A (2:56)

I'm Jon Favreau and you just heard from Andrew Epstein and Maya Honda, the creative director and campaign manager for Zoran Mamdani's mayoral campaign. So much of the discourse around Mamdani's victory has been about his beliefs and his policies, and this is understandable. His supporters on the left believe, for good reason, that Mamdani won primarily because of his agenda. And his opponents have spent a lot of time and money arguing that the things he said and the positions he holds are why he shouldn't have been elected. And so you see a lot of predictable, kind of tired discourse about whether or not a democratic socialist like Mamdani could win in other places that aren't as blue as New York City. I think that Mamdani's insanely disciplined message on affordability and the policies that make it real, freezing rents, free buses, city owned grocery stores, undoubtedly played a huge role in his win, as did the extremely talented and charismatic candidate himself. But plenty of other charismatic Democratic socialists with similarly progressive agendas have run in plenty of other races, including in New York, and they haven't performed as well as Mamdani or built a movement as big as sprawling campaigns that successful, that special don't just happen. They're created by the candidate and the campaign team based on their theory of what it will take to reach and persuade and motivate people who don't pay all that much attention to politics and in many cases actively avoid it. That is an incredibly difficult task at a moment where so many people are understandably cynical and even nihilistic about the possibility that voting for anyone will ever change anything. It's so much easier to sit at home, stare at a screen, and scroll past the politician or the campaign or the cause that's desperately trying, usually way too hard, to get your attention. Somehow Zoran Mamdani and his campaign cracked that code. And they did it in a way that got people off their couches to meet and connect with strangers, not on a social media platform or a group chat, but but face to face in real life. And that connection gave people a sense of purpose and fulfillment and agency that wasn't just based on the hope that Mamdani himself could deliver on all of his promises, but that all the People who worked to elect him could play a role in making it happen. Maya Handa and Andrew Epstein are a big part of why that strategy worked. Maya served as Zoran's campaign manager, joining the campaign shortly after he won the primary to help build and organize a movement and that actually expanded the electorate and brought in new voters. And Andrew served as Mamdani's creative director and communications director before that, where he worked with a very talented team of producers and filmmakers to create those viral videos that helped define the campaign. I talked to both of them about how they did it, what they learned, and the lessons other candidates in campaign should take from what they achieved. Here's my conversation with Maya and Andrew. Maya Honda, Andrew Epstein, welcome to Offline.

C (5:54)

Great to be here. Thanks so much, John.

A (5:56)

Yeah, congrats on the big win.

C (5:58)

Thank you. Thank you.

A (5:59)

We're recording this just a couple hours, I think, before Zoran Mamdani goes to the White House and meets with Donald Trump. So, big day in Mamdani land.

C (6:11)

Very big day.

A (6:12)

So a lot of people know how the Mamdani campaign ended. A lot fewer know how it began. How did each of you come to join the campaign and what convinced you that this was a race worth working on? Andrew, I'll start with you since I know you were around for a while.

C (6:29)

Sure, sure. I actually, I met Zoran the first time when I was managing another candidate's campaign for assembly the same year that Ziran was running for his own seat. We shared an election lawyer, Ali Najmi, who's still very involved now with the transition and all the rest of it. And I, I remember meetings were on in 2019 in the waiting room of Ali's law office. And getting that smile sent at me the first time, I was like, wow, okay, who is that? But then I came into the assembly as a chief of staff for Assemblymember Emily Gallagher the same day that Zoran was sworn in. And Emily was part of the Socialists in Office Committee, this group of New York City DSA backed elected officials who talked strategy, who coordinated work together, who really tried to push a. A robust economic agenda, social agenda in Albany. Not an easy task to do. And I saw over the years as her chief of staff, working alongside other electeds in that committee, Zoran's courage, his leadership, his ability to constantly defy the expectations and limits that were imposed on someone like him and what he was trying to do in Albany. And so when he was gearing up to begin this run for mayor, as preposterous as it might have sounded in the summer of of 2024. I was really excited to throw my hat in the ring and work with him on communication. So I was the second or third employee on the campaign, obviously. El Biscard Church, who's now going in as chief of staff for City hall, had been as chief of staff in the assembly, was figuring out her role at that time. A couple others had come on board, but I started a few weeks before we launched in October of 2024, started running at it.

A (8:12)

That's his history. And Maya, you joined after the primary, right?

B (8:16)

Yes. Although I had known Zaran for a few years, we sort of met in the most Brooklyn possible way to meet someone, which is that he asked me to sub for his rec soccer team many, many years before. They were like, we need another woman for the co ed team. So that was actually how we kind of first interacted. But I had been around New York City and state politics for a while, worked on India Walton's race and he, I think, did some stuff on that Buffalo campaign. And, you know, had worked for the New York Working Families Party. And he was always kind of around pushing forward the agenda, kind of being involved both, you know, as an elected, but also kind of as an organizer in a lot of these issues and fights that we had been in for a while. So really known him. And then, you know, I think during the primary it was ranked choice and so we were all kind of aligned together on a slate that, you know, we could not allow Andrew Cuomo to become mayor. And so post primary was basically like, how can I help? And was excited to come on board.

