From Chicago to New York: Mandami’s Primary Victory and What It Signals For The Democratic Party Moving Forward.
Christian Perry is a community organizer, leadership strategist, and political operative from the Southside of Chicago who currently serves as Political Director to Mayor Brandon Johnson.
“Look at what’s best for the city.” Reverend Al Sharpton quoted last month while calling for Andrew Cuomo to drop out of the New York City mayor’s race. Rev. Sharpton stopped just short of endorsing NYC’s Democratic Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, but comments from Black New Yorkers who attended the rally signal that some of them may be warming up to the charismatic millennial assemblyman and the affordability agenda he’s running on.
So, what does this have to do with Chicago?
A little over two years ago, Chicago decided to send a working-class educator and former union organizer to the fifth floor of City Hall. A relatively unknown candidate, powered by a multiracial, intergenerational movement, secured an unlikely win in one of the toughest cities in America to navigate politically.
Brandon Johnson ran firmly as an unapologetic progressive, which–where I’m from on the Southside of Chicago and the churches I grew up in–doesn’t necessarily engender enthusiasm amongst the Black electorate. And all of this in addition to the fact that Chicago was emerging from one of the most violent four-year periods in recent memory and battling immense uncertainty in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Political conventional wisdom would have suggested that the candidate promising to abolish the subminimum wage, hire thousands more young people, and pass Treatment Not Trauma–a movement to create a 24-hour non-police mental health response team–would be a long shot at best. Not to mention being outraised almost three-to-one, along with the Democratic establishment being very divided in a crowded primary, the former Cook County Commissioner, who launched his campaign polling at 2.3 percent, should not have made it to the runoff.
And yet, he did.
How did Johnson pull off the politically inconceivable? What can the Democratic party more broadly learn from the complex makeup of the Johnson coalition, and does it offer any roadmaps to how we once more become the big-tent party of the working class in this country, rebuild a rapidly shrinking middle class, and restore confidence in institutions that are supposed to deliver for the residents they serve?
Identity and background are pivotal.
You’ll hear some talking heads bemoan the era of “identity politics” we find ourselves in and try to blame it for the hyperpolarization dominating our politics today. I’d argue American politics have always been rooted in identity. Trump got his ticket to the dance by iniquitously questioning President Obama’s citizenship. The problem on the Left is when there’s no substance or policy to accompany one’s particular membership in any given demographic. We can’t ignore that voters’ decisions on who to support have a great deal to do with how much said voter can identify with the candidate.
Brandon Johnson was uniquely situated to bridge a gap with Black voters that progressive Democrats have historically struggled to mobilize. See Bernie Sanders and the Black vote. It’s also important to mention that Johnson benefited from decades of issue-based organizing in Chicago, desperate for a candidate to hear and, more importantly, have the political courage and conviction to champion their issues.
Mayor Johnson, who is in fact Black, has bona fides in a community that also doubles as a base for the Democratic party: the Black church. Johnson, the son and grandson of pastors, grew up playing the drums in his father’s church and spent his summers working at church conventions. So, when other candidates would have struggled to gain access to specific faith spaces in Chicago, these faith leaders knew Johnson.
Secondarily, having taught in Chicago’s public schools and organized as a member of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, Johnson had real working-class labor roots. He organized for more funding, better working conditions, and expanded support for school communities that had been neglected and overlooked.
Lastly, the connection to the voting bloc that made his mayoralty possible was young people. Johnson was a member of a hunger strike to save Dyett High School from closure. During the Emanuel administration, he locked arms with protesters to block the elevators that led to the Mayor’s office, demanding more resources for public schools. Last year, Dyett High School won a state championship, and those golden elevators on LaSalle are now held for him.
Johnson’s deep connections to movement organizers and progressive organizations, such as United Working Families and Good Kids Mad City, combined with his relatively young age (he is currently the youngest big-city Mayor in the country), gave him an appeal that ultimately led to his winning the mayoralty.
Roughly 29,000 voters between the ages of 18 and 44 who did not vote in the mayoral primary showed up to the polls in the runoff. The Johnson campaign won by a little more than 20,000 votes. Young voters were the difference maker.
The convergence of young, faith-based, labor, civil rights, progressive, and Black-led movement interests built one of the most complex and yet effective multiracial, intergenerational movements Chicago has ever seen. One that was able to fight back against a very well-funded status quo and corporate agenda that only offered a vision of tomorrow that fed on the fears of poor people and would have cemented their plights.
Under Johnson’s leadership you’ve seen mental health clinics reopen for the first time in three decades, over 31,000 young people employed across the city, the first major city to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, the department of the environment reinstituted, affordable housing units coming online at a record pace, and violent crime down in Chicago by more than 30 percent, outpacing the national downward crime trend by at least fifteen points.
Recently, Mayor Johnson vetoed an ordinance that would’ve granted CPD special powers to execute a snap curfew in an effort to stop downtown “teen takeovers”. Mayoral vetoes are not common in Chicago. This was the first mayoral veto in Chicago in almost twenty years. Essentially, you had a conservative contingent on the city council that narrowly passed the policy even after being presented with all the research that indicated curfews don’t increase safety. They wanted to return to the failed policies of yesteryear so they could go back to their residents and say, “We did something to keep those young people from coming downtown.” In contrast, Johnson, supported by progressive Alders and young, predominantly Black organizers, saw his veto upheld. This was an exercise of executive power in a way young Black & Brown people in Chicago have seldom seen used to protect them.
The party would do well to study the coalitions that coalesced around Johnson and that are taking shape with Mamdani. Our young organizers have a playbook. Our service sector unions have a playbook. Our faith institutions, when they extend beyond their four walls to be the church, have a playbook. Assemblyman Mamdani says his campaign is for every person who believes in the dignity of their neighbors and that the government’s job is to make our lives better. Without question, he has work to do, to expand support among the Black electorate. To his benefit, the data suggests that at least on the issue of affordability, Black folks overwhelmingly agree with him.
On July 17, the Mayor delivered remarks on the John Lewis Day of Action that effectively encapsulate what Democratic Party Johnson represents:
“This is also about making sure we do not surrender our humanity. There are divisive forces that are looking for us to turn on one another; this is a moment in which we have to turn towards one another. There are people who are feeling powerless and hopeless, but I’m reminded of the great saint John Lewis, who said in a very emphatic way, that sometimes it’s necessary to punch back!”
The intraparty debate taking place right now has to be less about an insurgent Left taking power from neo-liberal centrists. While that is very important, the average everyday voter, who’s struggling to make ends meet, couldn’t care less about political party power struggles. However, what does have the power to resonate is the question of who is fighting to improve their situation and who isn’t.
If the party can learn anything from Mayor Johnson, it’s that this moment will separate the political wills from the political won’ts. Suppose the enthusiasm being shown for the politics of possibility, capturing the imagination of voters in Chicago and New York, counts for anything. In that case, my money is on the fighters with a dream.