New York City

Did Mamdani Win Because of Halal Cart Socialism?

A clever viral video helps explains the appeal of the Democratic Party's nominee for mayor of New York City.

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Kristen Soltis Anderson talks about Zohran Mamdani in NYC | Illustration: Adani Samat
(Illustration: Adani Samat)

There are a lot of reasons why Zohran Mamdani surged to a surprise victory in the Democratic primary race for New York City mayor. His opponent was former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a tired, old, corrupt, creepy symbol of the feckless Democratic establishment. The cost of living and, in particular, housing, in New York City is absurdly high. Mamdani himself is young, energetic, and charming, even if you don't support his worldview. 

But in some ways you can capture Mamdani's appeal in a single, simple image: halal food carts. Halal food carts are a staple of New York's working-class food culture. But in recent years, as food prices have soared nationwide, they have become increasingly expensive. And as Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson pointed out on this week's Reason Roundtable, Mamdani was able to channel public frustration with halal cart price increases effectively into a zippy, viral video. 

Here's what Anderson said on Roundtable when discussing the causes of Mamdani's win. 

I think that populist viewpoints blended with real communications savvy and an understanding of how to reach voters in the year of our Lord 2025 is a pretty unbeatable combination these days. Not too many politicians have it, but he's clearly one of them. 

I've been thinking a lot over the last couple of days about the video of him going around to halal carts, talking about how the cost of a plate of chicken and rice is too high and we need to make it cheaper. I would argue that most of his policies are not necessarily going to achieve those reduced cost of living type ends, or at least not do so without enormous government subsidies and intervention. But he was focused on the right issue. He was doing so in a way that is very smart communication strategy. 

So I would take his victory less as an endorsement of the far left on the part of the New York Democratic primary electorate and more that establishment politicians should take nothing for granted and populism. That focus on cost of living is extremely politically potent these days. 

It wasn't just food carts. Mamdani embraced narrowly targeted new media, appearing on the niche menswear and culture podcast Throwing Fits to talk about, among other things, his favorite trashy reality television. He worked with a publicist well known to New York "cool kids"—the New York Times' description—to target hip younger voters. And he ultimately won on the strength of the support of younger voters. 

Anderson is the author of The Selfie Vote, a book about young voters. And as she noted elsewhere in the pod, she was rather stunned by a ballot analysis showing that toward the end of the final week, "the biggest group of voters, just in terms of raw numbers, were young voters in this primary. As someone who's written about young voters a lot, that doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen." But thanks to a combination of halal carts, niche media, and a relentless focus on cost of living, in this case, well, it did. 

As we talk about on the podcast, that doesn't mean Mamdani's policies are good ideas, or that they will work to bring down prices. There are plenty of reasons to think his approach—to subsidize, regulate, and impose price controls on just about everything—will, if anything, make things even worse. 

Halal cart socialism won't work as policy. But in New York, it worked as politics. And Mamdani's appeal to young voters is real, and other politicians, especially on the left, are no doubt watching.

If there's good news for libertarians and others who oppose socialist policies, it's that Mamdani's win doesn't necessarily signal strong support for his brand of full-bore socialism. Rather, Mamdani rode to victory on a combination of frustration with affordability—especially housing—and exhaustion with an establishment that has repeatedly failed to deliver, plus some social media savvy. So other policy agendas aimed at solving those problems might have a chance. Who's ready for halal cart libertarianism?