A (9:14)

And then you came on to run the campaign. Big, big, big job. Most of the post election analysis about how you guys won has focused on Mamdani's charisma and especially his message. Rightly so, I think, But I wanted people to hear from the two of you about what it took to build a campaign around your very charismatic candidate and his effective message. A campaign that was, I think, in many ways the antithesis of what people hate about politics today. It was welcoming, it was fun. And at its core, I think it was about building a real offline community of believers through smart online strategies that made people want to join. Maya, how did you and Zoran and the team think about the kind of campaign you wanted to build for the general? Was what we saw towards the end all part of the plan from the beginning or did it evolve over time?

B (10:10)

It definitely evolved over time. I think that we came into the general with a couple of very Interesting kind of conundrums and goals. The first was honestly just to broaden the tent. Like, we were in a really unique position as a Democratic nominee and kind of after this insurgent race. And so we did have to take a look at our strategies and tactics and ask ourselves, how can we build on the tent that we have, but also how can we broaden and expand it? So that did require some creativity. The campaign has always done these really spectacular events that bring people together. And we talked a lot about constituent services and what it would be like to show people how Zoran would lead and how he would be mayor. So we did this paper shredding event, which is sort of a very common constituent services type thing that local electeds do. But we kind of did it from the campaign side and kind of brought a lot of people together, so using more creative tactics as well. But then the other piece that I think was very interesting is we were in a spending capped race. And so we basically had the same budget that we had in the primary in the general, but had to basically convince almost, I think, over twice as many voters. Right. So we had to figure out how to kind of make our money travel exponentially. And so Andrew's team did a lot of work there, but we were very excited to kind of bring on someone who focused mostly on influencers and creators with the idea that that was going to kind of be an exponential growth for our reach and our ability to persuade people in terms of dollars spent just because we had those budget limitations. And I'll let Andrew also speak more about the digital strategy, particularly.

A (11:47)

Yeah, I mean, most of the. I think most of the country became familiar with Zoran Mamdani through the videos, the incredible videos that you guys produced. Andrew, tell us about that first video where Mamdani talks to voters in the Bronx who for the first time supported Trump in 2024. You've said that the video was populous, not just in its agenda and diagnosis, but in its approach to people. Can you say more about that and how that first video came to be?

C (12:18)

Yeah, absolutely. We launched the campaign October 23, 2024. It's funny, the first video I think of is always that when he ran the New York City Marathon a couple days before the presidential election. I'm running to freeze your rent. He loves a visual pun. Later, we froze the rent by jumping in the water. But then the world changed again a couple days later. And as you know, well, the reaction after Trump was elected this time versus 2016 was quite different. There was a lot More. I mean, we were shocked after 2016, but there was more of an initial posture of resistance. He hadn't won the popular vote. There were all sorts of mistakes that we could identify and make or diagnoses. We could say it's all these undemocratic features of our system that had allowed Trump to become president in 2016 that was not possible. To say the same thing in 2024, and especially in New York City, where we saw not just a huge shift towards Donald Trump, especially in working class and immigrant communities, but an even bigger shift of people who tapped out of the political system entirely and didn't vote. And so I remember sitting in the. And I remember sitting in the backyard of a coffee shop with Elle. Actually, I think a day or two after the presidential election, Ziran had gone down to somos, which is the political conference that the whole New York City political world decamps for in Puerto Rico after the election. Very different entry into Somos he went by himself that year and run around trying to get meetings. Very different than the SOMOS he flew down for last week or two weeks ago. But I remember sitting in the backyard of El, just trying to figure, what role can we play in this moment? How do we want to lead? How do we want to respond? Because so many. It felt like in the Democratic coalition more broadly, we're just at a loss, basically. And I think a lot of people are also feeling intensely nihilistic and hopeless. And I think the key insight of that moment and the campaign generally, was just to get intensely curious to go to those places where people far from the caricature of Trump voters had turned off from the Democratic Party or turned off from voting entirely, and just ask people, why? Why did you vote for Trump? Why didn't you vote at all? And then to kind of test the proposition of this campaign. I mean, at that point, we knew we were going to run relentlessly on this affordability agenda. We knew we were going to lead with three bold but achievable digestible policies that spoke directly to the conditions of people's lives. And we knew in some ways we were trying to do something related to what Trump was, at least on the rhetorical level in the campaign, which was to say that there is an answer to the cost of living crisis in politics and political engagement, that the crushing cost of living, the prices that people face, the insecurity that they face, are not just the subjects of impartial market forces. Politicians are not just bystanders to it, but that we can actually look to politics and campaigns to begin to address those central. Because at the time, the conventional wisdom in New York City was that this was going to be a race entirely, either about Eric Adams corruption and mismanagement or public safety in the very narrow way that it often gets talked about. And we can talk about that separately. So we went to those places. We asked people why. We heard again and again a deep disillusionment with the political system, a sense that the actual conditions of the economy weren't being directly addressed or spoken to, a deep sadness and disillusionment also with US Foreign policy as well. And we brought to them the agenda. What would it mean? What would it look like? How would you come back to a Democratic Party that was running on your rent, your transit, your childcare with this agenda? And again, I mean, there was no selective editing in those people we put forward. I mean, we gave people the platform to say exactly what was on their mind. We brought them their agenda, and the response was incredibly positive. And that really did feel like a big breakthrough moment for us and I think pointed the way. It validated the early presumptions of this campaign and also gave us a sense of where we might head in this uncertain and fraught Trump moment that we were heading into.

