HKS Lecturer Advised Zohran Mamdani on Sustaining Momentum, Avoiding the ‘Obama Trap’

Harvard Kennedy School lecturer Marshall L. Ganz ’64 met with incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani in August to advise his campaign on how to sustain a grassroots movement once in office.

Ganz, a political organizing scholar who played a central role in Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, said Mamdani’s team was keen to avoid a widely reported misstep of Obama’s: sidelining the organizing base that elected him.

En route to taking down former governor Andrew Cuomo in Tuesday’s mayoral race, Mamdani — a 34-year-old New York assemblyman and democratic socialist — mobilized an army of more than 100,000 volunteers, breathing life into a beleaguered Democratic party.

Now, he must deliver.

“A lot of the discussion was about what comes next,” Ganz said. “How to avoid the Obama trap, how to avoid having built a really great organization and just dissipating it.”

“That’s what they’re up to now,” he added. “They're trying to learn from the past, not to repeat it.”

One way Mamdani’s team is doing that, Ganz said, is by directing his supporters toward a new advocacy nonprofit, Our Time for an Affordable NYC. Launched on Thursday, the organization’s stated aim is to put the energy of Mamdani’s volunteer base toward a new task: getting his agenda enacted.

“They’re building an organization parallel, but not owned by Mamdani — but parallel in values and orientation to the campaign,” Ganz said of the nascent nonprofit.

Ganz, whose role as a consultant was first reported by The New York Times, was first brought onto the team by field organizer Tascha Van Auken, also an Obama alum. Over the course of the campaign, Ganz ran training for Mamdani staffers.

“The deep investment that they made in leadership development — nobody’s done that since the Obama campaign,” Ganz said.

Ganz claimed he didn’t have much to change about the campaign, which already “had it right” when he was recruited, he said.

“Sometimes, wisdom is recognizing a good thing and supporting it, rather than saying, ‘Oh, this sucks. Do it my way,’” Ganz said. “That’s the arrogance of our political class, and it’s the arrogance of the consulting industry. But that’s not what this was.”

A spokesperson for the Mamdani campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Ganz’s involvement with the campaign.

Mamdani has sourced input widely in preparation for taking office, including from Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, deputy mayor for health and human services in Bill de Blasio’s administration, and liberal policy analyst Matt Bruenig. (Bruenig wrote in a statement that he was focused on policy ideas and implementation, and had not worked with Ganz.)

And though Obama did not endorse Mamdani’s campaign, the former president called him twice between the primary and general election. They spoke most recently on Saturday last week, where the two discussed the challenges of implementing a policy vision.

Thus far, Mamdani has tapped a transition team that balances progressive bona fides with substantial political experience — including former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan as well as staff who served under the mayoral administrations of Eric Adams, Bill de Blasio, and Michael Bloomberg.

Ganz, for one, is interested in how Mamdani’s success can pave a new path for Democrats. Though the mayor garnered national attention for his savvy marketing and digital presence, Ganz said the campaign was successful because of “the humanity of it.”

“James Carville was famous for saying it’s the economy, stupid,” Ganz said. “I’d want to say it’s about the people, stupid.”

“It’s a movement in the making,” he added.

Ganz, who attended Tuesday’s election night party, said the celebration was centered around volunteers. There were no VIP rooms, he noted, and it was the field organizer, Van Auken, who addressed the crowd, rather than a donor or adviser. The crowd, like Mamdani’s base, was young.

“I probably raised the median age by — well, I was an outlier, to put it that way,” Ganz quipped. “It’s hopeful, it’s energetic, it’s aspirational.”

Mamdani is now faced with the task of channeling that energy toward the transition into office and the unenviable task of governing a city with a $115 billion budget and 300,000 municipal employees. Ganz said it wasn’t clear what his role would be in that process, but he is ready to help.

“I want to be of service. I want to be involved in any way I can,” Ganz said. “I really think it matters.”

—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.

—Staff writer Tanya J. Vidhun can be reached at tanya.vidhun@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @tanyavidhun.