Analysts are still working to understand Zohran Mamdani’s decisive victory in last month’s New York mayoral race. Like the blind men in the old Indian story of the “Blind Men and the Elephant,” the explanations offered have been mostly accurate but incomplete.

Mamdani’s focus on affordability was appealing, as was his compelling affability evident in clever and incisive social media posts. Being constantly on the move, meeting and engaging voters where they were, was also a factor in his favour. It communicated his authentic desire to know voters and have them know him.

In our stale consultant-driven political environment, Mamdani was a breath of fresh air. With his opponents spending tens of millions on negative attack ads, Mamdani’s approach was new and exciting. Despite running against the well-funded campaign of a former governor and much of the New York Democratic Party establishment that saw him as a threat to their hegemony, he not only prevailed but also won more votes than any previous mayoral candidate in the city’s history.

Three other factors were also decisive in shaping the outcome.

The first is the changing demographics of New York City. Since 1980, the city’s white population has fallen from a majority to less than one-third. New York’s Hispanic population has grown from 1,400,000 to two and a half million. While the city’s Black population has remained fairly stable at about 1,700,000, over one-third of today’s Black New Yorkers are immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants from African or Caribbean countries. And New Yorkers of Asian descent have dramatically grown from a few hundred thousand to 1,400,000.

These changing demographics substantially shifted the electorate’s composition and it mattered in this election. Mamdani easily won among Asian, Hispanic and Black voters. But, notably, he almost evenly split the white vote with his main opponent. Performing that well among all demographic groups is unusual in New York politics.

Another critically important factor in Mamdani’s win was the role of an empowered grass-roots movement, specifically the Democratic Socialists of America. With thousands of organisers throughout New York City, DSA was responsible for upset wins over the past decade, beginning with upstart Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s defeat of Congressman Joseph Crowley in 2018. At the time, Crowley was Chair of the Queens County Democratic Party and Vice-Chair of the Democratic Caucus in Congress. In many ways, Ocasio-Cortez’s win presaged Mamdani’s. Crowley had the establishment’s support and far more money than his unknown opponent, but the party apparatus he headed had grown lazy and stale. She had a grass-roots movement that out-organised the establishment.

DSA activists proceeded to win a number of state and local elections across the city (including Mamdani’s 2021 election to New York State Assembly). They showed that organised, energised grass-roots activists can defeat the establishment and their money.

A final critical factor in Mamdani’s victory was the impact of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza on the electorate in general, and specifically on New York City’s Jewish community.

For decades, the accepted political wisdom was that given the size of New York’s Jewish community, a political candidate who wanted to win had to pay homage to Israel. It was assumed that the Jewish community was in lock-step with Israel and that those seeking their votes should act accordingly. This belief silenced any reasoned discussion of the Middle East and had a devastating impact on the ability of Arab-Americans and, especially after 9/11, American Muslims to freely participate in the city’s political life.

But clearly the impact of Israel’s war on Gaza transformed politics. Support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s genocidal policies have become mainstream issues. Arabs and Muslims are welcomed. And, this election shattered the myth of a monolithic Jewish vote. Despite the hysterical anti-Mamdani reaction of the Jewish establishment (with some calling him “the enemy of the Jewish community”), the majority of young Jews supported Mamdani, along with more than one-third of all Jewish voters.

Combined, these factors demonstrate how New York City has changed, the city’s Democratic Party is changing, and the Arab-American, American Muslim, and American Jewish communities are changing, all for the better. The bottom line: It is not your daddy’s New York any more.