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A (19:00)

It's also so powerful to hear from the voters themselves. There's a similar, like longer New York magazine piece that comes out right after the election in 24 about a lot of these voters in New York City. I think I believe in AOC's district who are like Trump AOC voters. And I remember like posting it on somewhere blue sky Twitter and you get, you get a lot of angry people hearing about Trump voters. I feel like people are less angry and more willing to listen when they actually hear from the people themselves and not, for example, Mamdani having talked to them and then giving a speech about the people that he talked to and what they believe.

C (19:41)

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right.

A (19:44)

So Maya Andrew talked about two groups of voters there. You know, one group of people who, you know, had voted Democrat in the past and then switched to Donald Trump. Another group that had just given up on politics altogether. I imagine once you guys got to the general, you obviously needed to expand the electorate how did you think about reaching and organizing sort of a broader electorate and sort of expanding the electorate in a way that I imagine and I know is quite difficult for most campaigns, even though they say they want to expand the electorate.

B (20:18)

Absolutely. I think that's where our field program really comes into play. And I think one key piece of this, right, is I've worked on campaigns for years. I've worked for charismatic candidates, I've worked for candidates who have centered affordability. I've worked for candidates with large social media platforms and we've lost and sometimes we've won. And so I think that it is really important to remember that a lot of different pieces came together here and we are highlighting a piece at which Zaran was remarkably skilled, in which our campaign did tremendously, but that was necessary and not sufficient for many other campaigns. And so this is where I want to point out something that I think many campaigns do not have, which I do think was a key difference maker, which was that field program. And not just that, but the fact that New York City, DSA and a lot of our organizing partners had basically spent eight years winning, losing, building capacity, training volunteer leaders so that on day one, you don't build a 50,000 person or 100,000 person volunteer list just from one campaign that inspires people. You build it by having trained the leaders for eight years and built your list for eight years. And so then that actually enabled us to do field at a scale in New York City where it could actually change what we saw in the polling, actually touch people over and over and over again. And one thing that's quite clear from the data, right, is turning non voters into voters, especially in an off year election for a mayor, in a primary in June in a safe blue city. Nobody votes in those elections. And the amount of times you have to talk to people in order to convince them and the amount of hope that you have to give them in order to turn them out is so tremendous and could never have been accomplished by just videos alone or just earned alone. It really was that field program that was so dense that it enabled us to change the narrative. With field then the targeting was really exciting and I think our data folks can speak more to it. But there was a desire also to try and target younger voters and also Muslim and South Asian voters who I think for a long time have kind of been maybe like a sleeping giant in New York City politics of like there's these enormous communities and like they haven't always turned out. And this is a specific message and moment that can resonate with them. And so that was a swing, you know, like, that swing was pretty big because it is not conventional wisdom. It is not something any consultant would ever tell you to do. And frankly, I don't know when the last time it's been done.

A (22:42)

Talk about actually reaching those voters through field, because I remember there's a lot of discourse after 24 on the presidential level that like, hey, maybe knocking on strangers doors, doing phone banking, text banking, like, no one's answering. We're wasting time and energy. And it's all about relational organizing. And. And we've got to sort of reconfigure how we think about actually contacting voters and reaching voters. Now, obviously that's a national level, or at least in swing states versus a city. But, like, how did you guys think about actually reaching out and talking to those people who are resistant to be involved in politics at all?

B (23:24)

It's a great question, I will say. I think that I'm hesitant to, like, allow people to overlearn any particular lesson because the reality is that, you know, relational is great in some contexts, and maybe if you're in Iowa, you don't want people nationally reaching out to you and you need to hear from your neighbors specifically. Like, you know, there's a lot there. But I do think there was a particular focus on door knocking. The first thing I'll say is that this was again, a budget question. So, you know, texting and calling people costs money, and again, spending capped race. And so anything that we could do that was free or the lowest cost as possible, we was a big deal for us. And we had real conversations about, for example, what paper should we print the lit on to make sure that we could print enough because we were so capped by that budget. And so this was both about our, like, you know, what we had spent years training volunteers and volunteer leaders to do, which was be canvas captains, kind of lead in that way, do volunteer recruitment, turn people out, launch canvases. But it was also a function, frankly, of those parameters that I think other campaigns, you know, you know, aren't kind of subject to. The exciting thing for us, it was the amount of leaders that we had. Like, you know, something I said about Tasha, our organizing director, is she like, wants to create a city full of leaders. And I think that's really true. We had what, 13 paid field staff and knocked like 3 million doors. I mean, unheard of numbers, and 13 paid field staff to 3 million doors. The amount of leaders that it takes at every level of the hierarchy, whether it's leaders who had cars, who were driving around big logistical chunks of lit and packages, whether it's people who were putting that into canvas and cutting turf, folks who were launching canvases and training folks, folks who were recruiting people. So many leaders at every level. And that kind of durable infrastructure is what enabled us to scale so quickly.

C (25:13)

You mentioned this. I mean, I remember feeling this really intensely in the early days of the campaign, right after the presidential where people were taking that lesson. The Harris campaign out knocked Trump's tremendously, especially in places like Pennsylvania. Didn't make the difference. We had not only brought into this campaign all of this accumulated knowledge and wisdom of these DSA campaigns going back many cycles and how transformative the field program could be for winning elections, but also, as Maya was saying, developing leadership and skills. But it just, it felt so fundamentally different. I mean, presidential politics are, or something around people are intensely polarized. They think of politics in the context of those presidential elections. When you're arriving at their door, people have all sorts of baked in feelings and emotions about it. They're interacting with it in all kinds of ways. When you're knocking on the door in December of 2024 for an off year New York City primary and you're bringing to them a very relevant agenda that speaks immediately and directly to the most pressing crisis in their life, and you're saying there is something coming up that we can do something about this. They don't have that same layers of preconceived notions or how it relates to their own politics or how it even necessarily fits neatly into the ideologies that people have around big party politics and presidential elections. It cuts through that and it's essential, even more so in this kind of election than it could be in any other.

