What Texas Democrats Need to Learn from Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign
A lesson in populist messaging, voter turnout, and showing up.
Now, slow down before anyone lights up my inbox. I’m not telling anyone to become a socialist... I once attended a socialist meeting, and their cookies tasted like bread. But in all seriousness, what Zohran Mamdani did right, Texas Democrats could replicate, and they could win on that playbook.
Because it wasn’t about whether Mamdani was a Democratic Socialist or not, he didn’t preach ideology, but he spoke directly to the people on everyday issues that directly affect them. Rent. Transit. Groceries. Childcare. He didn’t campaign on slogans. He campaigned on stress relief.
And that’s where Texas Democrats should start paying attention, not to his label, but to his language.
Texas Democrats have already written the cookbook.
Y’all, I hate to beat a dead horse, but Texas Democrats don’t need to borrow talking points from New York. We’ve already got a platform that reads like a working-class wish list. It calls for a living wage indexed to inflation, strong labor protections, expanded public healthcare, affordable housing, union rights, climate justice, and fully funded public schools without strings or vouchers.
This isn’t centrist triangulation. It’s not vague, consultant-safe fluff. It’s economic populism in plain Texas English. And it’s been ratified, plank by plank, by delegates from every corner of the state.
Right now, all across the state, there’s a fire lit under Democrats again. Everything Trump has done. Everything Abbott continues to do. The assholes in the Legislature. Vouchers. Book bans. Bounty laws. People are angry. And the polling is reflecting it. The Texas Politics Project shows the state’s top Republicans underwater with voters. Ted Cruz at 28%. Dan Patrick at 30%. Ken Paxton at 29%. Even the entire Texas Legislature has just a 26% approval rating.
But discontent alone won’t win elections. We can’t just be the party of “stop them.” We have to be the party of “here’s what we’ll do instead.”
And that brings us back to Zohran Mamdani, whose campaign looked a whole lot like Beto’s in 2018, not because of his ideology, but because of his relentless economic message and everywhere-at-once organizing strategy. He talked about rent, food, wages, buses, and bills, in every language, on every block. He showed up, over and over again. And it worked.
Here were some of the things that set Mamdani’s campaign apart:
He raised a total of $8 million through his more than 20,000 individual donors, dwarfing the number of individual donors for Cuomo.
He maintained a viral presence on TikTok and Instagram, including a video explaining ranked-choice voting in Hindi and Urdu, where he likened Cuomo to a Bollywood villain.
We need that kind of energy, but not all piled on one person at the top.
We need it from the governor’s race to the school board, from the Senate to the constable’s office, all rowing in the same direction with a shared message:
Democrats are better on the economic issues that matter to Texans.
Because the reality is:
We know these issues. We live in these neighborhoods. We shop at these grocery stores. These are our communities. And we already know what living in a state under 30 years of Republican rule looks like.
But the biggest hurdle in Texas? It’s not persuasion. It’s participation.
The hardest part is convincing non-voters, the majority in Texas, that a vote for people who haven’t run this state into the ground for the last 30 years can actually make their lives better.
Because that’s the truth, more than half of Texans don’t vote. In the 2024 midterms, just 49.65% of eligible voters showed up. In low-income and rural counties, it’s not uncommon for only 1 in 3 voters to participate.
That’s not apathy. That’s exhaustion. That’s being lied to, written off, priced out, and told to vote harder.
If we’re serious about flipping this state, we don’t need new values. We need louder messengers. Bigger reach. And a hell of a lot more doorbells.
Let’s talk about some more polling.
Because more than 1.4 million Democratic voters in Texas stayed home in 2024, this is something we’ve previously discussed, from a Texas Democrat’s perspective, with Kamala Harris’ campaign messaging and Colin Allred’s piddling around the center. But let’s not go by vibes; what have the polls been telling us?
Reuters: 62% of Democrats say the party needs new leadership prioritizing cost of living, corporate influence, and tax reform over culture-war issues.
Younger voters, especially, are frustrated by the lack of strong economic messaging.
