Politics
When they go low, we go viral
NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani rode the digital slipstream to success in New York. Now millennials and Gen Zers are banking on a similar wave to boost their political dreams.
The mayor-elect energized New York City’s youth vote, earning the support of nearly 70 percent of voters aged 18 to 44 in the general election. His publicity strategy — complete with shareable graphics, collaborations with content creators and local artists’ animations — appealed to a new trove of young voters, people who primarily get their information in short-form TikTok videos and social media posts rather than legacy media.
A wave of millennial and Gen Z Democratic hopefuls across the country are looking to follow that lead in shaking up an aging party — from a 25-year-old political influencer in Arizona, to a 35-year-old congressional candidate in Idaho, to a 24-year-old mayoral candidate in Georgia.
“The theme that we have seen this year, different from years past, is ‘I’m done waiting around. I’m sick of being told it’s not my turn,’” said Amanda Litman, CEO of Run for Something, a candidate recruitment company focused on electing progressives under 40.
The surge has rippled far beyond New York, touching races in red and purple states alike as younger Democrats test whether digital-first campaigns can compensate for limited funding, party support and name recognition.
It also has reopened a debate inside the Democratic Party over what it takes to build a viable campaign — and whether traditional gatekeepers are misreading how younger voters engage with politics. While Gen Z and millennials span different age groups, both are entering politics with similar digital fluency — and similar distance from the party’s traditional power structures.
The effects are already visible in candidate recruitment. Run for Something reported a surge of 10,000 young Democrats across the country expressing interest in launching a campaign immediately after Mamdani’s primary win. Another 1,616 potential candidates signed up within one day of the shutdown-ending deal to reopen the government, the group said.
“We’re building a party of fighters, not folders,” Litman posted on X in November along with a graph of the sign-up splurge.
The push for younger candidates comes as Democratic leadership skews older than the electorate it represents. The average age in the House and the Senate is roughly 58 and 65, respectively, and the median school board member is 59, according to Pew Research Center. The median age in the United States is 39.
More than 20 progressives under the age of 40 have announced a congressional campaign for this election cycle, nearly half of whom are looking to unseat a member of their own party. And with the Democratic Party having no clear leader, the younger generation is looking to add new faces into the mix.
For inexperienced candidates who don’t have the money or institutional support to run a competitive campaign, social media offers a cost-free solution. The ease of building an online following has lowered the perceived barrier to running for office, even as the fundamentals of winning — fundraising, turnout and organization — remain unchanged.
Take Sam Foster, a 24-year-old from Marietta, Georgia. He rode his bike to the first video shoot for his mayoral campaign against incumbent Steve Tumlin, who is 78. Social media, he said, isn’t as much a strategy for Gen Z and millennial candidates as it is a native mode of communication.
“I hate when people call it a social media campaign,” Foster said. “I went into [making content] with the intention of just showing people who I was. We built a strategy off of that, but it wasn’t essentially the intention.”
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who polled at under 1 percent in February, soft-launched his campaign in July with videos asking New Yorkers why they voted for Trump. His later videos on “halalflation,” a fully suited polar plunge to “freeze” the rent and a Valentine’s Day voter registration proposal kept him prevalent on social feeds.
And the more he posted, the more users — even those well outside of New York City — responded.
“If done well, [social media] allows you to raise lots of small dollars from lots of different places,” said Chris Coffey, a longtime political consultant and CEO of Tusk Strategies.
One Mamdani video asked supporters to donate to his transition team. The comment section was flooded with promises of donations from people as far away as Europe — with in-country support from Texas, California and Florida as well. From July to the election in November, Mamdani raised over $750,000 from over 8,500 contributors outside of New York City, according to data from the Campaign Finance Board.
Coffey drew a comparison to Andrew Yang, who also had a strong social media presence and made history by raising $750,000 in just one day for his 2020 presidential campaign, with an average donation of $41.
“Both Yang and Mamdani were able to use their social media and digital media platforms to get lots and lots and lots of small donors, which then powered their campaign, de-emphasized big dollars and allowed them to play on a level playing field with all these other candidates that were going after bigger dollars,” said Coffey, who helped manage Yang’s 2021 bid for New York City mayor.
Mamdani’s messaging inspired more than 100,000 volunteers to be visible daily on New York streets throughout the mayoral race.
His messaging also maintained an appearance of authenticity, focusing on issues that disproportionately affect young and working class New Yorkers, like housing, childcare, and affordability.
For young voters, authenticity is a major problem in the Democratic Party. And younger candidates are proving adept at conveying a message “from the heart,” according to Deja Foxx, a grassroots organizer and digital strategist who previously ran for Arizona’s 7th Congressional District.
