The People’s Republic of Astoria

What does it take to win an election? And how much would you be willing to give? Last winter, I went to a canvass for my local assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani. He was running a longshot bid for mayor. By primary day, June 24th, 2025, I'm waking up at 4:45 in the morning. Before six, I'm at the campaign's material hub in Brooklyn, taping posters to my car's doors, the hood, the back fender. Everywhere. My task? Drive up and down the west side of Manhattan in the 103 degree ...

How do you run an election during a global pandemic? When lockdowns force everyone inside, do communities fracture, or are there new forms of connection that grow? In early 2020, western Queens was the epicenter of the COVID pandemic in America. And in Astoria, a young activist had just announced his run for the State Assembly. His plan? Activate an army of grassroots volunteers to defeat a ten-year incumbent. Knock on every door. Talk to every voter. But sometimes, the world has other plans....

What does it mean to lose an election by 55 votes? Does it mean you tried and failed? That all your efforts were wasted? Or is it a testament to the work that you put in — a monument to your commitment? Tiffany Cabán was a 31-year-old public defender when she got five short text messages that would change her life. Her friend Alana had just heard that the 86-year-old Queens District Attorney wouldn't be seeking reelection. She thought her friend Tiffany would be perfect for the job. A week la...

Bay Ridge in 2018 looked like Astoria had twenty years earlier. Same working-class enclaves. Same immigrant families living entire lives within ten blocks. Same subway ride to Manhattan getting shorter as the rent got higher. But separated by twelve miles, two months, and other distances that were harder to measure. In November 2018, Jimmy Van Bramer gets a phone call that will define his career. Amazon has just chosen Long Island City for their new headquarters. A backroom deal with the mayo...

One door knock at a time, one phone call at a time, one volunteer shift at a time, Tim Donovan’s neighbors were building something. In just seven years time, they would reshape their community. They’d stop Amazon from moving in next door. They'd elect democratic socialists to nearly every local office. And they’d be instrumental in building a movement powerful enough to elect a 33-year-old democratic socialist and State Assemblyman named Zohran Mamdani to the mayor’s office. But b...

In 2018, ten strangers gathered in a park in Astoria, Queens. They’d set out to do the impossible: elect a young activist to the United States congress. They faced the longest of long odds: no experience, no money, and a ten-term incumbent still in office. But they got to work anyway — climbing hundreds of staircases, knocking thousands of doors. Somehow, they’d win that race, and prove that a new model of organizing was possible. Just seven years later, that same grassroots network, now 100,...