Also, I can’t believe NYC has a 34 year old Indian-American mayor from Astoria and it’s not me. :)

On a personal note, the idea that 25 years after 9/11, we could elect a Muslim man as mayor of NY is a uniquely American story. Only here do you become American in one generation. There are things that make America great. And it’s really nice to remember that.

7. People need to feel a sense of agency and to be the heroes in their own stories. Our narrative change research showed that people’s sense of their own agency is improved by watching people try, even if they fail or give up.

responsibility for economic security vs. individual responsibility for economic security. Both ran on the idea that there’s a collective responsibility for economic security. This is just one of 17 possible new wedge issues that we're starting to see signs of.

6. We are operating outside of left-right political binaries. We have a report coming out tomorrow about the emerging wedge issues that scramble left and right divides. For Trump in 2024 and for Mamdani in 2025, the divide wasn’t between Dems and Republicans but between collective

5. From the narrative change research about how to paint the future: half of audiences want transformation, but the other half want restoration. Trump obviously traffics in restoring to a past (Make America Great Again), but Zohran also appealed to people’s sense of restoration

4. People are SO hungry for positive visions of the future. We’ve done some narrative change research (coming in January) that shows people struggle to imagine the future and just talking about what the future can look like helps people imagine it.

3. Policy proposals that are memes. In this media information ecosystem, policy ideas need to be digestible as memes. That means single syllable bumper sticker ideas. (Build the wall. Fast free bus.) Just doing existing trends won’t get traction, you have to say something.

2. We’re in an attention economy. That means candidates need to do every interview and constantly be on social media. Before people can hear what you have to say, you have to show up on their feed. This means candidates need to touch all parts of our fragmented media ecosystem.

1. People respond to candidates who speak to their concerns. Even if their ideas don’t seem possible or are different than what they’ve heard before. (Affordability for Zohran, immigration for Trump in 2016 and affordability in 2024)

I’ve seen research that people are hungry for solutions that match the scale of the problem but that kind of ambition raises question of feasibility. But the work of politics is to make things feasible. It’s what Mamdani is doing and what Trump did in 2016

Also the reason the economy isn’t growing/companies aren’t hiring is in no small part due to instability due to tariffs