I support Mamdani, the Democratic Party candidate for NYC mayor

Dan La Botz

Posted October 18, 2025

I support Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party candidate for mayor, and I do so wholeheartedly and without reservations. And that is what I wish Solidarity had decided and declared. Instead, Solidarity adopted a position that suggests that it doesn’t really want to support Mamdani, that it considers it likely that he will fail or even sell out. The Solidarity statement is so hedged round with caveats, warnings, and forebodings for disaster that it is hard to imagine it encouraging people to vote for him, much less campaign for him.

Here are a few of Solidarity’s reservations and cautions:

Mamdani clearly chose to run inside the Democratic Party, not to take an independent course. We don’t agree with this perspective; in fact, we see it as a contradiction with the campaign’s demands.

…Mamdani was always committed to running as a candidate inside the Democratic Party and is quite likely building his governing coalition with elements of the party apparatus who will undoubtedly insist on stripping away the radical thrust of his program.

…it is much more likely that the pressures of governing and the demands of the Democratic establishment will erode the strength of Mamdani and his movement.

Well, jeez, if that’s the case, why go to the trouble? Why vote for this guy who will only be taken over by the party apparatus and succumb to the demands of the Democratic establishment?

Solidarity’s answer is that while it doesn’t support him really, it supports his movement. The enthusiastic popular movement that backs him is organized only as his campaign that wants to elect him. Solidarity wants to support the movement, but the movement wants to elect its candidate.

Solidarity also declares that it agrees with much of his platform — his calls to reduce rent, to make buses free, and to provide childcare to working families — and his pro-Palestine politics. Though of course it warns that while “important elements in Mamdani’s platform are in line with socialist principles, yet the campaign does not challenge the framework of a capitalist economy.” So then, maybe it’s not so great…?

Solidarity really wishes that Mamdani had not run as a Democrat, but rather as an independent democratic socialist. Yet Solidarity members know that it would have been virtually impossible for Mamdani to have launched an independent campaign. His Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) comrades who form the core of his campaign organization, would not have supported him. The unions would not have endorsed him. The media would have ignored him and excluded him. Fundraising for the unknown candidate would have been extremely difficult.

I speak on this issue from personal experience. Running not as a Democrat but as the Socialist Party candidate for U.S. Senator from Ohio in 2010, and with the backing of a few other socialist organizations, I received 25,368 votes or 0.7 percent of the total, while the Republican candidate Rob Portman received 2,125,810, and the Democrat Lee Fisher 1,448,092. And my tally represented a larger share of votes than other socialist candidates in Ohio in recent decades.

Solidarity’s majority adopted the statement on Mamdani’s campaign — described in our group’s discussions as “critical support” — because it allows Solidarity members to say, “Look, our hands are clean. We never supported the capitalist and imperialist Democratic Party. And though we liked his movement and even a lot of his program, we never said we endorsed Mamdani.” Okay, good for you, that’s in your permanent record.

But ask yourself, would we socialists be in a better position if Mamdani ran as an independent, garnered 1 or 2 percent of the vote, but we could say we fought the good, pure fight? Or if he actually becomes the mayor of the largest city in the United States and is able to enact a few programs that make people’s lives better, enhancing the reputation of socialism generally?

The Democratic Party is a capitalist party and I oppose as a general policy voting for the Democrats as a lesser evil. Like my comrades, I would love to see an independent, working-class-based political party committed to democratic socialism. I think such a party is in fact likely to come about through fights for progressive and leftwing positions within the Democratic Party.

At the moment, we have in Mamdani not only a lesser evil, but a candidate who is a positive good and building the forces that may be able to challenge the system. We should organize and vote for him.