Socialism is preparing to take the world’s biggest stage.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani shared a campaign video this week, asking his supporters for four million dollars for his mayoral transition.
“I hope very soon not to have to ask you for money. But until then, I’m askin’ for you to go to transition2025.com, give whatever you can …” he said in a video posted Tuesday. It was both an invitation and an admission — the race is over, but the work, he says, is only beginning.
He explained that the transition falls outside the campaign system, where the city matches donations — eight-to-one — and gives the hopefuls a runway. That runway, he says, has now ended.
“Now unlike the campaign, transitions do not get public matching funds from the city. So that eight-to-one match: gone. It’s up to us to raise the money. Usually campaigns take that as an opportunity to rely on wealthy donors, but that’s not us,” he said.
A self-described democratic socialist, he laid out his goal plainly: “$4 million in total, so Jan. 1 can be the day we start to deliver, not start to prepare.”
In the video, numbers appeared like a progress bar for a city in waiting — more than $1 million raised as of Nov. 14, an average donation of $77.65, spread across 12,707 donors.
But even grassroots revolutions need infrastructure. Mamdani says the money has a destination. “We have to vet the 50,000 resumes we’ve received,” he said. “We have to keep paying our incredible team. And we have to plan not just our inauguration, but our policy implementation.”
This is only the beginning. The bills will keep coming. So will the asks.
Watch the video below:
