The Myth of the Grassroots: How Zohran Mamdani’s $6.3 Million Campaign Proves He’s No Different Than Cuomo’s Political Machine

🔍 Introduction: A Manufactured Underdog, A Familiar Machine

Today, June 20, 2025, Zohran Mamdani—mayoral candidate, self-proclaimed revolutionary, and darling of New York’s progressive left—publicly begged the NYC Campaign Finance Board to lift the spending cap on his campaign. His stated reason, amplified across social media, was the ominous presence of “Andrew Cuomo’s Republican billionaire SuperPAC—the largest in city history.”

It was a familiar message, painted in stark terms of David vs. Goliath. Yet, a forensic examination of Mamdani’s own operation reveals a striking irony: despite their vastly different political brands, Mamdani’s campaign, when peeled back, functions remarkably similarly to the very “corporate political machines” he claims to oppose. This isn’t grassroots; it’s astro-turf, branded in Brooklyn, heavily subsidized by public dollars, and executed with the sophisticated coordination of a top-tier establishment campaign.

This post takes you on a journey behind the revolutionary curtain, demonstrating how Mamdani’s “revolution” leverages the same structures of power, influence, and professional machinery as his most prominent opponent, Andrew Cuomo.

💰 Section 1: The Multi-Million Dollar Illusion of Underdog Status

Mamdani’s narrative of a scrappy, underfunded movement is contradicted by the cold, hard numbers. According to the NYC Campaign Finance Board (CFB) records, his campaign has already pulled in a staggering $8,758,911 in total disbursements as of the latest filing period (covering activity through June 9, 2025).

This makes Mamdani the top recipient of public matching funds in the mayoral race thus far. He has effectively leveraged the city’s matching funds program, designed for grassroots candidates, into a publicly-funded ATM, converting social media clout into millions from the city treasury. That’s more than many New York families will see in a decade—and it’s coming straight from taxpayers, not plutocrats.

The irony is stark: while Mamdani decries “billionaires,” his primary rival, Andrew Cuomo, also benefits from powerful, well-funded external support. Cuomo’s allied SuperPAC, “Fix the City,” has indeed raised over $10 million, according to early June NY1 reports. Yet, the CFB has already accused Cuomo’s campaign and “Fix the City” of illegal coordination, leading to his campaign being docked more than $1 million in matching funds.

🤝 Section 2: Beyond the Candidate – PACs, Partners, and Parallel Playbooks of “Quiet Money”

Mamdani postures as an outsider, but his campaign is tightly integrated into a web of powerful leftist political organizations—each operating its own form of PAC, advocacy wing, or grassroots machine. This mirrors the complex ecosystem of traditional campaigns, albeit with different labels and often, less transparent financial flows and an army of paid professionals.

🟥 1. NYC Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Mamdani is a card-carrying member and received an early endorsement from NYC-DSA.

The NYC-DSA Political Action Committee (PAC) is registered with the NYC CFB. You can view their independent expenditures on the CFB’s search portal. While their direct financial contributions to Mamdani might be limited, their robust, highly organized field operation—a disciplined, existing force estimated to include hundreds of volunteers—runs parallel to Mamdani’s campaign, knocking doors and driving turnout.

Crucially, this operation is overseen and coordinated by NYC-DSA’s own paid staff and strategic consultants, whose expertise is rarely disclosed as a direct campaign expenditure. When hundreds of pre-trained volunteers hit doors under centralized command, the effect is indistinguishable from a formal field operation—just without the price tag or reporting burden.

🟩 2. Working Families Party (WFP)

The WFP officially endorsed Mamdani for Mayor in the 2025 primary and actively promotes his campaign across its platforms, including a prominent feature in their 2025 Primary Election Voting Guide.

Unlike informal groups, the WFP is a full-fledged political party with a substantial paid staff and array of consultants (for strategy, polling, communications, and more) at both state and national levels. While their direct expenditures for Mamdani might be modest, the WFP itself is a powerful entity backed by national donors like George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and Susan Sandler’s Hopewell Fund (OpenSecrets profile for WFP).

🟦 3. Make the Road Action / Center for Popular Democracy

Make the Road Action (a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization) endorsed Mamdani, calling him “a movement candidate.”

This organization itself is a major player, operating with significant paid staff, including executive leadership, policy experts, communications teams, and professional organizers, funded by substantial revenue from foundations, government agencies, and unions like the United Steelworkers, Robin Hood Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund (InfluenceWatch profile for Make the Road New York). Their voter outreach operations—staffed and resourced independently—regularly engage in Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) pushes that directly benefit endorsed candidates.