B (26:35)

Yeah, when we're thinking about like votes per dollar again and allocation of resources, I think a lot about where you have the comparative advantage. Right. Like saturation. If everyone's on tv, then the message is less effective. And so the enormous advantage we had was being able to control the narrative on the doors and just talking to so, so, so many people, again at a very low cost to the campaign compared to other forms of communication. But also, as Andrew mentioned, in that gray space where people don't know a lot and we're talking to people who aren't very, not necessarily so involved and informed about these elections. And so the potential was really high to shape the narrative there.

A (27:11)

So, Andrew, the campaign's videos certainly didn't look like many other political campaign videos. I'd Ever seen. The visuals seemed quite intentional. The look seemed quite intentional. What was the strategy, the video strategy? What were you hoping to communicate with the aesthetics and sort of the look and feel of those videos?

C (27:33)

Well, say, first of all, I think we hired filmmakers, some of whom have been working with Zoran for years. In the case of Debbie Saslaw and Anthony Demiri, their company melted solid, some of them who came on in the course of this campaign, like Donald Borenstein and Olivia Becker. But they were people who are really artists, first and foremost, incredible craftspeople of their work, and also people who deeply love and are embedded in the daily life of this city. And that was so crucial to the consistency of, of the message and the relentless focus on this agenda. But an incredibly eclectic and creative set of contexts in which to bring that message. It's like you were following Zoran talking about these same things in the same way, but in immensely different contexts. I think we had a couple of different kind of visual languages. I mean, I think what Melted Solids and Deb and Anthony brought to this was a documentary feel. Some of the early videos we did on Fordham Road and Hillside Avenue where we talked to the Trump voters. One of my favorite videos we made was, was just knocking on the door of first time small dollar donors. This was around January of 2025.

A (28:39)

I thought that was a great video.

C (28:41)

Yeah. And just asking people what it was that brought them for the first time to part with some of their money for a long shot mayoral campaign. And then of course, when we brought on Donald, who's an incredible cinematographer, that's when I think you started developing that other kind of visual language of this campaign. The warm colors, the humor, the kind of wink at the camera, just empowering these artists, basically giving them this setting of New York City, this focused message, and this incredibly dynamic and charismatic candidate, and then letting everything else get creative and try things and experiment with things, I think was an incredibly fruitful dynamic for us all to be in over the course of this campaign. I also think it played in this incredible positive feedback loop with, with the field program because I almost felt like the videos were the first knock on the door. You know, people would develop this relationship to Zoran and the message through their phones, but if it lived exclusively in that phone, it just becomes another creator that or influencer that you, you know, you get excited when they pop up and the, all the other things the algorithm is pushing towards you, but then you get a knock on the door from somebody bringing you the same message, asking you about your own life, talking to you about what you can do to build this campaign. And it creates a movement around it basically. It's not just in one place, it's all the time, everywhere. And I think that was a really key part of it too. And also just the all the leadership and skills and the people who put their time and effort were a constant creative resource for video as well. And there were some of the best videos we made were not just about Zoran. They were about the people who were giving their time, giving their money to this movement.

B (30:17)

And I would also say the creativity is really important here because like the idea of calling small dollar donors or reaching out to small dollar donors, Elizabeth Warren did that. You know, the idea of filming knocking on doors. And again, we also had incredibly creative video ideas. But I do want to say that I think a key piece of this is the beauty of the art that was created and the emotional resonance of it. And that did set it apart from, you know, in some cases, a pretty traditional, typical kind of political outreach or activity.

A (30:45)

Well, and even I think over the last several years, maybe decade, the conventional wisdom on video is, you know, the, to make it more informal and like another influencer, the candidate sort of holding the camera and there's a lot of like direct to camera for the candidate himself. And, and this goes further beyond that. When you have a candidate who is so charismatic and is the reason that so many people are coming out and excited, there is a temptation to make the candidate the star of everything. And I think when you're trying to also build a movement, smart campaigns realize that you want to feature the people and not just the candidate. I mean, we dealt with this a million years ago with Barack Obama and always tried to like push it towards the people. And it's hard to do that when your candidate is attracting so much attention. Andrew, talk about it in terms of sort of a digital strategy. Because what was fascinating to me is so much of digital strategy today is just it's about the person on the camera all the time. It almost felt like people who weren't in New York or people who weren't part of the campaign were like brought into the world of the campaign through these videos.

C (32:01)

You know, one thing that we always wanted to do was make the candidate inseparable from the agenda. And I knew that this was starting to work not just when people would recognize Iran on the subway, on the street. It's funny to think about it now because he can't walk, you know, a block in the city. I remember the first video we made after the primary, we were on 34th street and 14th street for about 90 seconds each talking about bus slain infrastructure before a literal mob had formed. This was not the case in the early days of the campaign, polling at 1%. But when I knew something was really working was not just when people would seize around on the subway or the street and say, that guy's running for mayor. They would shout like, freeze the rent fast and free buses. Universal childcare at him. I remember actually the first time he tried to do the call in response. We had no idea if it was going to work. I think it was in February when he was given a little bit of time. This was at a comedy show fundraiser. That's right. And he gives, we're going to freeze the rent fast and free buses. We had no idea if it was going to work and it did immediately. I think partially because people had developed a relationship not just to him, but to the agenda through those videos and made that completely inseparable from one another.

