Zohran Mamdani's Volunteer Army Stretches Beyond The Comfort Zone

By Samantha Maldonado, The City

September 30, 2025, 5:00 a.m.

On a sunny Saturday in mid-September, more than a dozen volunteers for Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign gathered at a corner of Canarsie, Brooklyn, armed with talking points and voters’ addresses.

The crew was almost ready to hit the ground — but first, a slight adjustment.

One canvasser, who had arrived on foot as part of the DSA Running Club, wore a black shirt emblazoned with ‘Democratic Socialists of America’ in red lettering. It caught the eye of Pat Williams, the mother of Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and who was much older than most of the group.

“This is not going to work here. That’s a big turn-off in this neighborhood,” Williams said she told her fellow volunteer. “The older Black folks are pro-Cuomo — I mean, unbelievably pro-Cuomo.”

The runner, who declined to be named, ducked into a nearby store and emerged with a plain burgundy t-shirt.

“It was $2.50!” she said cheerfully.

Canarsie, a majority Black, heavily Caribbean residential neighborhood with a large share of homeowners, overwhelmingly voted for Gov. Andrew Cuomo over Mamdani, a 33-year-old state Assemblymember and democratic socialist, in the June primary election.

Now, as the campaign enters its final weeks, neighborhoods Cuomo won have emerged as a new battleground for the Mamdani campaign’s volunteer efforts. The race has shaped up to be a three-candidate contest among Mamdani, Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, as Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday ended his campaign.

In a city where the majority of voters are registered Democrats and Mamdani, the party’s nominee, is the leading contender according to multiple polls, the race is his to lose.

His canvassers are once again fanning out among all five boroughs — and pushing into new neighborhoods — to speak with a larger share of the electorate and ultimately get them to turn out for Mamdani.

“We now have this base of support, and now we can talk to even more voters across the city,” said Tascha Van Auken, the campaign’s field director. “Lots of those voters are in areas where we didn’t win in the primary.”

Canvassers are in The Bronx’s Co-Op City and Norwood; Chinatown and Washington Heights in Manhattan; Ozone Park and Glen Oaks in Queens; Bath Beach and Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn; and New Dorp and Mariners Harbor in Staten Island, among other neighborhoods.

Mamdani fared best in the primary in areas with more renters than homeowners, middle to higher incomes, and a higher proportion of college graduates. He also won more votes than Cuomo in places where a majority of voters are Asian, like Jackson Heights and Kensington.

Van Auken said the campaign is focused on areas where the campaign has determined it has not only ardent supporters, but also undecided voters it can reach. Results of phone-banking and door-knocking inform where the campaign sends volunteers.

The conversations are less about introducing voters to Mamdani and revolve more around pitching his platform of fast, free buses, free child care and freezing rent. The campaign believes the affordability message can resonate across a wide swath of neighborhoods.

Because of the expanded territory, field lead Christian Celeste Tate warned the canvassers in Canarsie that things could feel a bit different from when they canvassed leading up to June’s primary. The 31-year-old nonprofit consultant instructed them to listen more than talk. To avoid lecturing. And to ensure the interaction makes a positive impression.

“Honestly, especially if they don’t agree with us, we want those people to leave thinking, ‘I hate his policies, but wow, that was a nice person who knocked,’” Celeste Tate said.

Christian Celeste Tate and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’ mother, Pat Williams, prepare to canvass in Canarsie, Brooklyn for the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign, Sept. 20, 2025. Credit: Samantha Maldonado/THE CITY

The campaign’s goal is to engage 90,000 volunteers, up from the 52,000 during the primary. To that end, the campaign hosted a citywide scavenger hunt to launch the field operation and continues to provide merch to repeat canvassers who earn enough stamps on “Zetro cards.” So far, more than 75,000 volunteers have knocked on more than 436,600 doors, according to the campaign.

New Map

Democratic strategist Trip Yang said the field operation is impressive but that wouldn’t be the reason Mamdani would win the election. Instead, it’s key to maintaining his status as the favorite to clinch the mayoral contest.

“Mamdani’s ground game is a firewall that will prevent a Cuomo comeback,” Yang said. “To the campaign’s credit, they’ve gone into areas that are not viewed as progressive areas and Cuomo carried them. It’s smart, when you’re a frontrunner, to open the map up as much as you can.”

Volunteers like 35-year-old Dena Cox helped open up that map. As part of We Grew Here, a pro-Mamdani group for native New Yorkers that’s not affiliated with the campaign, Cox had spent time leading up to the primary talking to residents in majority-Black or working class places she and other members felt weren’t getting proper attention from the campaign — Brownsville, East New York, the South Bronx and southeast Queens, among them. For the most part, Cuomo swept these areas in the primary, but now the campaign sees them as having potential to swing for Mamdani.

Cox, a city employee who grew up in Canarsie, said she pushed for areas like those to be included in the official canvassing lineup for the general election.

That’s how she found herself as a field lead, walking Canarsie’s tree-lined streets of brick two-story homes. She wore a ‘Hot Girls for Zohran’ t-shirt because her ‘Caribbeans for Zohran’ shirt was in the wash, she said. She and a fellow volunteer, 43-year-old Alex Lane, rang bells and knocked on doors at both the ground level and at the top of the stairs leading to porches.

One woman opened the door but stayed behind a screen, her lips pursed and eyebrows raised.

