How Zohran Won, w/ Jasmine Gripper and Lena Pervez Afridi

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.

Josh Elstro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Block and Build a podcast from Convergence Magazine. I’m producer Josh Stro filling in for Cayden Mak. On this show. We are building a roadmap for the movement that’s working to block the impacts of rising authoritarianism while building the strength and resilience of the broad front. We need to win This week on the show, we’re featuring an interview recorded by Cayden before taking off her vacation, discussing the ground level organizing it took to accomplish Zohran Mamdani’s massive primary victory in New York City’s Merrill Race in late June.

Joining him to discuss. We’re co-director of New York Working Families Party, Jasmine Gripper, as well as New York City based writer, researcher, and organizer. Lena Pervez, Afridi. But first, these headlines,

while Trump’s dismissal of the Epstein files is making excessive amounts of noise, [00:01:00] eating up plenty of headline and column space last week, a few items might have snuck under the radar that we think you should be aware of. First and foremost, the right seems to have finally won their decades long war against Big Bird on Friday morning as Congress voted to strip the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of its already committed, 1 billion or so dollars in funding.

As you may know, the CPB is pivotal to funding N-P-R-P-B-S, and perhaps even more importantly, their local affiliates. For full disclosure, I was formally employed by a local NPR affiliate station for about half a decade. And I’ll be the first to admit that it’s easy to critique something like public rAfridio from the left, noting their inherent bias towards neoliberal status quo, whatever nitpicks you might have with their coverage.

Though I can offer firsthand account that when it comes to actual reporting, that’s very different from commentary like I’m doing right now. It is one of the few honest and fact-based outlets left in American media. [00:02:00] This indeed turns them into a nemesis of the authoritarian MA regime, which is dependent on lies and ignorance for their power grab.

Local public rAfridio and television affiliates are also some of the only journalistic outlets at the local level providing this fact-based reporting without profit motive at the center of their mission. They’re also a critical first line of emergency alert for many people in small towns and rural communities who have no other local broadcast coverage.

Furthermore, I wanna note that one of the key strategies of the MAGA movement’s quiet resurgence during the Biden years was to infiltrate local governments and school boards of small towns and red states consolidating strength from the bottom up. A key weakness of local political power is a lack of investment in local news and reporting.

MAGA is well aware that this meager billion or so dollar line item in the federal budget was one of the last Jenga pieces holding together any semblance of accountability to local and state governments that are [00:03:00] their strongholds for the movement. If no one’s able to pay reporters to do the hard work of sitting in and reporting on state legislatures, city councils, and school board meetings, then the MAGA loyalists who now control that infrastructure in red states have zero accountability and they can continue to dismantle what’s left of any social safety net in those areas.

But another way, if no one’s reporting on the people screwing you over, how will you ever know who’s to blame? I’d urge you please find and support anyone doing good, honest, local reporting in your area, whether that’s public broadcasting or otherwise. Finally, for what it’s worth, Mag’s argument for why this billion dollar cut is so important is, of course, the same lazy hand waving about balancing the budget, which we know is laughable.

Meanwhile, the US government has spent over $18 billion on weapons and bombs for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians since October of 2023. According to a newly published report from Talking Points [00:04:00] Memo, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, alligator Alcatraz, the hastily built concentration camp in the Everglades designed to confine.

Victims of ICE was funded partially using money originally intended for the state’s disaster relief programs. Much of this cash went to construction. Companies contracted to build the prison, some of which had surprise made donations to DeSantis previous campaigns, despite having only been open for a few weeks.

The institution is, as you may know, come under well-deserved scrutiny for its rush construction quality, lack of adequate facilities, and even the incarceration of a 15-year-old undocumented minor. Despite a hefty budget inflated by rush fees from contractors, given little time to complete their job, many local officials had no idea of its construction until nearly a week before.

Its highly publicized opening the fact that many of these taxpayer dollars were diverted from investments into disaster relief programs in a state that faces the brunt of [00:05:00] worsening climate change is, of course, just icing on the cake. To them, the cruelty is the point. Unfortunately, this is yet another example of the way in which many Republicans exploit power and our tax dollars for their own fascist vanity projects at the expense of everyday people.

Before we get into today’s interview, I wanna take a moment to ask for your support for convergence during our summer Fun Drive. Reader and listener support is critical in a time like this when independent media is as we just covered under existential threat. So if this podcast has in fact helped consider what you can give back to make sure we can keep making it.

Anyone who starts an annual or monthly subscription gives $25 or more, or upgrades their subscription will receive a special thank you gift. Head over to bit ly slash summer Fun Drive. Of course there will be a link for that in the show notes to make your contribution today. Thanks for listening.[00:06:00] 

I am sure all our listeners are aware of Zohran Mamdani’s Historic victory in New York City’s Mayoral Primary last month. Almost no one though. Anticipated mom. Donny’s massive final round victory of 13 points over his nearest competitor and disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo his campaign faced and continues to face endless Islamophobic attacks on his character and ethnicity.

Far exceeding the substance of any policy. Furthermore, it was a referendum on loyalty to Israel as a necessity for an American politician. In 2025, his refusal to pledge fieldy to Netanyahu’s genocide and unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people turned out to be something New Yorkers resoundingly supported as they consistently had the young candidates back after bad faith smear after bad Smith, fear from his opponents and the press.

Mainstream media is putting an inordinate amount of emphasis on the style and prevalence of his social media campaigning [00:07:00] as a primary key to his victory without any depth of analysis into the substance of his policy or organizing ground game, which were exceptionally consistent and motivated. A massive base of dedicated volunteers that got him over the finish line.

In this interview, Cayden is joined by New York City organizers who will help us understand the lessons which progressive and left campaigns can learn from Mamdani’s, as well as what challenges he still faces ahead. His guests include Co-director of New York Working Families Party, Jasmine Gripper, as well as writer, researcher, and chief of staff at Power Switch.