A (33:14)

One of my favorite pieces about the campaign was the New York Times story about what it did for Gen Z. I'll just read a line from the story. Addicted to their screens, strapped for cash, spiritually unmoored and socially stunted by the pandemic, young New Yorkers needed a reason to get out of the house. They found it in Zoran Mandani's mayoral run. Someone who went to one of your rallies said, quote, it's honestly what I would prescribe for the loneliness epidemic. Maya, what did you think of that piece? And was that a conscious decision to try to sort of bring people out of their homes and like get them together in person as opposed to just running the whole thing online?

B (33:48)

Absolutely. I love that piece and I believe we saw more Gen Z vote than millennials in this. Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but I actually believe that's what we saw and I think is an enormous shock and testament to the work that we did there and making people feel like they were a part of something. I think the events were a really key piece there and I'll always bring it back to the budget as a campaign manager. We put on this rally at Forest hills that was 13,000 person rally, enormous. That kind of thing costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. And when you have a very limited paid media budget, it's a real question of is that trade off worth it. And for us it was because we understood that the energy of people being together around early vote and kind of getting that message and feeling that feeling was actually going to be so motivating and important. And then the events that we did, our events team, was really incredible. And again, we're really pushed to think outside of the box of traditional political events. Right. And so we did these DIY merch events. Zaran kind of encouraged us sometimes to think of it as, like, through the lens of art, where he was like a drop, you know, an album release, like that kind of thing. The paper shredding event was really beautiful. It was just a block party. Right. And it's like, I think that has a couple of effects. One is like, you know, it makes people think of politics as more intertwined in their lives and something they do and something that's a part of their community rather than something they're kind of being dragged towards or, you know, lectured about. Right. But it also made him feel a little bit inevitable where it's like, oh, he's already shredding your paper. Like, maybe he's. That there was a little bit of a piece there of, oh, that's your mayor, that's your representative, that's the person who's serving you. That felt really powerful. But at those events, people run by volunteers overwhelmingly, it was just like the energy was really fantastic, and it just gave people a reason to be together. And I think that comes also from this mutual aid tradition of, again, that DSA and a lot of these orgs have spent a lot of time building, where it's like, no, this org is your political home in a really real way, where not just the elected official is going to eventually get elected and eventually govern and eventually make your lives better, but, like, we ourselves together right now are going to create, you know, what we want to see, and then that will grow.

A (36:01)

I think it's the difference between a view of politics as transactional, where you work hard for the candidate, you ask for someone's vote, you vote, and then you get back all the stuff the politician has promised. And it's really about, like. I'm sure a lot of the volunteers got something for themselves from the campaign. A feeling of connection to other people, friendliness, friends that they're going to, you know, connections that they're going to last for a lifetime. And it's tough because it's. It's hard to describe and it's a little intangible, but it seems like it's the secret sauce for, like, a lot of really effective campaigns.

B (36:37)

And I would say, like, politics, everything is transactional. Right. But the thing that people received actually was a feeling of power. In a time of, of feeling powerlessness. Like it wasn't just hope, it was feeling empowered. It's like I knock on this door, I turn out these voters, we deliver the agenda. And a big piece of the general election for us was creating a mandate for the agenda. And so that was really interwoven in everything that we did was people should go to the poll site and understand what they're voting for. They're not voting for Zoran, they're voting for the agenda that he's going to deliver, but also the agenda that we're going to deliver. And this is our first part of the message that we're sending about it. And that feeling of empowerment, I think is like very rare. And you can kind of point to really successful campaigns where that's the feeling that was created and that's the energy we're going to use to continue to deliver and demand that agenda.

A (37:28)

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A (39:32)

The other piece I really loved Charlie Warzell wrote about Mamdani in the Atlantic and said, in an era of American politics that's becoming more and more defined by trolling, shamelessness and cheap propaganda, Mamdani proved himself to be the anti slop candidate on the inside of the campaign. Was that an active conversation like, Andrew, maybe you can start us out. To what extent did you fashion Zoran as sort of the inverse to this political and technological moment?

C (39:58)

I think people for good reason are getting extremely dubious about what they're encountering online, especially from candidates. And I think that there was a credibility of both Zoran and the message that was able to cut through that. Some of that is intangible and I think has to do with him himself. Something that has to do with it, what with the focus on this agenda that speaks directly to the biggest crises in people's lives and just remaining relentlessly focused on that. It was funny with the AI slop. I mean, after the primary there was a couple weeks there where Andrew Cuomo was going out on the street with his sleeves rolled up and trying to make moments happen on about a four block radius on the Upper east side. People were talking about like the new Andrew Cuomo, his new energy, his new focus online. And then within, by August or September, he had basically turned the entire digital operation over to AI, an AI that was pushing incredibly cynical and fear mongering and kind of racist messaging. This is where like having no positive vision, no positive ideology other than kind of fear and division will prevent you from actually being creative and actually cutting through all of the noise that people are encountering and connecting them deeply with a candidate and a movement. And it was something that he was unable to replicate because of who he is and who he represented in this race. And so kind of threw up his hands and said, let AI take the wheel.

