Happy for New Yorkers! If you can’t move to California—bring California to you!

I don’t think I’m on TikTok enough to understand why anyone would have voted for him.

ask @greg but here are some screenshots

also there’s videos of girls screaming “M-A-M-D-A-N-I Andrew Cuomo you need to DIE”

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Emily Ratajkowski was a campaign surrogate for him? Fascinating.

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Fair points. I appreciate your context on his ground game. I still think platform dynamics are worth unpacking (in any election these days). TikTok is video-forward. X is text-forward. It reminds me of the first televised presidential debates versus radio. Charisma and perceived trustworthiness impact how voters evaluate policies more in video.

His video with a street vendor talking about permits is an excellent example. I didn't come across it until today, which says more about my own media diet than the campaign's reach. My understanding of him has been primarily text-based, and *reading* his platform versus *seeing* it led me to the impression I mentioned before.

What I'm still curious about is who the ground operation actually turned out. Even if he showed up in places the cultural-elite left don't go during his campaign, were those the communities who turned out for him? Or was it the symbolic act of going (then broadcasting it) which drove greater turnout elsewhere? The NYT median income stat, if accurate, suggests the latter - but I'd like to see more data.

He ran a very disciplined campaign focused on the cost of living and the quality of transit above all else, and he was really out there. Not just on TikTok, though that definitely helped project the message. He ran an old-school campaign with a big ground operation and went to lots of parts of the city that the cultural-elite left doesn't go to. 

That is contrasted with the fact that his rivals were fairly uncharismatic and his main opponent, Andrew Cuomo, arrogantly eschewed any campaigning and acted like he would just waltz into the nomination on name recognition and a negative campaign against Mamdani alone. 

Lots of reasons to be skeptical of Mamdani's policies and ideological approach -- maybe even annoyed about the types of DSA people who will incorrectly perceive his victory as validation of their more fringe beliefs. But it's no mystery why he won.

Twiiter and old Facebook is enough to figure out it