“People have a different expectation of how they should be engaging with public figures [than they did 10 years ago],” Foxx said. “We are consuming so much on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where videos from our Congress person are mixed in with life updates from our best friend from middle school. It demands a different level of vulnerability that frankly a lot of our older electives aren’t comfortable with.”
The embrace of online-first campaigning has also blurred the line between political organizing and performance. Jack Schlossberg, the 32-year-old grandson of John F. Kennedy who’s running for Rep. Jerry Nadler’s congressional seat, is a provocative social media personality, sometimes offering raunchy and offensive political commentary to his 860,000 followers.
Schlossberg shares random, quotidian tidbits, like being called an “incel Frankenstein looking mother—” by a random passerby. He impersonated Melania Trump — wig and all — as he read a letter of support to Vladimir Putin, trolled his uncle Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ‘s health policies — insinuating his uncle’s claims of autism being linked to circumcision came from personal experience — and gave crass explanations of political news like the release of the Epstein files, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ indictment (since tossed) and the government shutdown.
While his videos drive an audience, and have certainly got voters talking, they lack what other candidates are hinging on — promises and policies.
For those who aren’t Kennedys — like Kaylee Peterson, a 35-year-old Idaho candidate in the historically Republican 1st District — social media is their pathway into the otherwise pay-to-play world of campaigning.
“Social media is the only real affordable tool we have to reach disenfranchised Gen Z and millennial voters,” said Peterson. “Seeing [Mamdani] be successful and the massive national support he received gave us hope.”
Like many other progressive candidates in rural republican areas, Peterson said, she did not receive support — or even a call back — from the Democratic National Committee. Instead, she found her support, strategists and community on social media groups where other young candidates virtually congregated — like TikTok Live, Instagram and messaging apps.
Peterson ran a losing campaign against Republican incumbent Rep. Russell Mark Fulcher in 2022 with only $70,000. She focused on getting her message out and mobilizing progressives in her district. In her third campaign cycle, though still unsuccessful at claiming the seat, she raised just under $250,000.
Mamdani may ultimately prove to be the exception rather than the rule. His online success amplified preexisting strengths and allowed his reach to go beyond the five boroughs.
“Social media is an important part of [the campaign],” Coffey said. “But so is the messaging, and so is the staff, and so was their press apparatus, and so was their candidate’s ability to do really hard and tedious work.”
George Conway wants to impeach President Donald Trump. He may soon get a vote to do so.
The attorney, pundit and staunch anti-Trump critic formally launched his bid for a Manhattan House seat today and is framing his run around an all-encompassing effort to oppose the president.
The rollout includes a 2-minute video that features images of Jan. 6, a woman being led away by immigration enforcement officers and photos of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Vladimir Putin. In the video, Conway calls Trump “mendacious,” “corrupt” and “criminal.”
He pledges to “not be an ordinary member of Congress” given the extraordinary political moment.
In an interview with Blue Light News, he went even further, saying that Trump’s actions in Venezuela — including the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro to face criminal charges in the U.S. — are among the impeachable crimes he’s committed.
“He completely disregarded the War Powers Act,” Conway said. “He’s abusing his power as commander-in-chief. Don’t get me wrong, Maduro is a bad guy and he’s probably guilty of all the crimes he’s been charged with in the Southern District of New York. But President Trump is doing this without consultation to Congress.”
The White House did not return a message seeking comment.
Conway is a first-time candidate who only recently registered as a Democrat ahead of filing to run in the deep blue district being vacated by Rep. Jerrold Nadler. A former Republican, Conway left the GOP in protest during Trump’s first term.
He’ll face a large field of Democratic contenders, including state Assemblymember Alex Borres, New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher, former Nadler aide and state Assemblymember Micah Lasher and Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg.
The seat is unlikely to be competitive in the November election, making the winner of the Democratic primary Nadler’s likely successor
Conway’s positioned himself as a forceful Trump antagonist — the kind of aggressive posture that’s popular with Democrats eager for a sharp-edged approach to take on the president. Conway and his wife Kellyanne, a former Trump adviser, announced in 2023 they would divorce.
His House campaign will test the limits of how much Democratic voters want to express their disdain for the president. Many candidates this year are placing a focus on affordability — a buzzy political issue that Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rode to success in their campaigns.
Yet Conway believes voters’ concerns all flow from one source: Trump.
“The politics of this aren’t divided in my view between talking about Trump and holding Trump accountable and then all the kitchen table issues,” he said. “They’re not separate.”
Conway will still have to persuade Democratic primary voters, though. His recent conversion to the Democratic Party will likely come under scrutiny. But he insisted his ties to the district are strong — adding that his kids were born in the city and that he now lives there.
“I made my life here,” he said. “This district has been the center of my life since I got out of law school.”
A version of this article first appeared in Blue Light News’s New York Playbook. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to New York Playbook.