B (41:28)

You can't really divorce the tactics from the message, I think. And that is a really, really important thing to emphasize. And I also think one thing we talked about pretty explicitly was Zoran treats New Yorkers and voters in particular, and especially low information voters who are not super engaged, as though they are incredibly intelligent, which they are. Right. And care deeply and are able to understand nuance. And so few politicians will do that. I think it's an enormous critique that people have of in general politics today is that lack of nuance. And he was not afraid to. He calls it like hugging the cactus. I don't, I don't know where that came from. But, you know, he was not afraid to treat people as though they could understand difficult concepts and explain things to them. And there's this sort of thing of if you're explaining, you're losing, which, you know, sometimes that is the case. But I think we, you know, explained and won because people felt respected and they felt empowered and they felt like, you know, we were all in this together. And that was a really important kind of narrative of the campaign and approach.

A (42:27)

Well, there's this whole debate about how to get attention in an environment where it is a very scarce resource and a very sort of crowded environment. There's lots of slop in people's feeds. There's lots of good stuff in people's feeds. And, and in politics, the thought is, okay, you have to get attention no matter what, and all attention is good attention. And so even if you're getting some, some bad attention because of your AI video of, because you, or because you said something controversial or nasty or like, that's still good. And people have sort of learned that from Trump. And then you get, I've seen now over the last couple years, some Democrats being like, well, we need to do that so we can get attention. And, you know, it's, you know, people like to frame it as like, we're just being, we're fighting too, and we're, you know, we're gonna fight fire with fire. And when you have a really strong message that, you know, through polling and talking to people is really strong and effective, sometimes I think candidates struggle with, okay, we know that's effective, but how do we get it attention? Because the only stuff that gets attention is the flashy, crazy, you know, sensational stuff that you see from people like Andrew Cuomo. So it's interesting that you guys. I don't know if it's just the. What, Maya, what you were just talking about sort of the respect that you had for voters Intelligence. And it is taking a risk, too, and making a bet on that because it's easy to pay attention to something that is a shiny object instead of.

B (43:55)

Yeah. And look, this only works with a candidate of incredibly high quality, right? Like the kind of person who can be put on the spot and asked about whatever issue and come up with, like, a moral, empathetic, you know, nuanced perspective on it that feels authentic to them. Like, part of the reason people rely on this attention slop everything is because they have nothing to say, and they also don't have a good messenger to say it. And so that is a place where, again, all these pieces are adding up together to something that created a lot of magic in the moment.

A (44:23)

Andrew, how did you guys think about that when you were sort of producing a lot of these videos? Like, how much was it? We're just going to do a lot, and we're going to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. And some will work and some won't. Or did you start learning lessons over the course of the campaign about what was getting more traction?

C (44:41)

I mean, first of all, you know, we. This is a result of Zoran's incredible energy and focus. Was. Was. We ran this campaign from day one like it was the final 48 hours of the campaign. There's a kind of shadow primary that happens before. There's a lot of people who are spending all of their time cultivating big donors or trying to convince editors and journalists that they're serious, you know, And I had some of those conversations with reporters early on, and they would tell me, yeah, this is an interesting idea, but there's a ceiling, you know, And I'd say, okay, let's see, let's test it. It didn't feel like in the first instance, a thing that I needed to do was to convince them of the seriousness of it. To some degree. I wanted to build the relationship between Zoran and New Yorkers for as long as possible before we were taken incredibly seriously by establishment media, politicians and so forth, because we knew the second they took us seriously, that's when the money would turn on and it would be nonstop. So we wanted to, in a sense, inoculate as many people as possible, both through digital and through field, to the messaging. We knew what was coming so that they could develop their own relationship to him and the agenda. And a lot of that had to do with just running at it nonstop from October of 2024. There was no waiting. When you're at 1 or 2%, there's no picking your moments. You try everything all the time, every single day in a variety of different avenues. We weren't really metrics driven in terms of what was working. I mean, we were just a try everything and run at it relentlessly. I mean, certainly certain videos that we put out had a kind of rebound effect in earned media and then became a subject of conversation in and of themselves. The Trump video, Halalflation, some of the others. And that was helpful in continuing to reach greater and greater numbers of people. But then there were also moments that we didn't predict would break through. I mean, when Tom Homan came to the New York State Capitol in March, a few days after the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil and Zoran confronted him and asked him, do you believe in the First Amendment? That was a tremendous breakthrough moment. It was the first thing that got him onto cable news and this whole race onto cnn. Wait, that's not entirely true. He was on Iman's show on MSNBC early on, but in prime time. It was also a moment where we for the first time showcased the very intense and terrifying Islamophobia and hate and fear threats that resulted from confronting a figure like Tom Homan in that way. But again, it was always pushing the envelope every single day, figuring out what could work and building off that for the next day and having every day, every moment of the campaign be like it was the final week, essentially.