CommonDreams: The poll showed that 55.6% of voters said they would be more (26.3% much more) likely to vote for a candidate for Congress or President who made the populist argument. Meanwhile, 43.5% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate (12.6% much more) who made the “abundance” argument.
The Nation: Tested against “Trump as threat to democracy,” populist economic messaging led by 9 points overall, and even more among working-class and independent voters (strongest support).
Texas Project Poll in February 2025: 73% of Texas voters expressed being “very concerned” about food and consumer prices.
Texas Project Poll in June 2025: 50% of Texans think Texas is on the wrong track.
What does this mean for Democrats in Texas running for office or grassroots organizing? Populist economic language works. Not clichés or vague hope, but real talk, “Bills are rising. You deserve relief.”
Texas is ripe for it. Voters are primed. Disapproval of Republicans is high and continues to climb. And economic concerns are front and center.
So, where do we go from here?
We stop hiding from the truth we already know. We’ve got the better ideas. The polling proves it. The people feel it. And the Texas Democratic platform reflects it. What we need now is boldness, unity, and discipline, not in policy, but in messaging.
This isn’t about being more progressive. It’s about being more persuasive. It’s about knocking on doors with a purpose. It’s about saying the word “union” without whispering.
We need more candidates like Zohran Mamdani, but we don’t need to wait for one person to carry the banner. We need dozens. Hundreds. From Lubbock to Laredo. From Hays County to Harris. Every candidate, every organizer, every precinct captain needs to carry the same message:
Democrats are going to make your life easier. Republicans made it harder.
That’s it. That’s the campaign.
Not because we want to win for winning’s sake, but because there are millions of Texans waiting to be heard, and we won’t reach them with half-hearted slogans and watered-down scripts.
We’ll reach them by meeting their stress with solutions, their despair with clarity, and their exhaustion with dignity.
If you’re not already in your local County Democratic Party, get in. Show up to the next meeting. Introduce yourself. Bring a friend. BECOME A PRECINCT CHAIR!
Go to mobilize.us and search your ZIP code. Something’s happening near you, events, protests, Democratic meet-ups, maybe even an anti-fascist book club. If it’s not? Start it.
And if you’ve been thinking about running for office, 2026 is the year. Contact Run for Something, they’re great at helping folks get off the ground.
Pick one issue and become the loudest person in your county about it. Rent? Hunger? School funding? Own it. Organize around it. Drag candidates to it.
Don’t wait until next year. Do it now.
Because the truth is, Texas isn’t red.
It’s underfunded.
It’s overworked.
It’s waiting.
And the moment we stop asking permission to fight for working people, and start doing it together, out loud, everywhere, is the moment we stop losing.
Mmm yes, the Texas Democratic Party: always one consultant away from greatness and one slogan away from irrelevance. But this? This was the sermon they should have preached at every Buc-ee’s, PTA meeting, and rodeo funnel cake stand.
Zohran didn’t win hearts by whispering policy through a kale smoothie. He screamed it through a bullhorn of stress relief—in multiple languages—like a multilingual prophet with rent receipts.
Texas doesn’t need to “go left.” Texas needs to go real. As in: “The groceries cost more than my dignity” real.
So let the centrists clutch their pearls and the PACs polish their PowerPoints. The rest of us? We’re busy organizing, feeding kids, and knocking on doors like our utility bill depends on it—because it does.
Democrats already have the better platform. Time to stop pretending we need permission to use it.
Oh Michelle i am smiling when i am reading this. As one of the many 50,000 volunteers who worked on the Zohran Campaign and an individual who comes from NYC DSA the chapter that birthed the rise of AOC and Mamdani. This is exactly what we need and why we get frustrated when we have been vilified by the establishment for decades. This is how democrats can win and they have to embrace it otherwise they will not win future elections. We are democratic socialists but the reason why we are is because at the end of the day we want to see our families, loved ones, and any other American to be able to afford, eat, start a family, and more important enjoy life and not struggle. There is a reason why we have the phrase "Solidarity, Comrade", In times like these, everyone needs each other to lean on to survive in this age of suffering, fascism, and cruelty that seeks to just inflict pain and destruction onto our families.