Tonight, Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City, winning by an election with higher turnout than any mayor’s race in 50 years. At a time when leading figures in the Democratic Party seem practically complicit in the abuses and outrages of the Trump era, Mamdani offered his supporters an unsullied message of hope.

During the campaign, Mamdani liked to remind his audiences that New York is the richest city in the richest country in the history of the world, and that its government could do more for its residents. While his opponents described New York as broke, dysfunctional, and crime-ridden, Mamdani talked about the city as a lovely, if chaotic, place—full of tumult and injustices, yes, but also of life and possibilities. In criticizing Israel’s destruction of Gaza, Mamdani has barely flinched. These things convinced many young voters, in particular, that Mamdani might have what it takes to follow through on his promises. They voted for him because they could imagine a city with free buses; because they thought that the idea of freezing rents in the city’s million or so rent-stabilized apartments sounded fair, even if they didn’t live in rent-stabilized apartments themselves; and because they liked the idea of New York being a place that offers universal child care to kids as young as six weeks old.

The status quo—obscenely high rents, ludicrous corruption in City Hall, Democratic officials skirting around the killing in Gaza—had gotten too bleak. Mamdani emerged, untainted by the past, and suggested that you didn’t need to accept any of these things in order to win.

Vir: Eric Lach, New Yorker