B (47:28)

There was one video series that I think is pretty interesting from this perspective of like not metrics driven, but still valuable in its own way, which is this until it's done series that we did, which was really amazing collaboration between Zaran Julian, our speechwriter and Andrew and a bunch of our team members where basically once a week we would do this like long form, historically rooted video that defied every possible best practice and was just Zoran at a desk, like the least dynamic video you could imagine, like concept you could imagine making, talking about New York City history, right? And like particularly leftists and so socialist history. And it's like, and the reality is like those videos did not perform as well, but they also served kind of a political organizing purpose and really spoke to our base very deeply. They were shared deeply within particular constituencies and communities. I know there was one that he did that spoke particularly to women about kind of abortion clinics in New York City. That one spoke very deeply to people. And I think that's a kind of good example where it's like, well, if you look at the metrics, like, I don't know, but the way that These videos spread within certain constituencies, felt like it had this political organizing effect that was really, really powerful and made us think about how videos could be used slightly differently than what you would expect, again, exponentially. And so that led to us thinking more about, okay, when we did GEOTV videos in a few languages, but we also did the World cup video and then we translated that into languages that a lot of immigrants in New York City who love soccer. And then that got shared around. And so it was also fun to use video kind of in an unexpected way as well.

A (49:04)

So Zoram will be mayor soon. He set high expectations for what he plans to achieve in one of the harder jobs in politics. How do you think about carrying the spirit of the campaign into the messy and often dispiriting work of governing?

C (49:21)

Well, I certainly think that the communications approach will continue, obviously engaging in daily conversation with the New York City press corps, the national press corps. That happens. But in addition to that and alongside it, directly telling the story of this city hall and continuing to mobilize the hundred thousand plus people who were part of this campaign and part of this movement and understanding that it's not just them holding Zoran accountable to the delivery of this agenda that everybody knows he ran on and people knew what they were voting for, but also understanding that they are also remain protagonists in the struggle to actually deliver that agenda. And I think you're going to see a city hall that is bringing people in, mobilizing people, narrating in a very energetic and constant way where we are at in the struggle to deliver this agenda and understanding that people have to be part of it.

B (50:27)

Absolutely. And I also think that this is where the fact that he can communicate with nuance and you know, respect and kind of treat people as though they're intelligent is so important. Right. The place where politicians really fall down is when the narrative gets away from them and then they're kind of, you know, facing this never ending spiral of trying to break out of something. And I think that is obviously very possible for New York City mayor in that earned media environment. But he has this weapon of people understand him to be honest and empathetic and nuanced and able to communicate that directly to people. And I think that's very powerful and will be really important as we go together on this journey of co governance and co delivering the agenda because people feel empowered and they feel empowered to deliver. Foreign.

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A (53:18)

If you guys had a candidate like Zuron with his message who was running a statewide race or let's say a national presidential race. Do you think you could replicate the kind of grassroots, in person, retail, politics driven campaign you built in New York? So much of this, I mean, obviously New York City, one of the biggest cities in the world. So it's not like you were running a small race somewhere, but, you know, New York City. And you guys have said this. It was a character in the campaign, certainly in the videos. And so much about it was Zoran being able to just walk around and meet people. And, you know, I do think that a national presidential campaign that felt more grassroots, where more people are involved, where more people were getting to know each other, get off their couches, meet each other, would be really effective. And I just, I can never figure out whether it's scalable to do that on a statewide or a national level.

C (54:14)

Well, we certainly saw, I think, the potential of it in the Obama campaign and also in Bernie Sanders. Two presidential campaigns which shaped so much of the approach to this one, which helped build and grow a movement in an organization like New York City, dsa. I do think it is possible. I think we have to try. It requires an ambitious agenda that speaks directly to the economic realities of people's lives. And it has to proceed from that fundamental premise that Bernie said so well, when he said, not me, us, that it is not just empowering a leader to do it for us, but that there is no chance of transforming this country to winning a dignified life for the millions of working people who are in incredibly precarious situation right now unless they are actors and part of that struggle. And so I think. I don't know exactly what shape that's going to take or who's going to lead that in any number of races. But I don't think that this is just a unique moment or a singular candidacy or campaign. I think it does point the way forward to the kind of political revolution that we need to be pushing for constantly in this country.

B (55:24)

I think that's right. And I guess a few pieces that I would point out are Zoran, in the primary, kind of ran around the traditional levers of power because he ran this insurgent campaign really tremendously in this moment. But the New York Times stayed out. Right. And that is an enormously powerful newspaper that almost made Catherine Garcia mayor in 2021. Right.

C (55:46)

New York Times quite explicitly said, don't rank Zahran Mamdani for mayor.

B (55:51)

Totally ended up being, I think, very motivating to a bunch of people in a bunch of ways.

C (55:56)

That's right.

A (55:57)

There you go.

B (55:57)

But I think, like, you know, the traditional way to win a New York City mayoral election is to, like, fight for that endorsement. And that's a big deal. And that can create momentum, labor, like. And I think the question for a national movement, right, is how to interact with those levers of power, whether it's possible to do a full end run around them. I think we saw Bernie try in many ways, and that didn't necessarily succeed. Right. And I think there are many communities that are typical Democratic based communities that maybe an insurgent campaign might be not necessarily the most attractive to in any given moment. And you do have to organize and build deep relationships in those communities. Not to say it's not possible, but just to acknowledge that New York City in 2025 was a very specific time, place, political moment in which powerful people made very specific decisions. They made the decision to run, to get behind Andrew Cuomo, one of the worst candidates of all time. And then also I think the amount of money that came in against Iran was enormous. And I will just say that because he was an insurgent, because he kind of did this, it came in late, comparatively. And the reality is, as you saw, based on the oppo drops after the primary was they didn't even do that good of research in the primary. And so I think, like, the attacks were not as full fledged as they could have been. But again, with a national movement and a national campaign, you would see that even more tremendously. And so more just want to say, I think it's possible, I think it's necessary. We have no hope but to try. And because we see that politics as it currently is, is not serving us and is not empowering us. And there's very real strategic conversations to be had about how to approach these different dynamics that very much were at play in New York City, but weren't necessarily able to keep him from building this powerful movement.

