Paul Hosford: Zohran Mamdani and Catherine Connolly both won by offering hope to voters

Ireland's presidency and New York's mayoralty are very different. But the people newly elected to those roles share striking parallels, having run positive campaigns with a vision for the future

New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani speaking in the borough of Queens the day after his election victory over Andrew Cuomo who ran as an independent after Mamdani defeated him in the Democratic Party primary. Picture: Heather Khalifa/AP

Amid the jubilant scenes as 34-year-old Ugandan immigrant Zohran Mamdani sealed a most unlikely victory to become the mayor of New York City, there was something of a strange sight in RTÉ’s package.

As the broadcaster’s US correspondent Sean Whelan interviewed a pair of Mamdani supporters, one said that it was “the high point of democratic socialism in the US” before the other interjected, “and we were so excited about your new president, as well”.

If it felt like Catherine Connolly was everywhere a few weeks ago, it may just have been an accurate feeling.

But the collision of the Mamdani and Connolly campaigns is not all that surprising if you had tracked both.

Mr Mamdani entered the mayoral race a year ago at just 1% in the polls. Powered by a groundswell of grassroots organising, a clear message, and savvy social media and design, he upset the Democratic establishment in June to become the party’s nominee and presumptive next mayor of the biggest city in the US.

Even when the man he had overcome in that primary — former New York governor and scion of a political dynasty Andrew Cuomo — re-entered the race as an independent, Mr Mamdani’s campaign did not wilt and stayed focused on its own message.

President-elect Catherine Connolly’s odds were nowhere near as long.

Ireland's president-elect Catherine Connolly greeting supporters at Dublin Castle ahead of the announcement of the election results at Dublin Castle on October 25. She will be inaugurated as Michael D Higgins' successor next week. Picture: Niall Carson/PA

Still, when she formally entered the race for the Irish presidency in July, she was an Independent TD from Galway West with no team or structure or money who was facing into a battle with two coalition party candidates and had yet to receive the backing of many on the left.

While you can argue that she was the beneficiary of many breaking balls — Jim Gavin and Mairead McGuinness’s withdrawals, for example — 15,000 volunteers powered her campaign and undoubtedly dominated the online space.

What both had in common at their core was that they were campaigns that were expressly hopeful and optimistic, offering voters something, even if that thing was just hope itself.

In the final days of the Connolly campaign, I spent a lot of time on the road with the then candidate and it was striking how positive the reaction from members of the public was. Volunteers and veterans of the Repeal movement said the parallels were striking as young, previously disengaged people were energised and, in many cases, electrified.

The imperfections in Ms Connolly’s answers on some issues or the limited scope of presidential powers paled in comparison to what those people felt, which was a sense of belief, a sense of optimism.

Zohran Mamdani on the campaign trail earlier this year, the slogan reflecting his campaign's sharp focus on cost-of-living challenges facing ordinary New Yorkers. Picture: Madison Swart/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty

There are those who will argue that policy should trump all in politics. That it should be those who have the best, most implementable ideas who get elected and then get judged entirely on their delivery and efficacy of those ideas.

It is hard to argue with that idea. It is technically correct. We should be holding the ideas of those who wish to win our votes up to the brightest light possible and asking if those who put them on paper have the wherewithal, the nous, and the capability to achieve their promise. We should be seeking to find those who are the best within the confines of political reality.

And, yet, that is not what we do and asking people to vote so pragmatically is asking them to betray their own hopes and dreams. Nobody wishes for a marginally better society. Especially not in places where income inequality or the threat of climate change or the cost of living become so oppressive.

On Tuesday, Mr Mamdani referenced a woman he met some years ago on the Bx33 bus, which crosses the Bronx into Harlem, who said to him: 

I used to love New York, but now it’s just where I live. 

You cannot ask a person who feels that way to vote for incrementalism because an incremental change is unlikely to change her perception, but it also will not make her feel anything.

If politics is to be a place for people to see themselves reflected, they want to see their best selves — and we rarely dream of our best selves as being just a little better.

On Tuesday, Zohran Mamdani quoted a woman he met on a bus from the Bronx into Manhattan. His whole campaign and that victory speech combined a vision of a better way to live and practical pledges to address the cost of public transport, rent, and groceries. Picture: iStock 

A little is in reach; it is tangible and achievable. But it is not the stuff of daydreams. There is something in a large chunk of people which wants their politics to be aspirational, to be broad strokes, and swings for the fences, because there is no point imagining that better things aren’t possible.

What many miss about the Mamdani and Connolly campaigns is that those who energised them weren’t ignorant of policy, they were simply charged up by the idea that policy can meet optimism and not just bureaucracy.

In Mr Mamdani’s speech following his win late on Tuesday evening, he struck on the note of hope no fewer than 10 times, saying: “Tonight we have spoken in a clear voice. Hope is alive. 

Hope is a decision that tens of thousands of New Yorkers made day after day, volunteer shift after volunteer shift, despite attack ad after attack ad. 

"More than a million of us stood in our churches, in gymnasiums, in community centres, as we filled in the ledger of democracy.

“And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together. Hope over tyranny. Hope over big money and small ideas. Hope over despair.”

That level of optimism from a major US political figure has not been seen for some time, the party having contested the last three presidential cycles warning of the dangers of Donald Trump rather than articulating a vision  for America in the same way the president has consistently done. 

What Sarah Palin once dismissed as “hopey changey stuff” still has some juice, it seems, but only when attached to something to vote for, rather than against.

Ms Connolly’s victory in a race for a largely ceremonial role, in large part, came down to her appeal to the best nature of many Irish people, her pitch that she would represent what we want our society to be. 

Negative campaigning didn't work

While Fine Gael and some online spent time attempting to tell people why they shouldn’t vote for her, Ms Connolly was appealing to why they should. 

These are not opposites in a political race. People want to vote for something rather than against something.

In Mr Mamdani’s case, it was about affordability. 

New York is wildly unaffordable for many now, and by sticking to his message that cheaper childcare, free buses, and city-run grocery stores were the answer, Mr Mamdani expressed clearly what he stood for.

Mamdami faces challenges in office 

In governance, while Ms Connolly is clear on what the role she takes up next week is and isn’t, Mr Mamdani may run into roadblocks when he takes office on January 1. He may find that the political reality means his work is harder to achieve than he first thought. He may have to compromise or deal in increments, given that much of New York’s power is shared or split or rests with its state governor.

But both leaders-elect have been given huge mandates to be the politicians that they were as candidates — and that largely comes down to the sense of hope that their campaigns were able to engender in those who supported them.

It seems that hope is back in fashion, but how long it remains there depends on how successful its purveyors are once the hope meets reality.