Democratic socialists seize a record slate of US mayor seats

Nithya Raman won Los Angeles, the second largest US city, and Janeese Lewis George took Washington DC, according to The Guardian. Two other young DSA members, David Morales and Yousef Rabhi, won Providence, Rhode Island and Ann Arbor, Michigan. They join socialist mayors already running smaller cities including Burlington, Vermont and Irvine, California, plus Zohran Mamdani in New York.

The national footprint is widening fast. Come January, the number of DSA members in Congress will have quadrupled, reaching eight, and more than 100 DSA-endorsed candidates will hold local, state and national office. Mamdani, who came up through New York City's DSA chapter as a long-shot candidate, is now widely credited with inspiring the surge up and down the ballot.

Mayors run the unglamorous machinery — garbage pickup, snow days — and that is exactly where Rutgers labor studies assistant professor and DSA member Eric Blanc sees the test. “It's the executive office, so the stakes are actually higher there,” he told The Guardian. Mamdani made a similar case to visiting mayors on the sidelines of the UN general assembly this fall, according to the New York Times, which covered the event: “If politics cannot deliver on the block where you live, why would you trust it to deliver anywhere?” His office says he has repaired more than 200,000 potholes since taking office.

The incoming mayors campaigned on the same practical ground. Raman, an urban planner, promised more housing and better public transit. Lewis George pushed universal childcare, public housing and stronger tenant protections. Morales pitched affordable housing and wants corporations to pay a larger share toward public education and city services, while Rabhi pledged to fight data centers and keep utilities affordable.

Mamdani has kept his focus on a rent freeze, universal childcare and taxing the rich while critics litigate debates far from municipal government. Blanc said Mamdani “already demonstrated proof of concept, contrary to all of the predictions of imminent collapse” of the city. “If others can follow this model, which is to take big fights against the rich and powerful, be out there proving to people that you can make their lives better, I think that is going to be what will help avoid some of the real difficulties of governing,” he said.

Seattle mayor Katie Wilson, a self-identified democratic socialist who is not a DSA member, called the job “the best in the world” and said it demands both “big vision and ambitions and values” and “the real nitty-gritty of keeping the lights on.” She said the newcomers should deliver what is within reach and keep close ties to the grassroots organizers who elected them. “You're not going to build socialism in one city ultimately, but how do you embody those values, and that vision, and take real, tangible steps toward socialistic policies, in a way that improves the daily lives of the residents of your city?”