David Hogg: Same Dems Opposing Mamdani Question Why Party’s Losing Young Voters

Establishment Democrats are working overtime to oppose progressive upstart Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral primary race — and yet, claim to be baffled over why the Democratic Party is losing support, freshly ousted Democratic activist David Hogg said in a fiery post on Monday.

“The same establishment that is spending millions to destroy Zohran will say in a few months that we need to spend millions on polling and testing to win back young people. Open your god damn eyes — it’s free,” Hogg wrote, the day before the primary election on Tuesday.

Indeed, like most major left-leaning candidates in the U.S., Mamdani is no stranger to attacks from establishment politicians and their donors.

Disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s campaign has outspent Mamdani’s campaign by roughly four to one, due in large part to unprecedented super PAC spending in the mayoral race and the city’s cap on how much candidates are allowed to spend directly. Cuomo has the support of numerous billionaires, including figures like Donald Trump supporter Bill Ackman, while establishment liberal writers like Jonathan Chait have teamed up to criticize Mamdani.

In other words, the full thrust of the establishment is working to oppose Mamdani. But Mamdani and his grassroots campaign, with tens of thousands of canvassers, may still beat the odds; Mamdani has had upward momentum through the entirety of his campaign, and a final independent poll released on Monday projected Mamdani winning 52 to Cuomo’s 48 in the last round of ranked choice voting.

Hogg is no stranger to establishment Democrats’ ire. The Democratic National Committee recently ousted him from his position as vice chair after he criticized the party for inaction against Trump. He has continued speaking out against the party’s flaws in recent weeks, saying that many party leaders would rather scapegoat him for calling out issues with the party than acknowledge that those issues exist.

“They don’t want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth, which is that we have to dramatically change as a party, and what brought us here is not what’s going to get us out,” he told The Hill.

Hogg and his political fundraising group, Leaders We Deserve, have offered full-throated support of Mamdani.

“At a time when our party is increasingly losing young voters and struggling to find a message for young men, Zohran has managed to do BOTH at an incredible scale. Just last week I was making a video with Zohran in Washington Sq Park — I have never seen a candidate for local office get mobbed by young voters who, unprompted, could recite his own platform,” Hogg said in a thread on Tuesday.

“That is the power of a good message — it doesn’t take 100 million dollars in ads funded by Republican billionaires, it ADVERTISES ITSELF BECAUSE PEOPLE BELIEVE IT,” he went on.

As Hogg observed, Mamdani is widely popular among young voters. His campaign videos regularly go viral on social media, infused with a level of earnestness and charm not commonly seen among politicians. Meanwhile, his campaign platform is focused on affordability in one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S.

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has been losing support for years — and that trend has seemingly accelerated as party leaders have been almost completely absent under the Trump administration. Recent polling found that 62 percent of Democrats say that party leaders should be replaced, and that younger voters overwhelmingly say that Democrats are far apart from them on key issues.

The party has spent millions on its campaign to try to boost their support with young voters and grab onto the kind of momentum that Mamdani has. But still, the party refuses to stop punching left, even as progressive candidates show the power of a left-leaning campaign time and again.