A (57:42)

I mean, were it not for caucuses, I don't think we would have beat Hillary in 2008. I think that's also that helped Bernie tremendously as well. And the challenge for a lot of these insurgent candidates is when you get out of the caucus system into a primary system, it is just harder to reach the number of people you need to to organize a movement that can sort of take on the establishment and reach people who are like, I don't pay any attention to politics, but I do show up and vote, because on election day, and that's when I vote for the person whose name I Remember? Or, you know, so it's, it's tougher.

B (58:18)

To go back to what Andrew said. It was very interesting that when Bernie knocked zillions and zillions of doors and made zillions and zillions of phone calls in 2016 and 2020 and then lost, everyone's takeaway was like organizing works. And I think there's no right takeaway. The reality is that the strategic decisions that you make to win in whatever moment you're in are the most important thing. And that varies from campaign to campaign. And it's unwise, again to overlearn any lesson. But it is sort of an interesting thing that it felt like people were really inspired and motivated by it. But what was the result of it? It wasn't sufficient. Right.

C (58:49)

One of the limitations that Bernie ran up against, and it was certainly a challenge that we faced, and it is the challenge for any of these campaigns that are trying to win transformative change in this country or any one city, is the very well earned cynicism that so many people, particularly working class people, have about the possibility of politics to transform their life, of the possibility of government to actually deliver material improvement for them. I mean, that was the biggest challenge for us with so many older and working class voters. I think, as well as we did in the primary, was that sense that I don't believe actually things could improve, not in any real meaningful way and not in the daily economic experience of our lives. And this goes back to what Maya was saying about never treating those people with condescension or telling them that their cynicism is not well earned, but trying to enlist them and work with them in a movement that is clear eyed about the challenges, but nevertheless has an agenda and a plan that we could win together that would actually improve their lives. And I think that's going to be the challenge for any left candidate in this country is the decades of cynicism and failure that have produced our current predicament. And this is why it's so important to deliver on the agenda and why Mayor Elect Mamdani is so relentlessly focused on preparing to deliver that. Because it's not enough to run on it. We have to do it.

A (60:15)

And as you both said, we. One way to sort of break down that cynicism is to remind people of their own agency. And because, you know, as the candidate, you could say, like, look, I know that you might like what I'm saying and you might think I'm great to vote for, but like, do you really trust and believe that I'M going to be able to be the one person who delivers in a way that other people couldn't. And people are more likely to believe that, okay, maybe this person has good intentions, they're going to work really hard and try. But I want to be part of this too. And I know that I can maybe do this. And so it's sort of getting people to believe in themselves, which, as corny as it sounds, is part of the solution here.

C (60:55)

Absolutely.

B (60:56)

The thing that does excite me right. Is like it took New York City, DSA and these orgs like eight years, building on many years to really organize up their city in a way that could make a difference in this kind of election. The reality is New York City is a bunch times bigger than any other city in this country, which means the potential for people who are sitting at home wondering to themselves, this project is enormous. We need a president. How are we going to do this, Bernie? Loss. I can see that that could lead people to feel the scope of work is tremendous, but it is not if you live in Durham, North Carolina or Nashville, Tennessee or wherever the fuck you can see. Spend two to five years organizing deeply with your neighbors, being really principled, winning, losing, training, volunteer leaders, and you can also build something sustainable that can actually deliver for yourself and your community. And I hope that's the message people take away, beyond the larger questions about like the national movement that we need.

A (61:51)

Absolutely. Maya and Andrew, thank you so much for the time. Thank you for running a campaign that everyone's gonna be looking towards for lessons and hopefully replicate those lessons in the years to come. So hope you're both enjoying a little bit of rest after this campaign and thanks again for joining and chatting with me.

B (62:09)

Yeah, really appreciate it.

A (62:10)

Take care.

C (62:11)

Very much a pleasure. Thanks so much, John.

A (62:13)

Hey, offline listeners, every week we talk about the ways in which the Internet inflames tensions, flattens conversations and erodes trust in traditional media. You also know that here at Crooked, we're trying to do something totally different. At Crooked, we help millions of people cut through the noise with facts, humor and good conversation. If you love our shows, or even if you just really like them but aren't ready to call it love yet, please consider subscribing to Friends of the POD to support our work directly. Your subscription helps us keep making the shows, newsletters and deep dives you enjoy. It also unlocks perks like ad free episodes and exclusive content like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer. Plus, it's a meaningful way to invest in the kind of media you want more of. And if you need an extra reason to subscribe this holiday season, we're offering 25% off annual subscriptions through November 30, so head on over to cricket.com friends to subscribe. As always, if you have comments, questions or guest ideas, email us@offlinericket.com and if you're as opinionated as we are, please rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. For ad free episodes of Offline and Pod Save America, exclusive content and more, go to cricket.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcast. If you like watching your podcast, subscribe to the Offline with Jon Favreau YouTube channel. Don't forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok and the other ones for original content, community events and more. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. It's produced by Emma Illich Frank Austin Fisher is our Senior producer. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. Jerrick Centeno is our Sound editor and engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seglin, Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Delon Villanueva and our digital team who film and share our episodes as videos. Every week our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

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