New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani convinced many progressive Democrats that they could find success employing his flashy, eye-catching campaign style.
He rode his prominent promises of fast and free buses, a rent freeze for certain tenants, and no-cost child care all the way to Gracie Mansion and over the well-politically established former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. His viral social media prowess gave color to his messaging and spread it to voters.
There are many progressives looking to imitate Mamdani’s success, such as Abdul El-Sayed for the Michigan U.S. Senate, Saikat Chakrabarti for the California U.S. House, and Janeese Lewis George for Washington, D.C., mayor, who are preparing their leftist campaigns for competitive elections in 2026.
One progressive hopeful says efforts to copy his popular style are pointless without concrete policy plans.
“I think that his content ought to be a North Star for people,” Cam Kasky, a Parkland survivor running for House in New York’s 12th Congressional District, said of Mamdani’s social media posts. “Not only for the way it is composed, but also for the substance.”
“I have already seen politicians use the visual style from that campaign without having any substantive policy, and that’s not going to do anything for you,” he added. “Just recreating the visuals is not going to recreate the energy. The energy was there because the visuals were matched with substance.”
The 25-year-old isn’t outside the progressive bubble trying to emulate Mamdani. His first campaign ad saw him walking through the streets of New York City and on the subways, communicating his progressive vows, such as Medicare for All.
Medicare For All. Stop Funding Genocide. Abolish ICE. #YesWeCam
Donate & Support: https://t.co/yEvYlxnNjE pic.twitter.com/WwBp10Ni6M
— Cameron Kasky (@camkasky) November 18, 2025
Kasky wouldn’t name anyone he believed had flashed Mamdani’s familiar visuals without substance, but there are similarities between Mamdani’s content and that of many other progressives.
Chakrabarti, who is running for Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) House seat, has played around with Mamdani’s moving-and-talking campaign release style for weeks. The style imitates that of many social media influencers, who seek to keep their content dynamic.
A former top aide for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Chakrabarti walks in nearly every campaign video he makes. He also uses captions with his campaign logo floating below him on screen.
For decades, the wealthy have pulled further ahead while everyone else has struggled to keep up. The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act taxes assets over $50 million so we can undo decades of rigged economics and build an economy that finally works for working people. pic.twitter.com/9o8YkFvR0S
— Saikat Chakrabarti for Congress (@saikatc) December 23, 2025
All of it is part of a formula Mamdani uses for his campaign’s social media videos, Kasky explained.
“[It] provides a hook in the beginning of the video; he makes a declarative statement and he tells you why he believes that to be true … whether or not you agree with a certain policy perspective, whether or not you have the same opinion that he does,” Kasky said.
“In the first few seconds of the video, you understand that you are about to explore an opinion and a perspective and be provided with information that supports it,” Kasky added. “And that is very good for retaining attention, because a lot of other people post videos where in the first few seconds, you don’t have a very clear sense of what you’re about to be getting.”
El-Sayed matches some aspects of Mamdani’s formula. In a recent video, he speaks about healthcare and how some voters dislike him, but he cares about them anyway.
“You may not like me, but I care about you. I want you to understand a couple of things. I know why you’re in pain, and I actually want to do something about it. I’m not bought off by the people who are making it worse, so you may want to listen to what I have to say,” he said.
Like me or not, understand something: I REALLY want you to have healthcare. pic.twitter.com/ceGhXueLEN
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) December 29, 2025
The video does not provide any policy specifics outside El-Sayed’s suggestion that he wants voters to have healthcare. But it does provide a quick personal angle — he says he “cares” about the voters that may not like him — and he explains how he does care, by backing healthcare for them.
Kasky thinks the videos are a great way for candidates to put their names out there and define their campaigns.
“Every time I put out a video, every time [Zohran] puts out a video, the goal is for the person watching it to have a better understanding of the platform, why the platform is the way it is, and new angles through which we can tackle certain issues,” he said. “That’s something that candidates around the country ought to mirror, because it is a good way to reach voters.”
Lewis-George, who reportedly planned her socialist campaign to mirror Mamdani’s, also exhibits similar campaign strategies. Her campaign launch video is colorful, moving, and rolls with a steady musical beat. It also outlines her priorities, which include affordable childcare and housing, public safety, and education.
The DC I know is worth fighting for.
I’m Janeese Lewis George, and I’m running for Mayor. pic.twitter.com/7ZI3dojxxh
— Janeese Lewis George (@Janeese4DC) December 1, 2025
Mamdani’s launch video did many of the same things, though skewed more specifically to policy.
All of the candidates are likely hoping that one social media video upload can be the difference for them in their campaigns. Mamdani is not the first to ride a viral campaign to the top.
Ocasio-Cortez also ran a viral campaign video at the beginning of her House campaign in 2018. The video, titled “Courage to Change,” played very differently from today’s candidates. It rolled with a dramatic score closer to the theatrical realm than Mamdani’s upbeat, strolling style.
In the video, Ocasio-Cortez took a strong swing at then-incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley.
“It’s time we acknowledge that not all Democrats are the same. That a Democrat that takes corporate money, profits off foreclosure, doesn’t live here, doesn’t send his kids to our schools, doesn’t drink our water or breathe our air cannot possibly represent us,” she said.
The video garnered almost 2 million views and played a significant role in her digital presence. An Ocasio-Cortez aide said that digital is not the future of campaigns, but the present. She proved that drawing many eyes to a progressive digital operation can enable them to take down incumbents without spending a large portion of money on television or other advertising.
Mamdani didn’t have an exceptional political funding operation before his viral campaign videos. But after they seeped into the mainstream, he twice told his new supporters to hold off on donating more because they had maxed out the public fundraising match.
Kasky, a young candidate seeking to become the next progressive to reach a high elected office, admits he doesn’t yet have the money to compete with candidates who rely on big donors rather than grassroots support. However, he remains optimistic about his motivated supporters, with some crossover from Mamdani’s campaign.
“We have a lot of volunteers, and at the end of the day, the people who are with us are motivated by something that money can’t buy,” he said.
Kasky is also hoping his social media campaign is ripe with the authenticity, as he believes is needed to win, similar to Mamdani. And he thinks video editing alone isn’t enough to do that.
MS. RACHEL NAMED TO MAMDANI’S INAUGURATION COMMITTEE
“I’m talking about my beliefs, and I think that one of the things from [Mamdani’s] campaign that everybody ought to recreate,” he said.
“There’s no amount of video editing that can make up for that. … You can’t manufacture authenticity.”
