Mamdani, Trump and the End of the Old Politics
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How did Zohran Mamdani’s campaign use viral short‑form video to win the NYC Democratic mayoral primary?
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The Democratic primary that just wrapped up in New York. was a collision between two very different candidates on almost every level. Ideologically, outsider versus insider, name recognition. But it was also a collision in a way that I think matters for much beyond New York City politics, of two very different theories of attention. Andrew Cuomo ran a campaign that was based on a tried and true strategy of buying attention. He had this gigantic super PAC with tens of millions of dollars, purchasing all the advertising money can buy, absolutely dominating airwaves with negative ads about Zoran Mamdani. In his own words, Zoran Mamdani wants to defund the police.
Zoran Mamdani's a thirty three year old dangerously inexperienced legislator who's passed just three bills. Zoran Mandani. A risk
New York can't
afford.
Paid for by Fix the City.
And then you had Mom Donnie. Who was running a campaign on a very different theory of attention? A theory of viral attention. A campaign built on these vertical videos that if you opened Instagram, if you opened TikTok, and you were in any way connected to his ideas or to New York City. This was all you saw.
So what's your take? I should be the mayor. New York is suffering from a crisis, and it's called halalflation. Did you know that Andrew Cuomo gutted the pensions of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers? Mr. Cuomo, and furthermore, the name is Mam Dani. M-A-M-D-A-N-I, you should learn how to say it.
Attention works differently now. This is one of the core political theses of this entire podcast. It is laced through so many of these episodes. And you just watched these two incredibly different attentional strategies collide, and Cuomo got flattened. He got flattened. It was not close. There are things you cannot learn about how to win elections in other places from a off-year June Democratic primary in New York City using rank choice voting. But there are things you can learn about how attention works right now. And that's in a large part the subject of this conversation. Now I'm not a New Yorker, but I want somebody who is a New Yorker, this deep roots here, and who really understands political attention.
And so I asked my friend Chris Hayes, an MSNBC anchor and the author of a phenomenal book on attention in politics, The Sirens Call, to join me. As always my email Ezra Kleinshow at NYTimes dot com.
Chris Hayes, welcome back to the show. It's great to be back. So Zora Mandani. Won the primary. He sure did. You just wrote a book about political attention. And this was one of the most attentionally sort of remarkable and innovative campaigns I've seen. Totally. So I want to hear the the sirens call analysis of the Zoran Mamdani campaign.
So the first thing I would say about him is he genuinely came from nowhere. I live in New York City and spend between sixteen and twenty hours a day reading about and thinking about politics. And like, I knew there was a Democratic Socialist Assemblyman named Zora Mondani. Right. I didn't even know he was running for mayor until he popped up in my Instagram feed or TikTok, right? So at one level, like just to level set here, this is someone who had zero attention on him,
who
went from having zero attention to him to monopolizing attention in the race. And I think the way he did it was viral videos. It's the first time I've seen a Democratic candidate be totally native to the medium of our time, which is short vertical video in the algorithm.
algorithmic feed. I I want to play one of them here.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Zohran Mamdani’s campaign use viral short‑form video to win the NYC Democratic mayoral primary?
0:00–9:25
2
What are the key differences between Andrew Cuomo’s attention‑buying strategy and Mamdani’s attention‑earning approach?
9:25–20:28
3
Why does Chris Hayes argue that modern politics now rewards “attention‑native” candidates over traditional fundraisers?
20:28–30:23
4
How does ranked‑choice voting in New York City shape coalition‑building and cross‑endorsements?
30:23–39:12
5
What does the discussion reveal about the role of policy‑mimetic messaging versus detailed policy platforms?
39:12–49:42
6
How do issues like housing affordability, free daycare, and public grocery stores illustrate the challenges of delivering on campaign promises?
49:42–1:03:28
7
In what ways does the episode connect the rise of attention‑driven politics to broader trends in U.S. and global elections?
1:03:28–1:14:44
8
What books does Ezra Klein recommend for listeners who want to dive deeper into politics, media, and history?
1:14:44–1:26:18