🟨 4. New York Communities for Change (NYCC)

The rebranded successor to ACORN, NYCC endorses Mamdani and frequently coordinates issue-based canvassing that mirrors campaign talking points. Like Make the Road, NYCC is heavily funded by organizational contributors, including progressive foundations and major labor unions such as SEIU, Communications Workers of America, and United Federation of Teachers.

🟪 5. “New Yorkers for Lower Costs” PAC

While Mamdani rails against “billionaire SuperPACs,” his campaign is also benefiting from its own version of direct PAC support. This independent expenditure committee, described by JNS.org as the “largest PAC supporting Mamdani,” has received $100,000 from the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Unity and Justice Fund Super PAC, through a $25,000 contribution on May 30 and a $75,000 gift on June 16, 2025.

This direct PAC funding, funneled through an intermediary, directly mirrors the ‘billionaire SuperPAC’ model Mamdani decries from his opponent. It may not be called ‘Fix the City,’ but ‘New Yorkers for Lower Costs’ plays the same role—injecting capital through proxies and avoiding fingerprints.

If Cuomo has a traditional SuperPAC, Mamdani has a “SuperOrg” – powered by both its own funds and extensive “quiet money” contributions from organizations with heavy paid staff and consultants – and now, increasingly, direct SuperPAC support. Their functional reliance on outside influence and opaque financial flows, when all intermediaries are peeled away, is remarkably similar.

🎯 Section 3: Professional Production, Not Organic Growth – The Cost of “Grassroots” Aesthetics

Mamdani’s campaign doesn’t just knock on doors—it launches merch, curates viral videos, and floods Instagram with stylized narratives of working-class revolution. This is the playbook of a polished, modern campaign, indistinguishable from any well-funded rival.

Note: While a live store link wasn’t immediately found in search, the eBay result for a “Zohran Mamdani for Mayor New York City 2025 Political Campaign Pinback Button” supports the existence of branded merchandise.

High-Profile Media Coordination

Beyond direct advertising, Mamdani’s campaign benefits from an orchestrated digital and media presence that mirrors the outreach of any major political operation. Influencers and digital creators—many affiliated with progressive nonprofits—share campaign content daily, often blurring the line between “supporter” and unofficial surrogate.

When your campaign needs both a stage manager and a merch team, and secures national late-night TV slots, you’re not organizing a revolution—you’re producing one.

📉 Section 4: The Preemptive Excuse: Deflecting from the Machine

Mamdani’s June 20 plea about “billionaire interference” is more than a funding complaint—it’s a carefully crafted narrative designed to deflect from his own formidable resources. The logic is clear: if Mamdani loses, it won’t be because his well-funded campaign failed to persuade; it will be because the “billionaires” cheated.

This tactic is a page right out of the establishment playbook: control the narrative, cast blame elsewhere. But when you’re the top public fund recipient, endorsed by every major progressive machine in the city, directly benefiting from six-figure PAC funding, and leveraging massive amounts of “quiet money” from powerful, externally funded organizations that employ their own professional staff and consultants, you don’t get to cry foul.

🧠 Conclusion: Two Sides, One Coin

Zohran Mamdani may brand himself as a revolutionary outsider, but his campaign’s true nature reveals a different story. He doesn’t need a billionaire funder in his personal donor list because he has something arguably more powerful: a publicly funded, PAC-backed (including direct Super PAC support through “New Yorkers for Lower Costs”), influencer-boosted political machine, carefully designed to look like a revolution while running with the sophisticated efficiency of a corporate startup.

This machine is amplified by vast, often unquantified “quiet money”—the free resources, volunteer power, and coordinated efforts of well-funded allied organizations, whose ultimate funding sources are often far removed from the “grassroots,” and who employ their own professional staff and consultants.

New York voters deserve better than political performance art. They deserve transparency from candidates who either embrace professional political operations honestly or actually build the grassroots movements they claim to represent. What Mamdani has built isn’t grassroots organizing. It’s Broadway-level political theater, complete with professional production values, coordinated messaging, and a cast of characters playing predetermined roles.

The coordination reveals the actual strategy. The documented timing exposes the calculated coordination. The spending records and the immense value of “quiet money” tell the real story. Behind every revolution is either authentic organizing or professional marketing. The $6.3 million question, amplified by the unseen value of “quiet money,” is: which one is Zohran Mamdani actually selling, and how is it truly different from the status quo he purports to fight?

Written by Sam E. Antar
© 2025 Sam Antar. All rights reserved.