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Zohran Mamdani calls back grassroots volunteers for general election
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Aug 14, 2025
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Zohran for NYC
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Aug 14, 2025
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If you hear a knock on your door this weekend, don’t be surprised if it’s a volunteer for Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign.
After a seven-week respite, the legion of supporters who helped propel Mamdani's insurgent campaign to a commanding 13-point victory in the Democratic mayoral primary will hit the streets and the doors to help him build a bigger tent ahead of the general election.
“We hope you all had a wonderful break from canvassing and have gotten a chance to soak up this win,” reads an email from the campaign sent to volunteers and shared with Gothamist. The group plans to reassemble its most committed volunteers on Saturday in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for a “pre-kickoff volunteer social.”
“ Come hang with your fellow volunteers and campaign staff and pick up your Zetro card posters,” the email states, referring to a campaign card resembling a MetroCard for volunteers to track their canvassing shifts during the primary campaign. People who completed eight shifts get a Mamdani poster.
A "Zetro card" given to Mamdani campaign volunteers.
Abid Mahdi
The resumption of field operations marks a new phase in the general election, as Mamdani turns to the grassroots supporters who helped him win the primary. Volunteers who spoke to Gothamist said they remained committed to the Democratic candidate, who is now adjusting to a new role as front-runner. The campaign said it's counting on the volunteers to pitch Mamdani’s policies to improve affordability in the city to voters he failed to win in the primary.
“ We don't just want him to win the general election by two or three points,” said Greenpoint resident Noah Popp, 43, who volunteered for the campaign in the spring. “We want him to win in a way where he shows that he has a mandate to accomplish his agenda.”
Popp said he’s ready to knock on doors again. He said Mamdani’s grassroots support differentiates his campaign from competitors.
“ I don't think Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams or the billionaires who support them — I don't think they're gonna sit on their hands,” said Popp, citing the two leading independent candidates on the ballot in the fall. Curtis Sliwa is running on the Republican line. “We don’t ever want to be complacent, even if he is the front-runner.”
A centerpiece of Mamdani’s winning primary strategy was an unprecedented ground game, including more than 50,000 volunteers who knocked on more than 1.5 million doors. Since his victory, the campaign said it's grown that volunteer team to more than 61,000, with a goal of recruiting 90,000 people ahead of the election.
Mamdani's army of supporters starkly contrasts with the field operations of his rivals. Cuomo has sought to overhaul his campaign after losing the primary with a new logo, a feistier online presence and more frequent public appearances. Adams has held endorsement events with religious leaders and former Gov. David Paterson. Sliwa has garnered increased media attention for bucking President Donald Trump. But none of those strategies has equated to the committed boots on the ground that show up for Mamdani.
Bekah Curtis-Heald, 35, is among those returning to the trenches. She said name recognition was among the biggest challenges when she worked in the spring as a field leader training other canvassers in Jamaica, Queens. This time around, she said, “We will actually have the ‘D’ next to his line on the ballot versus being sort of an outsider underdog.”
Volunteers for Zohran Mamdani are knocking on doors in southeast Queens, part of the assembly member's robust ground game.
Brigid Bergin
She expects Trump to come up more now that the president is taking a more direct aim at cities and at Mamdani himself.
“When folks would bring up Trump, we’d remind them that Cuomo shares a lot of the same donors as Trump,” said Curtis-Heald, who works as a trainer for a public health organization.
Volunteers may need more rebuttals as they return to the doors this weekend.
In the weeks since his victory, Mamdani has faced increasing attacks from his competitors and scrutiny from some fellow Democrats. A 10-day trip to Uganda for his wedding celebration took him off the campaign trail. When Mamdani returned to New York City, a mass shooting at a Midtown office building that killed four people — including an NYPD officer — brought renewed attention to his previous calls to defund the police, which he has since walked back. That was followed by Cuomo's withering attacks about whether Mamdani should be allowed to live in his $2,300-a-month rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Astoria.
Popp, the Greenpoint volunteer, said he’d seen some concern in chat groups and emails for the Democratic Socialists of America about Mamdani’s shifting rhetoric as the candidate seeks to broaden his coalition. Mamdani is a democratic socialist and drew tremendous ground support from the organization ahead of his primary win.
Popp said he was unbothered by Mamdani’s general election posture.
“He's trying to build a winning coalition and that sometimes involves not taking maximalist positions on certain things like policing,” Popp said.
Mamdani’s platform centers on a rent freeze for tenants in stabilized apartments, universal child care, free buses and municipal grocery stores.
Mamdani campaign spokesperson Dora Pekec said the campaign will be ready to respond to questions from voters about the candidate's positions.
“The entire field operation is informed by a belief that politics should be about listening rather than lecturing — and the conversations we have with voters in the coming three months will reflect that,” she said.
For some volunteers, like 15-year-old Abid Mahdi, the return to the streets can not come soon enough. The rising high school sophomore, who is one of the campaign’s youngest volunteers, said he hopes to do as many canvassing shifts as possible each week from now until November.
“ I think there's a lot of information to gather,” said Mahdi.
Tagged
Politics
new york city
Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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