How Mamdani Won: Field Director Tascha Van Auken on Grassroots Organizing Behind Historic Victory

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman with Juan González.

We end today’s show here in New York City, where Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani is less than two months away from taking office. The Democratic Socialist will make history as the city’s first South-Asian and first Muslim mayor and will be the youngest mayor of New York in more than a century.

We end today’s show looking at the history-making campaign grounded in community organizing that propelled the little-known state assemblymember to victory. Mamdani famously began the campaign polling at just 1% and went on to defeat the disgraced former government Andrew Cuomo twice, first in the Democratic primary and then again in the general election.

By election day, more than two million New Yorkers had cast their ballots, a level of turnout that hadn’t been reached in more than half a century. The campaign was fueled by more than 104,000 volunteers. This is Mayor-Elect Mamdani on election night.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: This victory is for all of them, and it’s for all of you, the more than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force. Because of you, we will make this city one that working people can love and live in again. With every door knocked, every petition signature earned and every hard-earned conversation, you eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics.

AMY GOODMAN: The person who introduced Mayor-Elect Mamdani that night and led the organizing operation was the Campaign Field Director Tascha Van Auken. She spoke before the mayor-elect at his election rally.

TASCHA VAN AUKEN: 104,000 volunteers. We love numbers, we love metrics. But I want to talk first about what’s behind those numbers. Every number is, in a way, an act of bravery. Door knocking is not the easiest thing. For many, including myself, it takes a moment of bravery at the beginning, asking a stranger something about their lives and sharing something about yours, sharing what you want to see in the world.

It can be daunting. Thousands, thousands of people did it. And every time every volunteer went to a door and talked to a stranger, they offered their vision to that stranger and invited that stranger to be a part of shaping their vision. [Laugh] We love strangers. Every door knock and every phone call is a statement of belief that politics is for all of us. This campaign and this city is all of ours to shape.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Tascha Van Auken, and she joins us now in our New York studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!. This election rocked the country and definitely sent a message to the Democratic establishment. You were at the center of it. How often is the field director the person who introduces the winning candidate? That’s how important you were in this campaign. Talk about your strategy and your experience, how you organized a campaign with Zohran Mamdani that started with 1% name recognition against almost 100% for Andrew Cuomo to this massive win.

TASCHA VAN AUKEN: Thank you, Amy. It is very exciting. And I keep saying to people that I really feel the history in this election and all that has happened that has led to this campaign being possible, the years of organizing that thousands and thousands of people have done that led to this place.

I think when we started the field operation in December, we knew that we wanted it to be very big. We had a goal of a million doors. And so, what we did was, we prioritized developing leadership and bringing in as many volunteers as possible. And so, the first thing we did was, we launched a canvass in about eight locations across the city in December.

Those canvasses were anchored by members of the Democratic Socialists of America who had been an early endorser of the campaign and had worked on campaigns prior, so we were able to get a big scale right at the beginning to demonstrate what we wanted to do. And honestly, from the first canvass that we did, we had folks coming back from doors. We were talking about the three planks, the affordability agenda.

So, it was fast and free buses, universal childcare, and freezing the rent. And we had such a positive reception from day one when we went to people’s doors. We had canvassers coming back who had never done it before, who were quite nervous, just excited, and they were like, “I had so many amazing conversations.” And so, that’s where we started concretely was just talking to voters.

AMY GOODMAN: And where were you physically in the city? Where were you coordinating all of this?

TASCHA VAN AUKEN: In my apartment. [Laugh] In December, I was in my apartment. Materials were delivered to my apartment. It was before we had an office. Yeah, I was the only person on the field team at that point. We were a very small team, there were just a small handful of us. And yeah, volunteers came to my apartment, helped bundle things. We got them out to multiple locations. And we launched a canvass and demonstrated what we wanted to do at a massive scale for the rest of the campaign.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk about also some of your beginnings, Tascha? You started back in 2008 with the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania. Now, Obama was certainly a candidate of hope and change, but certainly not a Democratic Socialist. Could you talk about this, the impact of the ideology of DSA on the organizing that you did and the differences between this campaign and others you’ve run?

