Instead of Pandering, Democrats Should Try Changing Voters’ Minds

Early last year, polls and media commentary suggested that crime would be the defining issue of the New York City mayoral race. Then, Zohran Mamdani’s campaign started to take off. By the end of the race, the news organizations that conduct exit polls asked voters to choose the top issue animating their votes among these five choices: crime, cost of living, health care, immigration, and transportation. Mamdani had literally changed the language of the election, with pollsters asking about his framing (“cost of living”) instead of the usual terms, “jobs” and “the economy.” He had also changed voters’ priorities: A whopping 55 percent said cost of living was the most important issue, compared to only 22 percent who said crime.

And on Election Day in the Big Apple last November, nearly 40 percent of the city’s registered voters between ages 18 and 29 cast ballots, a massive increase from the 11 percent in 2021, according to Gothamist.

Mamdani didn’t win by looking at polls and then campaigning according to them. A 34-year-old socialist who had previously tweeted “#DefundTheNYPD” probably could not have won an election about who is toughest on crime against incumbent ex-cop Eric Adams and a pro-police Democrat like Andrew Cuomo. Instead, Mamdani, through his relentless focus on the costs of rent, groceries, and childcare, primed regular voters to judge the candidates on their affordability policies instead of their anti-crime ones and energized young, liberal voters who might have otherwise stayed home.

New York is a unique place, but Democrats across the country need to do what Mamdani did: create a more liberal electorate. American politics today is driven by ideology in a way that wasn’t true in the past. There used to be self-described conservative Democrats in Congress, particularly from the South, sent to Capitol Hill by constituents who were stalwart Democrats but wary of greater civil rights for Black Americans and other more liberal values. On the flip side, there were Republican politicians in the Northeast who were more liberal on some issues than their Southern Democratic counterparts.

But over the last few decades, American politics has become more ideologically polarized. Democratic politicians and voters are to the left of Republicans on nearly every issue. People of color with conservative policy views are increasingly backing Republicans, while white college graduates are trending Democratic because of their more liberal social values.