Action. Lena Pervez. Afridi, take a listen.

Cayden Mak: Jasmine, thank you so much for joining me today. 

Jasmine Gripper: Thanks for having me. 

Cayden Mak: And Lena, thank you also for making the time to chat. Thanks for having 

Lena Pervez Afridi: me. 

Cayden Mak: Let’s start out with a little bit of the deeper background on New York State politics, New York City politics, and the background on this race. I’ve seen a lot of people who overnight [00:08:00] seem to have become armchair experts in New York City politics over these past couple months, but I wanna talk a little bit about the terrain.

What makes Zohran Mond’s win so historic? And maybe we can even just start with the basics of what the mayor does in New York, because like mayors do different things in different cities. And maybe Lena I’ll toss this to you first to talk a little bit about how you see the terrain.

Lena Pervez Afridi: Yeah. To answer your question, the mayor of New York City is one of the most powerful people in the country. It’s the largest city in the United States. We have a major GDP and so it’s not just a, it’s not this la this race wasn’t just local, but it had. National and international impacts.

So the, I can’t like really understate the importance, or overstate I should say, the importance of the mayor of the city and the administration that they choose to to bring in with them. And the way that I think of the mayor of New York City is as really as an executive. Like we have one of the largest municipal [00:09:00] workforces in the country.

Three, 300,000 people work for the city of New York. Immense amount of power, like I said, both both nationally and internationally. And I think of the mayor as being the person who is like the, mainly the coordinator. I think of some a good mayor as being somebody who can put the right people in to the right positions and then step back to be able to get them to be able to let them do their jobs.

And so there is an enormous amount of trust also put into the administration. So I would really think of it as like an executive job. So as far as the terrain goes this was a historic election because of who turned the kinds of people who turned out the kinds of people who were thought of as previously thought of as un organizable by other campaigns and the number of people who came out to vote.

It was a watershed moment really for New York. It represents a major shift in the way that the city does politics. Like it became, [00:10:00] we have been a city that does, insider politics machine politics for decades and decades. And this really was a grassroots people powered campaign that showed that there is something different that is possible that other campaigns have.

Dismissed in the past. Like I mentioned earlier, just like a minute ago, thinking of certain demographics, certain south Asian voters, Muslim voters, even working class voters as not being working class white voters, as not being sway by the Democratic party. This campaign really showed that there was real possibility and there was real possibility in doing deep coalition building that could shift the terrain in a way that had not been considered before.

I’ll pause there because I think that I can get deeper into any questions that you might have. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah, totally. And I’d also like to toss it to Jasmine, ’cause I know that New York is the state that the Working Families Party is like. Y’all’s home state. You’ve been in New York the longest. What are the ways that you see this [00:11:00] as like a terrain shifting victory?

And like what, also, what’s the role that New York Working Families Party played in that terrain shifting victory? 

Jasmine Gripper: Yeah, building off what Lena said New York is the biggest city, and so the Mayor of New York is not considered a local position. It’s considered a national position. Everyone knows who the mayor of New York is and everyone watches.

And so the megaphone of New York is really important to setting a national and even international political landscape on what could be possible. And four years ago when Eric Adams won. I think the Democratic Party was like, see, the party should move to the right. But his quick decline also sends a message that like, actually he got it wrong.

And him winning was more of a fluke of the electorate not understanding how to leverage or en engage with break choice voting. So the Working Families Party did research on what happened four years ago, and we looked at, Eric Adams only won by 7,000 votes. [00:12:00] And the only people in the political ecosystem that even attempted to adapt to Rank Choice voting was Andrew Yang and Maya and Andrew Yang and Catherine Garcia.

And that cross endorsement between the two of them propelled Catherine Garcia to the number two place and 7,000 votes shy of beating Eric Adams. And we all walked away thinking, had Maga Wiley and Catherine Garcia cross endorsed each other. We would’ve had a different way. And so starting from the research, the Working Families Party took thought our role in this election.

Was to undo what happened the last night. Make sure the left isn’t fighting against themselves, that the left is united, that our side is working together, and we could, we accomplished that The left stuck together, this side. And actually the left propelled each other to victory. And we saw that with the cross endorsement with Bradley Lander.

And so with New York being the epicenter of the political ecosystem, electing a democratic socialist with a bold vision for how to transform our [00:13:00] cities is amazing and sends a message to Democrats that we should try to do something different and that we need to lead with bold visions and that.

Small solutions are incremental change, but we actually need to inspire voters to get out the vote. And we saw Zohran do just that. He propelled a campaign based on inspiration, based on engaging voters that people oftentimes overlook and inviting unlikely voters to come to the table and be a part of the process.

And that helped him build this big coalition across the city and helped him win. 

Cayden Mak: Let’s talk a little bit about that coalition. I think that one of the things that I’ve been noticing in a lot of the discourse is there is this sort of nod to like the number of people who are mobilized to volunteer for the campaign.

But I also know that a lot of community organizations played a huge role in getting out the vote, and especially like particular communities. I was actually just looking at a report from, drumbeats the [00:14:00] South Asian organizing group in the city about how many people they were able to touch, both through door knocking, community events, that kind of thing.

But yeah. I’m curious what as the sort of like big role that those kinds of community organization played in this and is that new in this race? And what can other cities maybe learn from that kind of big coalition building? Lena, let’s start with you.

Lena Pervez Afridi: Yeah, I think that this is a great question. I think that this is something that we are still learning about. Even the people who have been part of these coalitions, even the people who’ve been like watching the wheels turning over the past decade or so drum beats and Cs both did. Tremendous work in turning out South Asians, getting South Asians.

I’m South Asian, I have to say. I’m like I’ve been trying to think about how to politicize my community for 20 years or so, and getting your aunties and uncles to come out is not an easy task. And they just built this incredibly strong network where it was underpinned by what [00:15:00] was important to the campaign, which what Zohran has continually said over and over again, which are like really getting to people’s material needs, speaking to people’s material needs, but doing it in a way where people felt incredibly connected both to the campaign and to the, to each other and beyond that, to a larger movement.

And this is something that everybody is looking for across the country right now. But I would say also just nationally thinking about the rise of autocracy, what people are looking for is connection with each other. They’re looking for possibility with each other. They’re looking for an opportunity to build.

And a lot of times these are groups and are and people who are who are overlooked, who might not have the, these like formal connections. And so I think that these groups coming in and building together from within the community like again, these are not just outside community groups coming in.

These are folks who are from the community who built, who saw the need to build political power and built up these institutions. Additionally with Cav and Drumbeats, I will say that. [00:16:00] Having the tenant movement also extremely connected. Obviously these groups are interconnected, they have overlapping members.

But again, speaking to people’s material needs and giving people a space to come to where they could actually exercise their political power I think was crucial here. And I, it might seem new, but this has been many years in the making. South Asian Muslim community, south Asian community, and Muslim community in New York.

I don’t wanna conflate the two but for the sake of this conversation, I’ll I’ll just a little bit. Has been trying to build political power for years. We’ve had two, we had two council races with South Asian candidates who came. One who didn’t come very close, but one who came pretty close to winning in Eastern Queens.

And that was this was over, this was probably in 2018, I would say. And that gave people the sense that there was something possible as far as like running a candidate who could speak to our community, who could speak to our issues. But still, there was no investment from the like city machine there was and South [00:17:00] Asians as a whole we’re thought of as not really a demographic to be focused on is because we don’t have as much of, a history as like a powerful voting block. And I think that one of the reasons that this campaign was so successful is that it, it experimented really on looking at this like pretty dispersed demographic by geography.

Jasmine Gripper: Like it’s 

Lena Pervez Afridi: it’s like all over, it’s all over the city. There are different pockets of and we’re not a monolithic group, right?

So there’s like different pockets, different languages, different religions. But I was able to connect connect people across this BA geography to come out and as a solid voting block. I think that’s incredibly historic for New York. I think that’s actually historic for the country.

Thinking of us as like a new possible powerful voting block. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah. That makes sense to me. I’m, I really also value the insight that this has been many years in the making, right? That this did not come out of nowhere in terms of building up. South Asian, new Yorkers as a meaningful voting block.

Jasmine do you wanna jump in on this in terms of what the community coalition has looked [00:18:00] like that coalesced around Zora’s campaign? 

Jasmine Gripper: Yeah. I wanna specifically talk about ground game and field game for a mayor’s race in a large city. And I wanna be honest that when I talked to Politicals at the beginning of this race, they’re gonna be, they were.

Assuming they were like, Zu Ron’s campaign is gonna be a lesson in how you knock a million doors and still lose an election. And what he proved them wrong is he’s proved how you can go from 1% name recognition and knock a million doors and win against someone who’s 100% universal name recognition. And so that’s powerful that he did and he proved that like even in big cities, your field game, your ground game, talking to voters and meeting them where they are is still what matters.

And we can’t get away from the principles that grassroots groups have used to build power all along and let that go. When we contend for higher office, it still matters how we show up in communities. It still matters that we show up on the doors and it still matters that we contend for voters that people think are unlikely and continue to a [00:19:00] cast a wide tent and bring as many people into our democracy as possible instead of simply focus on what we call triple prize.

We should talk to all voters and inspire them to get engaged. And Zora to. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah. That’s great. I think this is also like a good segue into one of my other things that I’ve been thinking a lot about is this question around the relationship between identity, like personal identity, race religion political positions, and also like how to navigate this very fraught terrain.

’cause I think that rightly, one of the things that around the sort of like land like Brad Lander cross endorsement was like, that was an opportunity to express solidarity, not just around like our politics, but also demonstrate what solidarity between racial, ethnic, religious immigrant, non-immigrant communities.

Like what can can you talk a little bit to the role of how the campaign navigated these questions of identity and what that can teach us moving forward? 

Lena Pervez Afridi: So I have been thinking about this [00:20:00] question a lot because I think. Like Jasmine said, creating this big tent, the big tent really was everybody, right?

Like it was it was working class white folks. It was the South Asian aunties that I just talked about. It was like the, like African immigrant moms and then it was trans people. It was like young queer folks. And I think the thing is that the campaign has always been incredibly principled and has not wavered on those principles.

Like the, the platform. Freezing the rent free buses, universal childcare, all that. It was said over and over again. And there were things like just people’s basic dignity talking about prioritizing Jewish safety, for example, without, having to undermine the Muslim community.

There’s no, there was no need to do that. And other campaigns, other [00:21:00] politicians have in the past not been able to grapple with those seeming what is seemingly a contrAfridiction. But the campaign really was able to say, no, these aren’t contrAfridictions. This is like what everybody deserves. This is the kind of city that we want.

This is the kind of city we are able to build and have, and our leadership should reflect that. And something I think about often is how Zohran came to the first rally around preserving gender affirming care for trans youth. Kim and Claire Valdez were the only two politicians who were there.

No other mayoral candidate showed up to that. And because of that was like planting a seed. He had a massive, huge block of LBTQ voters. And so I think like really staying the course with those principles and showing that the campaign was principled, even if there might have been viewpoints that within the coalition, there was contrAfridiction around the campaign, just like really kept steady with what it was for and about.

And I think that’s what led people to believe in it. [00:22:00] 

Cayden Mak: Yeah. Jasmine? 

Jasmine Gripper: Yeah. I’ll just add, I think, seasoned politicians sometimes move from a place of fear of an, they get in their own way and there was some level of, like Zuman had nothing to lose and he stayed deeply principled in his vision and was unwavering about his values.

And I think people actually were attracted to that. Like we want principles and values based leadership. And what I love about the Brad and Zohran cross endorsement was Brad was like, listen, I don’t agree with Zohran on everything, but I don’t think he’s anti-Semitic. And and really pushed back against the tropes that were being weighed on Zohran.

And he offered him some legitimacy to voters who were on the fence. And I think that’s what the Berkeley Families Party endorsement did. And I think, a week later getting the a OC endorsement and then a week later, if it was even that many days, the Brad Lander cross [00:23:00] endorsement allowed momentum to build for Zohran to make sense, meet his maximum potential without us getting in our own way.

Of people saying, oh, he’s too scary, he’s too far left, he’s too rAfridical. And really leaning into there’s nothing rAfridical about saying children deserve free childcare. There’s nothing rAfridical about free buses when we have a Staten Island family that’s free every day and has been that way for years.

And so like we had to reclaim the narrative and I thought Zohran was really principles, and I wouldn’t say brave. And it’s just only because sometimes other politicians get so scared about being principled and remaining disciplined in their values and get pulled by the political wins. And that’s not, that doesn’t attract voters.

I think what attracts voters is someone who’s surefooted. And I think Zohran even leaned into the disagreement. He was like, you don’t have to disagree with me on everything. You probably shouldn’t. That’s what makes us normal and human. And even in that disagreement, I still value your humanity.

And I still plan to be a mayor for all. And I [00:24:00] think he, he made a, he masterfully communicated responses to his critique that, again, didn’t shut people out, but brought them in. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah. I think that like narrative discipline is something that is also really interesting and certainly something that I think is like broadly replicable in our politics more generally.

That that is, there’s a model to follow here. I do think that there’s been some slippage now, like po especially post primary into kind of making a lot of zans media ity, right? He’s a great talker. He’s a handsome man. He looks great in the suit. Like he really he like.

Response to stuff in a way that’s both authentic and also does often like to these critiques, does a little bit of like juujitsu to them, right? Which I think is there’s, there, there is something there. But I also think that narrative power is about more than how mediagenic your candidate is.

It is also about this narrative discipline that is also about what people are talking about on the doors, stuff [00:25:00] like that. What are some of the lessons that each of you see about building narrative power from a campaign like this? I, Jasmine you mentioned the affordability stuff.

But yeah, what are other sort of takeaways and insights, especially from where you sit about how we can build narrative power through campaigns like this one? Jasmine, I don’t know if maybe you wanna start,

Jasmine Gripper: yeah, I think oftentimes we are accused of talking at people and not talking to them.

And I thought Zohran was masterful at one First listening, his first video was going to the communities that Trump gained voters and hearing their concerns and then offering a response to that was grounded in what he heard. Okay. And which what he heard was the affordability crisis was bothering New Yorkers and that mayor who was gonna address that would attract their vote.

And so listening and then offering your response based on listening. And then what I think he also mastered was the conciseness of it. Like just being short and sweet. The first time I was at an [00:26:00] observant event where I heard him do the I’m gonna freeze the, and the crowd said, rent, I’m gonna make the buses fast and free.

I’m gonna make universal childcare. And the fact that like the crowd knew. What he was running to do for New Yorkers. And I saw that build to bigger crowds and people just knew what he was running on. And so he clearly landed at communicating a really concise, simple message, but that was still values aligned to what voters were looking for, which is address the affordability crisis and center working people and not the ultra rich.

And so he masterfully communicated in a way that landed with people. He didn’t overly explain or communicate. He didn’t talk at people. He met them where they were. Like communicating on their phones and through social media and video. And I think there’s gonna be a lot of copycat zans coming up who are gonna overemphasize the social media aspect.

I think he learned it and used it, but it was not his sole tool. It was just one of the tools in his toolbox. And [00:27:00] he used it brilliantly, consistently well. But it also wasn’t like he didn’t over rely on just having a messaging strategy. He messaged he talked to voters, he went to their doors, he built a campaign apparatus.

He depended on volunteers at restless operation. All of those things worked together for his win. But clearly a defined narrative that was concise and resonated with voters was his superpower. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah, totally. Lena. 

Lena Pervez Afridi: Yeah I really agree with that. I think that there was a lot of discipline, that word has come up a couple of times already in this conversation, but there’s a lot of discipline in that narrative.

Even I, like a minute ago, listed the top three parts of the platform because it’s just so embedded into everybody’s brains at this point. But I, I have to say, it’s not just how he has said things. It’s that he has something to say and that I think is really important. There’s not it’s not just that we, the campaign hasn’t just talking, it hasn’t just been talking about what.

It has [00:28:00] been talking about, and he has been talking about what it’s for, and he genuinely shows a true love for this city. And like the social media is great, but it’s great because he’s providing content, right? He’s like providing content by, like Jasmine said, talking to, to Trump voters.

But he’s also going out and knocking on doors himself. He learned Spanish to be able to show that he cared enough to be able to connect with folks, and that was, and he did it in front of the camera. But it’s not just that it was, it’s not just that, it was like just the three points. It was the way it was the fact that he was able to deliver those three points in a way that would reach the audience that he was trying to get to.

The other thing I’ll say is. Things like the walk from the top to the bottom of Manhattan. I dunno if people who are not in the city have have heard about this. But that was at the absolute end of the campaign right before voting started. It was on one of the hottest days that we’ve had all year.

And he walked, yeah, the length of Manhattan, 15 miles and he [00:29:00] stopped and talked to people along the way and all of that was recorded. So it’s not, like I said, it’s not just the, how he’s doing it, it’s like what he’s creating as well. And it’s genuine connection. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah. No, I, it’s funny, I was also, I saw that video, I was served that video and I was like, this is this is like an interesting union of this is the sort of like ethic of this campaign around like just being out there and connecting with people.

But it’s also it is also the kind of there’s also this person who’s here in Oakland who does these things, where she walks the entire length of a particular street. So it’s like taking the form of a viral video of already seen injecting the sort of like politics and framework and then making it into a thing that then is like legible and also just being surfaced to people who are outside of New York.

