Zohran’s agenda for an affordable New York into a reality?

In our view, what’s needed is a mass campaign that seizes high attention moments — like a November election night victory — to onboard large numbers of volunteers; that sustains widespread organizing after election day; and that trains working-class leaders to analyze the power of their opponents and to develop a targeted strategy to push recalcitrant elected officials to fund Zohran’s proposals.

Zohran has already shown his ability to build a mass movement. Over 50,000 people have already volunteered to help get him elected. By expanding and deepening this grassroots machine after November, Zohran can forge an organized people’s fightback powerful enough to oblige Hochul and Albany to fund his core agenda. Here’s our proposal for what this could look like.

A Plan to Win

Imagine it’s election night this November. The eyes of New York and the country are on Zohran, who has just decisively defeated all the establishment candidates. In his victory speech, watched by millions, Zohran not only thanks his supporters and lays out his agenda for change. He also explains that the only way he can pass his agenda is if everyday New Yorkers join the fight — starting by collecting one million signatures from constituents calling on their state representatives to fully fund public services statewide. And, perhaps most importantly, he repeatedly provides a catchy url (or number to text) where supporters can immediately sign up to get involved.

The goal here would be simple. Rather than disbanding his massive volunteer machine after November 4 — as is the norm in electoral operations — Zohran’s team could transition it into a broader organizing apparatus to help secure his agenda under the banner of a broad new campaign, something like a Movement for an Affordable New York (MANY).

Workplace and neighborhood MANY hubs could coordinate petitioning efforts, hold potluck socials, and develop creative ways to reach peers. And a statewide version of Bernie Sanders’ hugely successful Fighting Oligarchy tour could play a central role in building momentum and recruiting volunteers for this campaign.

This can’t be yet another traditional pressure campaign. Such efforts have three major limitations. First, they’re generally very siloed, with organizations pushing their distinct agendas and tactics with little to no coordination. Second, they aren’t laser-focused on expanding their base beyond self-selecting activists who already feel strongly about the issue. Finally, they normally lack a clear power structure analysis. Who are the decision makers? Who influences the decision makers? How can we split and surmount the opposition?

Overcoming both billionaires and the establishment politicians who love them requires launching a united campaign oriented to building power more broadly and more deeply. That’s why the campaign’s remarkable distributed field operation, with its huge number of volunteers and volunteer leaders, should be maintained past Election Day—so that there is a foundational structure in place to take the fight to the next level.

Though Zohran’s campaign can’t realistically coordinate a coalition, an early strategic lead from the campaign would go a long way towards aligning our state’s normally fragmented unions, Left organizations, and community leaders around a shared effort. Otherwise, the centrifugal forces of organizational habit and turf may remain the unfortunate norm.

But even if all of New York’s progressive organizations unite, we’re still not anywhere near influential enough to win Zohran’s agenda. Our memberships — or our active memberships in the case of unions — are far too small to convince a supermajority of New York politicians that we pose a legitimate threat to their continued grip on power.

With billionaires and political hacks breathing down their necks, we should expect that a good number of establishment politicians won’t budge even in the face of a million-strong petition and a mass march to deliver it. Their own constituents, they’ll insist, are not on board with Zohran’s “pie in the sky” policies. Overcoming such stubborn opposition requires targeted campaigns in pivotal districts and constituencies that leverage existing social ties and that grow our reach beyond self-selecting volunteers.

Not everybody in a community has the same amount of sway. Power-structure analysis trainings with members of unions and community groups — as well as new leaders identified through MANY’s broader petitioning efforts — can help influential working-class organizers map their opposition and their own communities. By identifying and developing leaders with strong roots in institutions like churches, ethnic associations, or unions, we can help them tap their social connections to clearly demonstrate their community’s support for Zohran’s agenda and to move the powerbroking intermediaries that state legislators cannot afford to ignore — e.g. an influential pastor, a powerful local businessman, or a national politician.

Ultimately, a powerful alignment of community, labor, advocacy, and political forces can’t leave power on the table. Every terrain of struggle — from neighborhood fights to union contract bargaining — is a way to demand and win change.

A Lesson from Obama

Everybody understands that outside pressure is necessary for Zohran to pass his policies. But there’s a real danger that low organizing expectations plus organizational inertia and divisions will translate into a major missed opportunity for effective bottom-up organizing after November.

Consider the experience of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, which was memorably built around the vast “Obama for America” supporter network. Even though senior advisor Christopher Edley Jr. had been pushing for months for the campaign to develop a post-November 4 plan to turn this network into a “Movement 2.0” which would provide external political support for Obama’s presidency, no such operation existed by the time Obama won. The New Republic explains what happened next: “On November 5, the day after Obama’s victory, his headquarters in Chicago was deluged with phone calls and emails from supporters asking for guidance on how to keep going. Exactly as Edley had feared, no answers were forthcoming.”

A few weeks after the election, the campaign sent out a survey to its supporters. Of the 550,000 people who replied, 86 percent expressed their interest in joining a grassroots push for Obama’s policies. Yet with priorities elsewhere, and afraid of challenging the Democratic establishment, nobody pulled the trigger on the “Movement 2.0” proposal. This was “Obama’s biggest mistake,” notes The New Republic, and it “helped pave the way for Donald Trump to harness the pent-up demand for change Obama had unleashed.”

Zohran will face the same choice that Obama faced. Though Zohran’s campaign is fortunately far less tied to the Democratic establishment, it’s likely that some operatives will advise him to work exclusively through institutional channels. “Leave the mobilizing to your grassroots coalition partners,” they’ll say. “You’ll have your hands full just trying to govern.”

It’s true that Zohran’s team in office won’t have the capacity or political space to focus on bottom-up organizing — especially when some of its targets may be colleagues Zohran has to work with to govern. A division of labor between movements and elected officials is inevitable and, at its best, fruitful.

But Zohran is currently the figure with the most reach and legitimacy to jumpstart a campaign for an affordable New York. And though this movement should be built no matter what, its chances of success will be higher with an initial boost from the candidate himself. Since there's no realistic path to winning Mamdani's planks with the current balance of political power, the riskiest option is to pursue a path of least resistance and minimal confrontation.

Doing the Impossible

New Yorkers will be waiting forever if they expect their new mayor to deliver an affordable city from on high. It’s too often forgotten that America’s most successful populist mayors — like Milwaukee’s sewer socialists and New York’s Fiorello La Guardia, a hero of Zohran’s — leaned on powerful workers’ movements to counteract employer and media scaremongering, to muscle through their policy agenda, and to keep up morale in the face of setbacks. No such movement exists today. Everything hinges on recreating one.

The good news is that popular initiatives that might have been previously unachievable are now on the table during America’s crisis. In fact, they’re likely the only way to fend off billionaire authoritarianism. Winning an affordable New York is our best bet to demonstrate that there’s a viable alternative to both Trumpism and decrepit Democratic centrism.

As Zohran likes reminding us, a big leap forward always seems impossible until it’s done. He has already done the impossible by winning the primary. If we keep the pedal on the gas, we’re confident he’ll do so again in November. And then the real fight begins.

[This article first appeared in The Nation on August 28. Please share widely!]

---

More

• None of this become’s possible if we don’t first elect Zohran in November. Please volunteer here for Zohran’s canvassing events! Even if you live out of state, you should consider making a trip to help!

• Are you a union leader or rank-and-filer who wants to support Zohran and his agenda? Get involved with Labor for Zohran by emailing: laborforzohran [at] gmail.com

• If you don’t live in NYC, you should get involved in DSA and/or your union to push for running and supporting ambitious fightback candidates like Zohran.