Thirty-three-year-old New York State Representative Zohran Mamdani’s triumph over aging dynast Andrew Cuomo in NY’s Democratic mayoral primary should have Pennsylvania Democrats taking notes. Not because PA’s voters will eagerly cast their ballots for a Democratic Socialist preaching about subsidized gender-affirming care — that dog won’t hunt in a purple state where Trump’s “Kamala is for they/them” ads helped flip working-class voters red. But Mamdani cracked a code that matters: how to marry compelling political theater with concrete benefits that actually improve people’s lives.
Start with what won’t translate statewide. Southwestern PA isn’t Brooklyn. The mill towns along the Mon Valley that once powered America’s industrial might have little patience for the progressive pieties that play well in Park Slope. This is a region where even Democrats often own guns, where union halls still display American flags without the slightest bit of irony, and where social conservatism runs deep enough that discussing pronouns or land acknowledgments at a township meeting would empty the room faster than a fire alarm.
But strip away the ideological window dressing, and Mamdani’s campaign offers two crucial lessons that could revive Democratic fortunes in places like Washington and Allegheny counties.
First, the man understands political performance.
The son of acclaimed director Mira Nair and a failed rapper himself, Mamdani turned his insurgent campaign into must-see content. His 13-mile walk through Manhattan on primary election eve, complete with bodega stops and pizza slices, generated more authentic engagement than a dozen scripted rallies. He broke his Ramadan fast on the Q train, shot videos in halal carts to explain “halal-flation,” and built a volunteer army that actually showed up.
PA Democrats desperately need this energy. Take Conor Lamb — University of Pennsylvania-educated lawyer, former Marine officer, eminently qualified for higher office. Yet watching him campaign feels like attending a particularly dull shareholders’ meeting. Here’s a guy whose grandfather Thomas Lamb was a boss of bosses, a state legislator who could work a room and hook up connected constituents with patronage. Instead, the youngest member of the regional Lamb dynasty gives off what one veteran labor reporter who covered Lamb’s first congressional campaign described to me as “holier than thou airs,” so buttoned-down he makes Mitt Romney look like John Belushi.
Imagine if Lamb lost the button-down shirts, grabbed a Stoney’s, and talked like a normal person about why the Steelers’ quarterback room needs work. Or better yet, channeled some of that prosecutor energy into righteous anger about plant closures instead of maintaining his above-the-fray demeanor. John Fetterman figured this out when that Eastern-born elitist crushed Lamb in the 2022 U.S. Senate primary, turning his massive bulk and hoodie-and-shorts aesthetic into political gold. Of course, authenticity isn’t just about slovenly attire and a George Wendt-like physique — it’s about seeming human enough that voters might actually want to watch a Pirates game with you.
The second, more important lesson involves Mamdani’s populist promises — not what he promised, but that he promised anything at all.
While Cuomo ran on experience, name recognition, support for Israel, and hints of a return to broken-windows policing, Mamdani offered concrete benefits: rent freezes, free buses, universal childcare. Sure, some ideas like city-run grocery stores are the stuff of fever dreams, but voters heard someone actually trying to make their lives easier.
Southwestern PA Democrats need their own menu of tangible benefits, tailored to regional realities. Forget the boutique progressive issues. How about zero tuition and book stipends at Community College of Allegheny County for anyone training in the trades? A local and modernized Civilian Conservation Corps that pays recent high school graduates decent wages to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure for a year or two after high school? Affordable housing initiatives that actually put roofs over heads while clearing homeless encampments from the river trails that families want to use?
Universal childcare might be the one Mamdani idea that translates directly. Find me a working parent in Pittsburgh proper who wouldn’t vote for free, quality preschool and after-school care for kids in the city’s shrinking and seemingly failing public school system. That’s kitchen table economics that transcends party lines.
Most critically, Democrats here need to become bare-knuckle brawlers for every manufacturing job.
Junior U.S. Sen. David McCormick, the West Point wrestling legend and former hedge fund CEO, somehow positioned himself as the champion of steelworkers by smartly backing the now-completed Nippon Steel acquisition of U.S. Steel that many of us were calling for over wrongheaded national union opposition. His upcoming energy summit puts him at the center of the region’s economic future while Democrats chase their tails over foolish climate pledges that sound like job-killers to the blue-collar laborers who actually produce the energy needed to power this region’s strained grid.
Corey O’Connor’s successful Pittsburgh mayoral primary campaign provides the other part of the template. Like Mamdani, he toppled an early primary favorite by assembling a coalition powered by middle-class, college-educated White voters. He talked tougher on crime — a necessity in a city where cynical, oft-disappointed residents understandably care more about safety than slogans — while promising competent delivery of basic services. No fancy rhetoric, just fix the potholes and answer 911 calls with working ambulances.
But O’Connor also understood you need to offer something more than competence. His promise to thoroughly address the tent cities along Pittsburgh’s trails resonated because it acknowledged both compassion for the homeless and frustration from families who want safe public spaces that were paid for by their tax dollars. That’s the kind of nuanced populism that works here — practical solutions that help everyone without demonizing anyone.
A path forward for PA Democrats
The path forward for PA Democrats isn’t complicated, but it requires abandoning the consultant-driven playbook that produces candidates who sound like they’re reading from focus group reports. Let candidates be messy, authentic humans. Promise tangible benefits that matter to working families. Get out the vote with an army of young volunteers while pulling White voters otherwise lost to the GOP back into your novel coalition. Fight like heck for every job, especially the unglamorous ones that still pay a living wage in this badly underpaid region.
The alternative is watching multimillionaire Republicans like McCormick seize the populist mantle while Democrats offer position papers about environmental impact and the enduring importance of DEI that will alienate the self-interested swing voters they need to reclaim. In a state where elections are decided by tens of thousands of votes, the party that figures out how to combine authentic personality with the right kind of kitchen-table populism will own the future. Mamdani’s victory isn’t a complete blueprint, but it’s a wake-up call: Our voters demand fighters for their future, not wonks and strategists running focus groups to finance theirs.
Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work.
The Citizen welcomes guest commentary from community members who represent that it is their own work and their own opinion based on true facts that they know firsthand.
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