Cox drew on her knowledge as a local and her own background as a Brooklynite who did what she was supposed to to lock in a career but still struggles with the cost of living in the city.

“Remember when the B60 bus was free?” Cox asked about the route that connects Canarsie with Williamsburg, linking the fare-free pilot Mamdani championed to his campaign promise of free buses. “He just really wants to make New York City more affordable for all of us, especially us working class, middle class people.”

“He wants to,” the neighbor responded skeptically.

“A lot of the stuff, yes, uphill battle,” Cox said. “He might have to do a lot more talking with the state, but for other things like freezing the rent, that’s actually really the simplest thing he can do — ”

The woman cut her off: “But that’s not going to affect me.”

“Right, but a lot of it is just making sure the city runs more effectively and efficiently,” Cox said.

“He’s at least going to try,” Lane added. “We think he’s the most useful politician to come around in a long time.”

“How do you know?” the neighbor pressed.

The volunteers reasoned that Mamdani was not beholden to special interests like Wall Street or real estate and argued they were willing to take a chance on a mayor who had a new vision. Cox handed the neighbor a palm card of Mamdani’s policies before leaving.

Turning away from the house, Cox murmured, “How that went is how it goes.”

Cox said when she needs a win, she sometimes takes a canvassing shift in a “feel-good district” — like Prospect Lefferts Gardens, or her own neighborhood of Crown Heights, which are diverse, renter-heavy and full of many young progressives. Mamdani won most of the election districts in those areas.

“I don’t think I’ve had anyone less than a three,” Cox said of those areas, referring to the one through five scale the canvassers use to mark voters’ level of support. “People are like, ‘Hell yeah! Of course!’”

But in the lead-up to the general election, the campaign increasingly finds itself outside its comfort zone — not just preaching to a choir of supporters, but encountering undecided voters, who make up between 5% and 9% of the electorate, according to recent polls.

A curiosity about those undecided voters is in part what brought Drew Kolenick, a 25-year-old tutor and nanny who lives on the Upper West Side, to a canvassing shift in Long Island City, Queens, on a crisp Wednesday evening.

“Everyone I talk to is so Zohran,” Kolenick said, referring to the people in his everyday life. “I’m like, that can’t be the reality.”

Kolenick — paired up to canvass with 36-year-old nurse practitioner Kevin Cho Tipton — didn’t get much of a chance to test the theory. They climbed five stories of a pre-war walkup building but didn’t talk to anyone. They rang doorbells to no answer and found themselves turned away at shiny doorman buildings.

“That’s canvassing, I guess,” said Cho Tipton, who moved to Murray Hill from Florida in February. Wearing teal scrubs and a “Healthcare Workers for Zohran” sticker, he said he was excited to cast his first New York vote for Mamdani.

Zohran Mamdani campaign volunteers Kevin Cho Tipton, left, and Drew Kolenick prepare to speak with voters in Long Island City, Sept. 10, 2025. Credit: Samantha Maldonado/THE CITY

At one rowhome, the volunteers finally spoke with someone: a retiree, Rochelle Wyner, who hadn’t made up her mind about who she’d vote for. She said she’d decide at the last minute.

Cho Tipton made a pitch, linking Mamdani’s affordability goals to what he sees at his nursing job: “For me, a lot of my patients can’t afford life,” he said.

Wyner took two pieces of campaign material — one for herself and one for her husband. In the coming weeks, canvassers will knock on Wyner’s door once again, as they conduct second rounds for people who are undecided in the hopes the voters would convert to Mamdani.

Zohran Mamdani campaign volunteers speak with Long Island City resident Rochelle Wyner, Sept. 10, 2025. Credit: Samantha Maldonado/THE CITY

Yvette Buckner, a political lobbyist and co-chair of The New Majority, said those kinds of conversations could go a long way.

“Never underestimate the influence of a one-on-one connection, whether it’s Mandani or his volunteers,” she said. “People in these neighborhoods want to engage, and that engagement can make or break their vote at the ballot box.”

In Staten Island, field lead Christian Howles has come across many people — including Republicans — who initially say they didn’t want to talk about politics and feel that no one in power cares about them. But in some cases, his mere presence has served as an opening.

“People have been just so surprised that someone’s knocking on their door from the campaign,” said Howles, a 29-year-old student activities director at a college, who lives in Grymes Hill with his wife. “They’re like, wait, you’re doing this for free? I’m not paid, I just get a button, that’s it.”

Back in Canarsie, Cox and Lane knocked on the door of 60-year-old retiree Karim Alomari, who greeted them with enthusiastic support for Mamdani. He said with pride that that candidate visited his mosque a couple weeks ago.

“You came to the right person,” Alomari said. “We can talk to the neighbors ourselves.”

His three young granddaughters — ages 2, 5 and 7 — spilled out of the house and played on the porch. Cox asked him if he wanted to sign up for canvassing with the campaign.

“I hate rejection,” Alomari said with a laugh. “But whatever you need in the mosque.”

He took a stack of Mamdani campaign literature, and sent his oldest granddaughter inside to grab an armful of cold water bottles for the volunteers.

He said he thought the country was going in the wrong direction, but Mamdani represents “an opportunity we never saw.”

“There’s so much evil out there,” he said. “So how do you win?”

“People power!” Cox replied, and they bumped fists. “It’s people power. We did what people thought was impossible, and we’ll do it again.”

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.