That I think is like a really interesting there’s something that’s, that does feel really natural about that kind of engagement with the internet, right? It’s there’s some facility with it that is really hard to it [00:30:00] feels like hard to make up if you don’t already have it.

On the like, narrative discipline point, like one of the things that we’ve also obviously been seeing is people freaking out about this win from, the Democratic party, but also from the far that Trump is like, oh, we gotta investigate this guy. We gotta deport him. And one of the things that I’ve certainly been noticing is that the Momani campaign is just like we’re just we’re laser focused on our goal, right?

We are doing what we’re doing, we’re we are playing our position. I’m curious both like from where each of you sit, what you’re seeing in terms of popular response to this kind of backlash. ’cause I think that I have to imagine that this is like something that folks are talking about.

And also, you know what the sort of. I guess like what are the sort of like challenges and opportunities in this kind of like visibility they’re running into right now. Jasmine, you wanna start off? 

Jasmine Gripper: Yeah. No, the billionaires are freaking out and it’s beautiful to see. They’re like, oh [00:31:00] my goodness, we can’t control him.

And we’re like, exactly. You don’t have your puppet in city hall. What are you gonna do? And I think one, he made a clear contrast in his campaign that he was not the candidate of the billionaires, he’s the candidate of the working class New Yorkers. And it made it really obvious that Andrew Cuomo was the candidate of the billionaires as they like poured millions of dollars into his campaign and the effort to stop Zohran that failed.

And I think one is the reminder that there’s more of us than there are the billionaires, right? In a democracy they overexert their money to get power and influence over us. But like when we actually are united and the people stick together and we come out, we can defeat them through our democracy because numbers actually matter and there’s more, there’s just more of us in the earth.

And so they’re freaking out because they don’t actually have a lot of options left to intervene. They could. Andrew Cuomo is on the ballot. But voters are not going with Andrew Cooma. He’s gradually losing institutional support. The [00:32:00] unions have walked away from him and gotten behind Suran. Eric Adams is on the ballot, but like he has been lost to trust and faith in New Yorkers.

There’s like a faithful for him holding onto him, but it’s not the majority of the electorate. And so it’s almost comical watching that Eric Adams, Andrew Cuomo viewed back and forth and Curtis Sil has, is not new to our politics. He’s been around for a long time. New Yorkers don’t really take him seriously.

He’s not much of a threat. And then there’s Jim Walden who’s just like really not even making any traction. And so the billionaires are like, they don’t know what to do with themselves. What are we gonna do? Who’s gonna be our candidate? And there’s actually just like not much they can do. And so Z is doing the right thing of just spending this time consolidating support from the people who weren’t with him moving support away from Andrew Omo and Cran, and then making inroads into communities that didn’t know him. And like I saw the week after the election, he was in Southeast Queens, a part of the electorate that he didn’t really win.

And so he’s doing the right things. It’s don’t let the haters almost take from Eric Adams line. [00:33:00] Don’t let the haters do anything to you. But just be focused on your own game. And he has a broad base of support, and all he needs to do is to continue to build that support into new communities that don’t know him yet.

And once they get to know him then with him, he’s charming and he has substance. And then we talked about the three main issues in his campaign. But those are just three. They’re not everything. He actually has a deep policy campaign that addresses everything from housing to community safety. And so he needs to now go talk to the voters who don’t know him yet and win them over, and that’s the best use of his time leAfriding up to November.

Cayden Mak: Yeah, that makes good sense. Lena, do you have anything to add here? 

Lena Pervez Afridi: The one thing I’ll say is that the attacks from the right and the I guess like a lot of the mainstream press in some ways have galvanized more support for him. I think some people see themselves in him. Some people see like the rhetoric that’s being used against him as red rhetoric that’s been used against their own [00:34:00] families or themselves.

And in this moment where there’s. Like such deep, very valid fear around what is happening nationally. Having this, again, principled person principled campaign as a reminder of staying your course and sticking up for what you believe in I think has given people a lot of hope and something to appreciate and look toward.

That’s the only thing I would add to what Jasmine said. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah. I, it’s, it seems to me that there’s a, the I feel like my experience of everyday New Yorkers is like largely a lot of people are just like, Ugh, Donald Trump. So it makes sense to me that the response actually might be like, cool, this is what he’s one, like Momani is one of ours.

I also think, one, one mayor does not a governing coalition make and nor does like just having a mayor who is on our side or shares our politics, does that mean that like policy is actually gonna change? So I’m curious [00:35:00] as, what are the sort of like the terrain of city council?

Like what are we looking forward to in the general not just in the sort of executive office, but also the legislative body for the city. And Jasmine, I’m also curious about other investments that WFP has made in council and other candidates. Thinking about building a real coalition there.

’cause I know that WFP in other states, especially in, in, in cities, especially in Philly, have been really successful in moving city council. Not to a majority under working families party majority yet, but trying to build some real traction at the city level. So yeah, let’s start there. Let’s start with this question about the council.

Jasmine? 

Jasmine Gripper: Yeah, so we do have a growing block, the Progressive Caucus, which was started by Brad Lander and some WFP electeds in the city council has been growing. And so when we approach this election. We prioritized the mayor own race, and then we prioritize protecting incumbents. And that was because there was a lot of money interest being faced against women of color who were in the council who were [00:36:00] progressives.

Shahan, Hanni, crystal Hudson, Farina Sanchez, and blanking on one more. But oh, and Alexa Avela. And so there was a bunch of money spent against these women to take them out. And these were our progressive champions who had led a lot of hard fights in the council. And so we thought it was really important to protect them as a priority and making sure that we kept our incumbents in office.

And we did that. And not only did they win, but they won by large margins. And I wanna say, like we really beat the billionaires. We beat the billionaires. They didn’t even make gains in the council races that they tried to overtake. And they spent an absorbent amount of money in these council races.

