When I was knocking on doors for Zohran Mamdani’s campaign to be the Democratic Party nominee for mayor of New York City this spring, one volunteer told us that about 80 percent of the time canvassers end up having to mark people on our turf as “not home.” Sometimes this is because people really aren’t home, but it’s also because people will stare through their peepholes or shout for us to state our business before deciding not to open the door, or because the ancient intercoms and doorbells in New York’s many different types of homes aren’t working, making entire buildings inaccessible. In general canvassing feels like a low-yield practice—and yet the sheer scale of Zohran Mamdani’s canvassing operation is in large part what won him the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City on June 24th—countering all expectations and beating the odds to overtake Andrew Cuomo’s well-heeled operation.
It’s impossible to know precisely how many people are in the many Z4NYC WhatsApp communities, organized by borough and neighborhood, because people join different groups for different periods of time, but Mamdani’s campaign has called its 50,000-strong door-knocking army the largest volunteer operation in the city’s history (by primary day this Tuesday they had knocked on over one and a half million doors). There are countless group chats for field leads, canvassers, volunteers doing poll site visibility, drivers. There is a designated “gab chat” so that the organizing going on in the other groups can remain focused. The day before the election, a chalking sub-canvas chat was formed to coordinate chalking sidewalks with messages like “Rank Zohran for affordable ✅ housing ✅ transportation ✅ childcare ✅ groceries” and “Don’t Rank Cuomo.” A spreadsheet was quickly assembled to incorporate all the volunteers who signed up, assigning them specific street corners around Mamdani’s home turf of Astoria; the chat was used to coordinate when and where chalk would be available for pick-up and where it could be dropped off for others, which locations had friendly neighbors and which were to be avoided, who could be available to redo signs that had faded.
I did my first canvass for Mamdani in early April. I’d admired his work in eviction and foreclosure prevention and his advocacy of immigrant taxi drivers, and I believed in his platform, but I hadn’t really thought seriously about the future of the campaign. As he closed in on Cuomo I heard people say they hadn’t felt this kind of elation since Bernie Sanders won Nevada in 2020. But the party turned on him, and the movement’s momentum was halted. Even though there was now a rising consensus, after the 2024 election, that the Democratic Party needed a new direction, it felt scary to hope that the same thing wouldn’t happen to Mamdani. So I tried not to think about it and just knocked on doors instead.
Canvassing really sucks. The rules of canvassing are simple in theory—download a list of addresses to your phone and take your talking points to each home—but in practice it’s hard and demoralizing. Standing in fancy lobbies on the Upper West Side trying to convince the doorman to call up to the apartments on your list. The disgusted looks from residents going in and out. The woman who pretended to be interested just to keep us talking while she called security. That one man who, when reminded that canvassing was legal, threatened, “If you ring that bell, I’m gonna ring your bell.” The woman who spent at least seven minutes on the phone with her doorman, making him ask us questions and report back to her until she finally said, “Oh, they’re with a campaign! I thought you said champagne. Um, I don’t have time right now.”
In LeFrak City, Elmhurst, which has one of the city’s biggest eviction and tenant neglect problems, residents had sealed their doors in anticipation of flyer-stuffing; one resident said to us, “I know you all only come here right before an election,” and she didn’t wait for us to tell her which election we were there for. The stuffy hallways were littered with campaign literature from the City Council race. Another resident opened the door and literally begged us, “When will you people leave us alone?” I don’t know how to describe the experience of having to push through that shame, apologize, agree with them, listen to their insults and take it because they are absolutely right, and then still gently make the pitch.
For every ten or twenty or thirty unpleasant or fruitless interactions, though, is someone who lets you talk at them excitedly, matches your enthusiasm with good questions, offers to help get out the vote or just offers snacks and water. These voters I talked to were often aligned with Mamdani’s policies but hadn’t heard of him, or were cautiously optimistic but afraid he wasn’t “electable.” Mamdani’s message of affordability was so simple and so universally appealing, and a candidate who stands for something rather than against everything was so refreshing, that sometimes that was all we needed to overcome the average person’s disinterest or suspicion of politicians.
Many of us met voters who appreciated being asked about their concerns, or who were inspired to see such passionate campaigning. Some were skeptical of Mamdani’s age and experience but were willing to hear about his vision for city-owned grocery stores, or interested to learn that a mayor actually does have the power to freeze rent. I will never forget the people who listened and engaged, whether they agreed or ranked Zohran or not. One of Mamdani’s biggest disadvantages was having neither the super PAC ad money nor the family legacy to be a household name, and canvassing was essential to make up the difference. (During early voting in Crown Heights, a disaffected Cuomo supporter who now insists that “Eric Adams is our only hope” complained that Mamdani’s volunteers were “aggressively approaching voters,” while Cuomo’s were respectfully “handing out pamphlets to those who are interested.” I have no trouble picturing this—because approaching voters, rather than waiting for them to show interest on their own, is the definition of canvassing. It requires actually wanting your candidate to win.)
Unlike a lot of other political activities I’ve participated in—marching on Washington for a ceasefire in Gaza or camping out at City Hall for defunding the police—canvassing is not glamorous. It doesn’t inspire viral videos and the photo ops are minimal. The idea behind a protest is big, but the action item—what you do with your physical self when representing or defending the idea—is not always clear to me. (Though that isn’t a reason to not engage!) With canvassing, the goal is straightforward. Many nights while canvassing I came home in tears exhausted, demotivated or humiliated, but not once did I feel the evening was wasted, which is not something I can say of every protest I’ve ever been to, whether spontaneous or organized. This is what compelled me, against all reason, to keep going out and taking on more lists than my schedule allowed: because being able to say I did my part wasn’t really the point, and doing it is always preferable to not doing it. Canvassing is not really an act of individual expression (you literally have a script), so it liberated me from having to worry about how to go about it. It brought to mind my experience participating in online mutual-aid groups during the second wave of COVID in India, which helped me stay calm and focused while the pandemic raged. Each individual task or interaction was small, clear, and relatively low stakes, and involved mostly reaching out to people one-on-one, one by one.
Some New Yorkers we encountered took issue with the label “socialist,” with Mamdani’s general vibe, his religion, his popularity among the young men whom Democrats insist have turned radically right-wing. But I heard less ideological opposition to his policies and more vague skepticism, distaste, lack of awareness or confusion—and these can be gently nudged. This is what made the canvassing effort so electric. Or as one active volunteer commented online, “It’s so funny you can topple a political dynasty just by talking to your neighbors.”
I asked what to do if the Iowans asked me a question I couldn’t answer. Pascal said that if that happens we should own our ignorance and tell them something about why we personally support Bernie. I suggested, “He’s just like Obama, but white and old!” My fellow recruit said, “Lenin is dead!”
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