Zohran Mamdani’s primary win reflects real energy on the Left. The demands raised—on housing, transit, and childcare while also defending solidarity with Palestine—and the fractures within the labour bureaucracy’s endorsement process, point toward possibilities for a class-conscious, multiracial left with the potential to organise both within the confines of, and beyond the ballot box.

Unlike Corbyn’s upsurge in the UK during austerity, Mamdani’s campaign comes amid a post-Trump wave of mobilisation, much greater than the first year of Trump’s previous presidency. For some, this moment raises the hope of building the experience, confidence, and infrastructure necessary to eventually break with the Democratic Party and form a mass socialist alternative. For others, it raises the risk of repeating the cycle of co-optation seen with Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition—or more recently, with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Bernie Sanders—who used their social power to negotiate with party elites and ultimately rally support behind establishment candidates.

Whether Mamdani ends up another casualty of the Democratic Party’s gravitational pull will depend less on his personal beliefs than on whether the movements and organisations that powered his campaign deepen their commitment to political independence and class struggle. That would mean pushing Mamdani to confront not just the party structure, but the capitalist finance and real estate interests already threatening to abandon NYC if he wins in November. Anything less will deepen the Democratic Party’s donor crisis, and reinforce it as “the graveyard of mass struggle,” due to its structural ties to capital and empire.

Without this push for independence, Mamdani may become yet another stabilising force for a bipartisan regime in crisis. We’ve seen it happen quite recently. In Chicago, Brandon Johnson’s rise to mayor—backed by unions and independent social movements—quickly gave way to calls to CEOs, police appointments, support for Biden, and the hosting of the 2024 Democratic Party National Convention (DNC). Despite promising to tax the rich and invest in communities, Johnson’s early gestures toward “collaboration” with business and police indicate how rapidly movement-backed candidates can be captured when independence isn’t maintained.

The danger isn’t just co-optation—it’s backlash. The partial independence DSA represents, may provoke capital without preparing the working class for confrontation. In this climate, federal repression, right-wing reaction, and even Bonapartist manoeuvres remain serious threats. New Yorkers openly ponder, if their current mayor Adams and former governor Cuomo (both who may run again, but as independents in November) were defeated by Mamdani, could this cause Trump to unleash even more wrath on the city, even more so than Los Angeles?

Between now and November, organisers have a critical window. They must confront the contradictions within labour; many unions backed Cuomo or abstained due to internal division. They then have to push for a break from the political compromises that have defanged past insurgencies. Only a mass socialist party—one that refuses to accommodate capital, settler colonialism, or state violence—can transform Mamdani’s victory from a moment into a real vehicle for working-class power.

Because in the end, it is not officeholding, but independent struggle, that wins lasting victories.