Democrats hoping to win higher office this year are seizing on President Donald Trump’s intervention in Venezuela to push a twist on one of his campaign promises: America first.
Across the country, candidates and lawmakers are slamming Trump’s decision to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and are using the moment to hammer their domestic affordability message.
“Ohioans are facing higher costs across the board and are desperate for leadership that will help deliver relief,” former Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running to reclaim his seat, said on X. “We should be more focused on improving the lives of Ohioans – not Caracas.”
The frame from Democrats shows how potent the party views affordability as an issue in the midterms, one that Trump and his team have grown increasingly preoccupied by after across-the-board losses in 2025.
“The problem Trump was already having was that he looked like he was focused on everything other than what matters in people’s daily life,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. “And now he’s just supercharged that.”
Trump won in 2024 largely by running on affordability, and his less interventionist “America First” approach helped him win over more isolationist voters who had been alienated by the neoconservative approach of the Republican Party in the Iraq War era. But continuing economic uncertainty and persistent inflation, combined with his second-term shift towards a more aggressive foreign policy approach, threaten to hurt the president and his party at the ballot box.
Polling shows that cost of living will remain top of voters’ minds before November, something that Ferguson said “transcends every subgroup.”
In some of the party’s most competitive 2026 midterm primaries, Democrats are coalescing around messaging on Venezuela.
In Michigan, where the war in Gaza drew clear fissures between Democratic opponents, all three candidates sang the same domestically-focused tune.
“Americans have made themselves crystal clear: they don’t want to risk sliding into another costly war abroad. Families are struggling to buy groceries. People are skipping doctor’s visits because they can’t pay for healthcare,” state Sen. Mallory McMorrow said in a statement.
“Make no mistake, this is about enriching his oil executive donors who want access to Venezuela’s oil — not about democracy or Maduro or narcotics. Meanwhile, they tell us we can’t afford healthcare at home,” Abdul El Sayed, the former head of the Wayne County Department of Health, wrote on X.
“Taking over another country while Americans can’t afford their rent and groceries is unacceptable,” said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
The issue isn’t just being used by midterm hopefuls. Potential Democratic 2028 candidates are bringing affordability to the forefront of their Venezuela messaging.
“As of this week, millions of Americans are now paying thousands more for health insurance,” former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday. “If the President and Congressional GOP think Washington has the capacity to ‘run’ Venezuela right now, why won’t they fix the insurance cost crisis they’ve created here at home?”
Longtime Miami-based Democratic strategist Christian Ulvert thinks his party is right to remind voters of what they see as failures in Trump’s domestic agenda as he sets his sights abroad, including on cost of living issues — as long as that messaging doesn’t overshadow a cogent perspective on how they would approach relations with Venezuela. South Florida is home to one of the biggest Venezuelan communities in the country, which has been shaken by Trump’s recent revocation of Temporary Protected Status for those fleeing Maduro’s regime.
“Democrats need to also appreciate that many things can be true. It’s not a single issue, especially in this moment, and we have to talk about it in a way where you can join Venezuelans in speaking up that Maduro being gone is a victory for Venezuelans,” Ulvert said.
Some Democrats who served in foreign wars have also chosen to center a critique of American interventionism in addition to joining in on the party’s pivot back to cost of living.
Graham Platner, a veteran of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan who is now running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, has seized on Trump’s vague suggestions that the U.S. will run Venezuela following Maduro’s forced ouster.
“Bullshit. This has never worked,” Platner posted in response to a clip of the president’s Saturday morning remarks. “I watched my friends die in Iraq in the wake of speeches like this one.”
Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego — an Iraq War veteran — has been outspoken on the American military action in Venezuela, flooding social media and cable news with broadsides aimed at Trump. He expressed a similar frustration: “I fought in some of the hardest battles of the Iraq War. Saw my brothers die, saw civilians being caught in the crossfire all for an unjustified war. No matter the outcome we are in the wrong for starting this war in Venezuela.”
Republicans, however, are backing Trump and praising the action he took against Maduro.
“Nicolas Maduro is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans after years of trafficking illegal drugs and violent cartel members into our country — crimes for which he’s been properly indicted in U.S. courts and an arrest warrant duly issued — and today he learned what accountability looks like,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on X the day the operation became public.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is dropping out of the Minnesota governor’s race on Monday, according to two people directly familiar with the governor’s thinking.
Walz, who served as the Democrats’ 2024 vice presidential nominee, met with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on Sunday to discuss the campaign, as Klobuchar considers her own run for the governorship, according to one of the people familiar with the meeting.
Walz had faced increasing political pressure over a federal probe into a sweeping fraud scandal in the state. Republicans were eager to tie Walz to the scheme, though he is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Walz is expected to hold a press conference Monday morning.
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