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.”
