🔥 HOT NEWS: Zohran Mamdani didn’t just win an election—his personal story became the driving force behind his rise to NYC mayor ⚡.NH

 Zohran Mamdani speaks to the media during his campaign for mayor of New York City. Ron Adar/Shutterstock

Zohran Mamdani, a complete unknown 10 months before the New York mayoral election, became its winner . And he did so against all odds, without money and without the powers that be on his side.

Much has been written about the keys to its success: a clear message focused on basic needs – rent freezes, free buses, universal childcare… – an army of 100,000 volunteers coordinated to deliver this message, door to door, to three million homes, and a brilliant social media strategy.

But it wasn’t solely thanks to this. Behind it all was a political strategy that used the current mayor’s authenticity to construct a specific political narrative.

Young, immigrant, Muslim, and a democratic socialist

Mamdani’s campaign was based on a clear commitment to authenticity centered on his most intimate and personal traits: he is a young Muslim immigrant (born in Uganda) and considers himself a democratic socialist, a term traditionally taboo in the American political scene.

Instead of distancing herself from all these labels, she embraced them to build an authentic personality and create a credible story without running away from who she is, thus building trust.

In politics, authenticity is often discussed as a personal characteristic: someone is natural, spontaneous, genuine. But authenticity is not just a casual attitude; it’s a strategic decision that transforms a way of being into a communicative architecture that is cultivated, built, and nurtured.

In his case, he used it to become a kind of social media content creator who, instead of delivering institutional messages, used the style that characterizes those platforms applied to his campaign.

Short videos, clear and direct language (in different languages), visits to corner stores, conversations with taxi drivers, interviews or collaborations with influencers … He used everyday life, the stories of ordinary people and the everyday scenarios of many people as a setting and narrative resource.

In this way, he managed to connect emotionally with the different communities of New Yorkers, making many of them see themselves represented in the campaign and perceive Mamdani as “one of us”.

Or, as Immanuel Kant said , by creating “the universal feeling of being part of something,” of belonging to something.

Storytelling : the construction of narratives in politics

But in politics, nothing is accidental. And, although there is a real starting point (the candidate’s personality and authenticity), there is another part that involves narrative construction.

Storytelling is a tool that has been used in advertising to convey messages and values, in education to teach through moral lessons, and in politics to generate images that reinforce concepts and evoke emotions.

As political communication professor Toni Aira aptly points out in his book *Mythologists* , the passion of stories allows for a strong connection with the public. Hence, the image projected by politicians is carefully crafted with the intention of stirring emotions, evoking memories, activating profound ideas, and generating support.

Today, in many cases, looking has replaced thinking, because a powerful symbol is more effective than a lengthy argument. Thus, what matters is no longer what a politician says, but the image they project, their “personal myth” in the eyes of the masses.

The goal is for citizens to connect with politicians on a passionate level, for the politician to explain something that interests them, entertains them, surprises them, that they understand, that they like, but above all, that personally engages them. And stories are a perfect vehicle for this.

Christian Salmon, writer and author of books on the subject such as Storytelling: The Machine for Manufacturing Stories and Formatting Minds , states that this narrative technique is a weapon of mass distraction, a way of using storytelling to convince and mobilize opinion.

For Salmon, election campaigns are duels of stories involving 4 elements, which we can clearly identify in Mamdani’s campaign:

– Storyline : Explain a story capable of shaping the candidate’s narrative identity. In this case, a young outsider with community roots and a commitment to accessibility policies who represents change and an alternative to the establishment .

– Framing : framing the candidate’s ideological message through a coherent language register and by creating metaphors. Mamdani’s message was framed by people’s basic needs (you can’t live in New York), not by abstract economic rhetoric, and he used metaphors like “people power” to give symbolic meaning to collective participation.

– Timing : inscribing the story within the campaign timeline, managing the rhythms and narrative tension throughout. Mamdani built momentum as the campaign progressed, transitioning from the ” outsider candidate ” to “the candidate who can win.” Furthermore, once he won, he launched his transition website, The Work Starts Now , to connect the campaign narrative with the future story of his administration (a continuous narrative).

– Networking : creating a community online and in person. Fostering a contagious environment capable of capturing the public’s attention. He did this with an army of 100,000 enthusiastic volunteers tasked with generating energy and momentum to mobilize the vote and create conversation.

The campaign functioned, in the words of political journalist Makena Kelly , as a kind of “ political fandom ”—a community of passionate fans who share a deep interest in a specific topic—where Mamdani was not only a candidate but also a public figure with a following that proactively created memes and content. This transformed the campaign into a participatory cultural movement, not just an electoral one.

Narratives are neither good nor bad, but they exist.

The use of storytelling , personal and community narratives, the use of networks and cultural mobilization is far removed from the traditional model of posters, rallies and formal speeches and takes political campaigns to a terrain where image, narrative and emotional proximity count as much (or more) than pure and simple ideological discourse.

On the other hand, Christian Salmon points out that we live in a political and social climate where narratives become powerful tools for creating polarization and dividing society into opposing groups. These narratives reinforce conflicts instead of promoting dialogue, as exemplified by Trumpism.

Therefore, it’s important to understand that seduction and persuasion are neither good nor bad in themselves; it all depends on how they are used. They can be used to influence positively or to manipulate.

Understanding how narratives influence our worldview is essential to unmasking manipulation and, at the same time, harnessing those same tools to communicate effectively and persuasively.

Jordi Caballé May, Professor of Creativity, Storytelling and Creative Political Communication, UOC – Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

This article was originally published in The Conversation.