New York has had a white-knuckle few weeks. In a month and a half the city has seen its basketball team, the Knicks, win their first title in half a century; the organization of the World Cup won by Spain; and the wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. It has also been hit by extreme events such as an historic heatwave and a black smoke cloud from hundreds of Canadian wildfires.

It has not been a quiet time for Mayor Zohran Mamdani either. On top of managing all of the above, he has racked up indisputable political wins, including the victories of the three progressive candidates he backed for the House of Representatives and progress on his socialist agenda, with measures such as a rent freeze covering one million apartments and the announcement of public supermarkets selling goods at up to 30% cheaper. His goal, he has said, is to keep the party going.

Seven months into his term, Mamdani is enjoying a honeymoon with New Yorkers. He has fierce detractors, such as the New York Post, but his popularity — between 48% and 58% in polls — is considerable in these polarized times.

To broaden the reach of his agenda, he has found an ally in Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — AOC, as she is widely known. The left-wing star of the Democratic Party is effectively locked into re-election this November to her House seat while she considers the steps she will take after 2028. A run for president? A Senate bid for New York? All options are on the table.

“I consider it to be a partnership, and I also consider her to be an inspiration. I had the privilege of having been represented by her in Congress [...] And I think she has shown what it looks like to fight for working people,” Mamdani said recently in an interview with The New York Times. Almost as revealing was the figure he said he looks to: Fiorello La Guardia, the legendary New York mayor of the 1930s and 1940s, who, the 34-year-old Ugandan-born politician recalled, would not have achieved his goals without the support of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the architect of the New Deal who pulled the country out of the Great Depression and whom many U.S. socialists view as a model.

Concern in the party

Asked whether AOC, who is 36, would make a good president, Mamdani did not hesitate: “I think she’d make a good anything.” The rise of socialists, personified by this pair of young politicians, has provoked thinly veiled concern within the Democratic establishment, especially among those sectors tied to the party’s traditional support for Israel.

“Mamdani has become a superstar. The alliance with AOC currently benefits her more, because she can use it to boost support among left-leaning voters who are not convinced by some of the positions she took in the past on issues like Palestine,” said Theodore Hamm, a journalism professor and author of the biography Meet Mayor Mamdani, this week in a Greenwich Village pub.

Political analysts assume Ocasio-Cortez is weighing her chances for a presidential bid. But we will have to wait for the midterm elections in November to see who enters the race. For now, the best-positioned contender appears to be the former vice president and unsuccessful 2024 candidate. “Like It or Not, Kamala Harris Is the Front-runner,” New York magazine headlined recently. Although most polls place Harris first, a July 22 survey put the New York congresswoman in the lead for the first time.

Sanders’ successor

If AOC ultimately decides not to run for the White House, she could pursue New York’s Senate seat, currently held by Chuck Schumer, the bogeyman of the party’s left wing, whose term ends in 2028. By then she will have completed a decade in the House. Bernie Sanders, who at 84 has hinted he does not intend to seek another Senate term when his mandate ends in January 2031, can rest assured. He knows his progressive ideas have successors in the younger generations of Democrats.

Regardless of what the future holds, both Mamdani and AOC are already shaping the Democratic Party’s present. Both identify as socialists, a word that until recently was taboo in the United States. A recent CNN poll showed that one in three Democrats now identifies with that label, a share that rises as respondents’ ages fall. The golden left-wing duo in New York has elevated other colleagues, handing President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans a slogan they are already hammering home: the greatest danger the United States faces right now is communism.

Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver, rejects the notion that progressives can only win in large cities like New York or Los Angeles: “We are seeing candidates with considerable influence across the country. Recent studies suggest voters are more willing than before to back ideologically extreme politicians, or at least do not clearly distinguish between centrists and extremists.”

The late-June victory of his three candidates in the Democratic primaries has given Mamdani an aura of irresistible power. Many politicians are now approaching him, convinced that his endorsement is enough to boost a career. Not by coincidence, Kamala Harris, always attentive to political winds, has already contacted him as well as Palestinian activist groups. With his protégés’ success, the mayor also ensures a network of allies in the House that will emerge from the November 3 elections.

Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez have divided their roles. So far he limits himself to backing candidates within New York, while she has her sights set on the whole country.

August 4 will be a test of their influence. AOC has thrown herself fully into the Democratic primary for Michigan’s Senate seat. She supports physician Abdul El-Sayed, who is running against centrist Haley Stevens, backed by the party’s establishment. If El-Sayed wins, it will be further evidence that the new wave of politicians who openly criticize Israel and call for ambitious measures such as universal public healthcare are here to stay.