TASCHA VAN AUKEN: Sure, yes. The Obama campaign, I credit that field operation for really setting the bar for me. So, I wasn’t politically organized before that. I had political leanings, I wanted to participate, I wanted to do something, I didn’t know where to go.

I think a lot of people feel that way. And so, I think about that point in my life a lot. And when Obama won the primary, there was this amazing movement around him, and that is what pulled me in to that campaign. And I was lucky enough to get a job in a field office for the last couple months of the general. And when I walked into that, I became part of this incredible organizing operation on his field campaign.

The architect of that is Marshall Ganz, incredible longtime organizer. And a lot of the sort of organizing theories that he had put into that field operation really stayed with me through the years. And it’s all about leadership development, it’s all about this idea that anybody who wants to can learn leadership skills, and step into roles of responsibility and learn how to build power with other people.

AMY GOODMAN: And he was at the victory party. I was just starting to interview him when you started talking. [Laugh]

TASCHA VAN AUKEN: Yes. [Laugh] Yes, yes, he was there. It was really – it was incredible. It’s been incredible to meet him and get to know him through this campaign. So, I think that’s what I really took from the Obama campaign were those organizing philosophies as well as just, like, an A-plus field operation technically.

And so, I think it was many years before I joined Democratic Socialists of America and Bernie ran for president. And I think what changed for me at that point was really understanding how important organization, long-term organization, is for building long-term power. You can’t house everything in a single campaign.

You have to have some place – people get activated through these moments of change where they feel like something else is possible, and then they need someplace to go to continue having a political home, and learning, and organizing, and experiment and trying things. And I think that DSA was that for me right around when Bernie ran.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And of course, we have the news that just came out of another victory of an insurgent mayoral candidate, Katie Wilson in Seattle, also a community organizer, also someone who wasn’t expected initially to have a chance. Your sense of how this insurgent progressive movement is taking shape across the country?

TASCHA VAN AUKEN: Yeah, very exciting. My brother lives in Seattle, and his partner sent me that information yesterday. I think that, yeah, moments like this feel very important because they really – the zeitgeist shifts. People start to understand that other things are possible. And it’s been overwhelming to hear from folks across the country, all over the place, who are inspired by this campaign and are organizing to change things.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Tascha Van Auken, you are still the field director, but the campaign is over. But actually, is it? Because you have President Trump threatening to take billions from the city. He even threatened to detain and deport Zohran Mamdani. Clearly, going to target him. The response, it seems, is the same as the response in the campaign, is people rising up across the city. You have 104,000 volunteers. Are you keeping them organized? And what exactly would they do? How do you carry out this campaign from free buses, to childcare to city-run grocery stores?

TASCHA VAN AUKEN: It is a very good question. It is the question, in my opinion. I think from the very first training that we did in January, we’ve said from the beginning it is very important for people to see this as one step towards more organizing. And it is incredibly important to continue organizing after the campaign is over.

I think we’re in this exciting moment in terms of infrastructure, organized infrastructure that can help move this agenda as well as help, I think, respond to what might happen. It is also a very scary moment for all the reasons you listed. I think there are – we have this moment where we have organizations, progressive and left organizations in New York City who are organized and have been building. Like I said, like, a lot of them building towards this campaign being possible.

And they will all be organizing. And then, I think we also have this exciting opportunity to vision out what the government looks like and to demystify the government and access to the government, access to politics for people. And that, to me, has been at the centerpiece of all of this work is really, like, opening up a lane of access for folks so that anybody can consider themselves political, understand and learn what they can actually do that can actually change and move the needle in our world.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: About 30 seconds left, but how do you guard against the movement to demobilize in essence that has happened with many progressive movements once they come into power? Even under Obama, the Obama campaign was forced often to contend with those on the ground who were still demanding more change.

AMY GOODMAN: 15 seconds.

TASCHA VAN AUKEN: [Laugh] I think it’s good for there to be organizing outside of the administration. I think that that is good. And I think that Zohran and everyone from the campaign is very excited for there to be lots of levels and tiers of organizing.

AMY GOODMAN: Tascha Van Auken, we thank you very much for being with us. Congratulations on this momentous, historic win. Field Director for Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign.

And that does it for our show. I’ll be in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, tomorrow at the largest international documentary film festival in the world. The film, Steal This Story, Please! will be playing twice. Go to our website at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.