And like our folks won by large numbers, 60% of folks, 70% of the votes. It was beautiful to see. And in addition, there was some pickups. And so we expect the majority of women in the council to continue to be to continue to be there. We expect the progressive block to grow with a few more additions with some of the open seat pickups.

And so we think that the council is ready. We actually had a really [00:37:00] progressive council already, and now it’s gonna be even stronger, but it was blocked from doing some great things because of the mayor. And so now we finally flipped that on its side, and then we now have a mayor and we will have a council that’s really aligned.

The next step of this though, in terms of achieving electoral success or governing success actually is the governor of New York state. And so Z’s policies around like taxing the rich to make universal childcare reality. Mayors don’t have the power to raise taxes in their cities, and they have to go to Albany for permission.

And Mayor and governor Kathy Hoel has already said she doesn’t want to tax the rich. And she said the voters have spoken, the voters want what? Zero on promise. And there’s gonna be pressure. And so we’re building up our tax rich campaign right now to make sure that the governor knows what she needs to do and putting the pressure on her to deliver, to protect our cities.

And we have in New York, in the [00:38:00] coalition politics in New York State, we have the invest in our New York campaign. Who’s actually been leAfriding the revenue fight for progressive revenue raisers, taxing New York’s ultra wealthy in order for us to invest in our communities. And so that is gonna ramp up to put pressure on the governor, who actually is probably our biggest block right now.

And for those who are like doubters of oh, we can’t do it, I’m always going back to de Blassio was like, listen, we’re gonna tax the rich to do universal pre-K. And at the time Andrew Cuomo was governor and he did not wanna tax the rich. In the end, Albany coughed up all the money for the universal pre-K rollout.

In one year, we got all the money. New York City needed to expand to universal pre-K. The governor chose not to raise revenue, he just pulled it from the state coffers because New York is a really rich state with lots of money. But in the end it was a win-win for New Yorkers. We got our universal pre-K and the governor attempted to take credit for it, while it would always be known as de Blasio’s program.

And so we’ve seen governors respond to this pressure of a New York City mayor [00:39:00] having deep popularity and voters resonating with the proposals that they have coming forward. And the council, I believe is already on our side and it’s gonna be even stronger. And what we’re all gonna have to do is put our pressure in Albany and to make sure our state leaders know that they need to match this energy and deliver for New Yorkers.

Cayden Mak: Yeah. That’s great. Lena, are there any things that you’re seeing from where you sit around the sort of like governing coalition in city hall? And I also do wanna spend some time, more time talking about statewide stuff. ’cause it’s really interesting. 

Lena Pervez Afridi: Yeah, I also wanna talk more about statewide stuff and wanna hear more from Jasmine on it.

The only thing I wanna add is thinking about co-governance and really making co-governance a reality it is still an experiment. It’s still an experiment all over the country. I think what’s really gonna be important in addition to the, you could go the inside game and with with council and absolutely at the state level with the governor, is that the community groups that helped get to this victory are [00:40:00] still able to express what their needs are to the administration.

And that is gonna, that’s gonna require keeping the power that was coalesced around the campaign. Administration. And I think that is, that’s I am, I think that there are many more people who could speak to that more eloquently than I can, but I do think that’s a part of this ecosystem is that community power and that we’re gonna need to keep it up.

It’s great to have a mayor who is, one of us, or comes from comes from community power. But the mayor is still an executive, like I said, still has to make these decisions. There are lots of different parties and and factions and sources of influence that he’s gonna have to respond to.

And the community voice is gonna need to continue to be powerful within that ecosystem. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah, no, I think that’s huge. And I think one of the things that has clearly, that’s become very clear to me also looking at code governance experiments across the country [00:41:00] is how vital it is for community organizations to open up the political terrain so that politicians can make sometimes on decisions that are unpopular with our enemies.

That will for sure invoke the ire of. The ultra wealthy, for instance. And like giving folks the political cover to do that while also holding them accountable for their promises is one of the, one of the things that we haven’t solved yet. And that seems to be an exciting part of maybe what’s next for New York City and perhaps New York State.

‘Cause as we talked about before we started this conversation progressive mayoral candidates won across the state including in Buffalo where I lived for four years. And like most of the other major cities. Jasmine, can you talk a little bit about what that means and what this opportunity is?

Jasmine Gripper: Yeah. Primary day was a great day for working families across New York State and for the working families to party as we made some big bets. And so not [00:42:00] only did we Electra Ani as a democratic nominee in New York City the largest city in the nation, but also. One in many of the big cities across the state.

So Sean, Ryan and Buffalo, the second largest city in New York state, won against the establishment DS and against money. Like the Republican money in that race was there the same way it was against Iran. In Syracuse, the, I think like the fourth or fifth largest city in our state, largest in Syracuse, New York.

And Sharon Owens won again against who the Democratic party and establishment wanted was not her. And she’ll be the first black woman mayor in Syracuse, New York, and we’re really excited. And then in our state capitol, Albany, there was a open seat again, Republican big money against, like, when I say mailer after mailer these donors who were related to Giuliani and other Republicans were spending in this democratic mayor primary. But our candidate, Dorsia players won. And so really proud of that. And also will be the first black woman mayor and the first black [00:43:00] mayor in Albany. And so history was made. And so what we have to do and what these mayors have all fought for, they don’t all have the same agenda.

‘Cause it’s mayors. They’re talking to their voters and locally about what they need. Sean Ryan talked about fixing the roads and opening our public schools that have been closed for years. But they all were rooted in, grounded in public goods being poor, working class people and delivering high quality services to all of the all New Yorkers in their cities.

And they were committed to that. And I’ll be honest, our cities can’t do it without the real help from the state. You gotta be mindful that we’re in this really. Unprecedented moment with the Trump cuts are coming. They passed the big awful bill July 4th weekend, like they promised. It’s really scary and what we know already is about, there’ll be about $4 billion deficit to the existing fiscal year we’re in right now.

And then there’s another $13 billion [00:44:00] deficit for next fiscal year. We have to deal with this. And what, what is our newly elected mayors to inherit a shell of a budget or a shell of a city without the resources they need to succeed? And I know it’s gonna, it’s gonna feel dire or bleak, but we have to put everything in perspective.

Yeah. We live in the wealthiest country in the world. New York is the wealthiest state. New York City is one of the wealthiest cities. Budgets are about priorities and who we prioritize. We have more billionaires and millionaires living in New York than any place on the planet. There’s a myth of the moving millionaire.

They don’t move millionaires live where they wanna live because it’s their playground. And New York has been a beautiful playground to the ultra rich who have been leaving New York and masses are working class New Yorkers who can’t afford to be here. And so what we have to do is ask the wealthy or demand from the wealthy, but they pay a little bit more, a small amount more in taxes so that the rest of us can thrive.

And so that’s why the [00:45:00] tax rich campaign is gonna be so important, not just for Zohran, but for all the cities up and down the state to make sure we’re protecting New Yorkers and that these progressive mayors can govern well and can, and really protect the people in their cities. And in this time when the federal government is not doing its job, the mayors and local governments are our frontline of defense, which is why it was so important that we made the investment we made to elect progressive mayors up and down the state because that actually is where the fight lies, is mayors making the choice to fight for their communities and to fight for new.

Cayden Mak: Yeah. That’s great. That makes a lot of sense to me. And it also seems like having this coalition of mayors who can also go to Albany and be like, we need this from the state of New York, feels like a shift as well. Buffalo is the, also the city that gave us Carl PalAfridino. So 

Jasmine Gripper: Carl PalAfridino been big in this race.

He had a he was not backing our candidate. Sean Ryan. Yeah, PalAfridino money was absolutely there. Carl PalAfridino was the Trump before there was Trump. 

Cayden Mak: Yeah. [00:46:00] No, that, that’s what I say to people too, that living in Buffalo and being a public employee of the state of New York, while I lived there, I definitely, I was like, oh yeah, this guy is a template for something.

But yeah, that I feel like the, there’s been really there it feels to me as somebody who like has ties to Western New York, has experienced there that like an alignment between. Cities in, in other parts of the state and New York City is actually there’s a lever there that can potentially be pulled in a way that I have not seen it certainly in my lifetime.

Yeah, 

Jasmine Gripper: that’s what we’re hoping to build. In August 2nd, we’re gonna gather the party, our state committee, our affiliates and our members, and we’ve invited the mayors to come to join us. And we’re gonna start talking about building that. Across state alliance, oftentimes upstate is put against New York City.

New York City is pit against upstate, and the reality is working. People all across New York state are struggling regardless of where they live. And we actually have more in [00:47:00] common than what divides us. And so if we can have a united front there’s a day called Cup Day in Albany when all the mayors come and ask for money.

And we wanna make sure everyone’s on the same page about asking for revenue and money for our cities. And again, like we can do that, not by making working class New Yorkers pay, but just by making the ultra rich pay a little bit more, we could generate billions of dollars for New York. 

Cayden Mak: That’s a really exciting opportunity and I’m glad y’all are doing that work.

It occurs to me also that a lot of hay gets made also about the New York delegation to Congress and especially what, who gets elected to Congress to represent New York says about the state of our politics. Yeah. And I’m curious if you think there are things that we have learned from this primary cycle that are gonna be applied to also congressional races.

Looking at, I think people are obviously already thinking about 2026 and what that midterm is gonna look like. I see both of you nodding. So Jasmine, do you wanna start out with [00:48:00] that one? 

Jasmine Gripper: Yeah. I will say in 2024, the Working Families Party, along with Labor Indivisible, New York Planned Parenthood, threw down on a program called Battleground New York, and we all worked together to flip congressional seats from red to blue, and we were mostly successful.

And I will say some of those candidates are more aligned and values aligned than others. Okay. And we do wanna hold people accountable once they’re elected to actually, it’s like fighting for working people and not selling us out when they get to Congress. There are a few more districts that we think we can flip from red to blue, but not too many because the way the lines are drawn.

So we’re gonna be committed to that project and I hear Hakeem Jeffrey saying, no more, no primaries. And I don’t know if that’s true. Like we haven’t figured out our 2020 six strategy just yet. We’re looking into it and we’re trying to figure out what’s happening. But I do think there are some people in Congress who are a mixed match a [00:49:00] mixed match for their district.

And those people either need to step up. And start representing the interests of the communities they were elected to serve. And if they don’t, there will likely be electoral consequences to it. And so this idea that we have to go along and get along I don’t think that’s 100% true. We have to hold elected officials accountable and you can’t have our vote and then cast aside our needs and desires.

Amy, I wanna be clear though, like the Republicans and Congress have sold us out, like they are the reason why New York closed nearly a dozen or more hospitals, especially in rural communities. The Republican delegation from New York is the reason why, nurses are likely gonna lose their jobs and people will be unemployed.

The Republicans in Congress have really left us out to dry, and they have they completely have sold us out to do Donald Trump agenda just to give tax breaks to the ultra rich. And like we are gonna call a spade, but we also want Democrats [00:50:00] to fight and to contend for power and to project a vision of how they’re gonna keep us safe and how they’re gonna invest in our communities.

And I think we’ve been underwhelmed by some of the fight from Democrats and I don’t think we’re wrong for expecting and asking for more. They need to fight, they need to show that they’re fighting for New Yorkers and they need to earn our vote and not take it for granted. 

Cayden Mak: Lena, any thoughts about the New York Con Congressional delegation?

And also, a lot of this to me is also about the way that we roll victories into our movements, are able to roll victories into further victories as opposed to being exhausted by each individual race. 

Lena Pervez Afridi: Yeah. I really appreciated the nuance that Jasmine gave. And the way that I’ve been thinking about this victory is exactly in that sense of what comes next.

What does this set us up to do next? I think that this victory is already forcing Democrats to realize that they will be held accountable, and if they, and Jasmine said, if they aren’t [00:51:00] able to step up the way that we expect them to, there will be these electoral consequences. In addition to that, I think that the victory, and this is, it’s still very early, but I do think it’s given people this idea that there is possibility.

There is there is it, it isn’t so out there for the left to galvanize voters to and to win. And I think that is gonna have major consequences in the way that people hopefully govern. And also in the way that people people run for seats. So that’s the only thing I would add.

Yeah. Awesome. 

Cayden Mak: Thank you so much. Is there anything else that either of you wanna add to this conversation that maybe I missed?

Jasmine Gripper: I wanna give credit what credit is due. Zohran ran an incredible campaign and it was interesting to watch how people called.

While he made so many huge mistakes from campaign finance mistakes coordinating with the IE to having chat GPT write his housing [00:52:00] plan to misspelling labor leader’s name and Zohran really executed a really well run campaign. And I remember people saying in the wake of that, but can he run a city? And I’m like did you see anybody organize a million people to a million doors?

Did he not execute that flawlessly? Has he not proven that he knows how to hire competent people based on who’s running his campaign every day? And that he didn’t have the permission to make the mistakes that Andrew Cuomo made. He had to be better than the rest. He had to come dotting every I and crossing every t and he did that.

And so I really wanna make sure we give him credit for running an amazing campaign. And then also like the ecosystem that made this possible, right? DSA being the boost on the ground. That gave this campaign, the running start, it needed, organizing the political ecosystem, the a OC validation, the grad cross endorsement, and then the Tisch, like christening.

It all [00:53:00] was like beautiful. And I think I just wanna name that people always we tear ourselves apart when we get it wrong. And we’re like, oh, the left was so divided, the left couldn’t get along. We couldn’t pick a person. And I just wanna give ourselves and give our side credit for getting it right.

For being disciplined, for sticking together for doing something that everyone thought was impossible. And saying we pulled it off and like it wasn’t any one person’s thing. And yes, it was Zor, Ron’s campaign and he would let it and held it. And yet the whole ecosystem galvanized to make it more possible.

And so we should all give ourselves like credit for woo, y’all, we did this really hard thing. We built the, we beat the billionaires, which we don’t get to say we do often. So like own, own the win, celebrate it. Joy is an act of resistance. I wanna lean into that. And as well as I know we will live to fight another day.

It’s not over. We still have more work to do, but we should be proud of how we held ourselves together and how we contended in like a fight for our lives. It came out [00:54:00] in the most Victoria, like never unimaginable. I was laughing with someone because I was like, WFP had three potential statements ready for election day.

And I’m gonna be honest with y’all, none of them was Zohran. Clearly winning in round. I thought we could win. I thought it was gonna be round 5, 6, 7. Could not have imagined this. And oh my gosh, the voters of New York surprised us, overwhelmed us, and it was such the most beautiful gift that was made possible because the ecosystem, we all decided to work together and not against each other.

And for a shared goal, the goal was to, the goal was to meet the candidate of the billionaires and like we have to. We have to find that commonality in the future for other fights. We don’t, we won’t agree on everything, but if there’s one shared move us, we’ll stay grounded in that role and move together on that principle.

And we’ll fight about the other things like we can get to the nitty gritty, who’s gonna be in this position and what’s gonna be the details of the housing policy? [00:55:00] We’ll get there. But Nancy, we actually can develop a housing policy ’cause our guy won. And so I just wanna name that we did an amazing thing because we stay grounded in a goal.

We’re on a clear thing we’re fighting for and against. And that should be, that should, that’s the real template for the future as opposed to like zans, social media game. And it’s honestly, it’s the way we were able to come together across differences to build this big tent, to build this political ecosystem that had more in common than divided us And lean into that to grant.

Cayden Mak: Love it. Lena, any last thoughts about, especially to this ecosystem question? ’cause I think it’s big. 

Lena Pervez Afridi: Yeah. I think I, I don’t know what Jasmine said just really resonates with me. I have to say that night was one of my, the election night was one of the happiest nights of my life. And I think that’s true for a lot of New Yorkers.

A lot of people I’m talking to are saying that they’re still riding that high in that feeling. And I do think that there is something to be said again about. Offering alternative [00:56:00] vision to what we have now, which is what the campaign did and what this big tent was able to do, and this is what the tent was able to coalesce around was what are we fighting for?

What are we trying to win? What kind of city do we wanna live in? What kind of future do we want for ourselves and for our families and for the people that we love? And that kind of messaging is the thing that has continued to resonate with people. It’s the thing that people carry with them. And I think that’s the thing that’s gonna help us move forward.

Like being, again, that, having that discipline, having those principles, and also remembering this feeling of like actually intense joy in what’s possible. I really credit that campaign for bringing that back to New York because we had for sure lost it. And I just think that is one of the most crucial things that we should be fighting for.

As a lift. Like we talk about joy a lot, but there is actual real power in that there is like coalescing power in it. And I just, I think that Jasmine is right [00:57:00] and we need to not forget that part of the fight. 

Cayden Mak: Hell yeah. Jasmine, Lena, it’s been really great talking today getting some of these deep strategic insights about what’s going on in New York City and what we can expect.

Thank you for making the time. 

Lena Pervez Afridi: It was great talk to you. You too. Thank you so much.

Josh Elstro: My thanks again to Jasmine Gripper and Lena Preveza Freddi for making time to join us this week. For this interview, you can find ways to connect with New York Working Families Party. Down in the show notes. This show is published by Convergence, a magazine for RAfridical Insights. It’s produced by me, Josh Stro, and our host is Cayden Mak.

If you have something to say, please drop us a line. You can send us an email that we might run in an upcoming episode at [email protected]. And finally, one more reminder, if you wanna donate to our summer fun drive that address. Again, it’s in the show notes, but it’s bit ly slash Summer Fun Drive.

We’ll talk to you next [00:58:00] week.