Announcing that he leads “a movement that won the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party,” Zakhorn Mamdani held a raucous rally of more than 3,000 supporters in Washington Heights, Manhattan, on Monday evening to show that his mayoral campaign is evidence of politics far broader than just a fight for city government.

The Democratic candidate and devoted democratic socialist, who rose from virtually nothing after an unexpected June primary victory to a national phenomenon, trails by a sizable margin in the polls. While many of the rally-goers stressed that victory should not be taken for granted, Mamdani used his microphone to urge people to view their movement as a response to what he calls the “darkness” of the Donald Trump administration and “half-measures” of Democratic leadership.

“Over the last nine months we have watched the person with the most power in the world spend enormous energy targeting those who have the least,” Mamdani said. “Our movement is a movement in which we know exactly who and what we are fighting for. We are not afraid of our ideas. For far too long we have tried not to lose. Now it’s time to win.”

Mamdani linked what he is trying to push out of the Democratic Party to the tradition of achieving meaningful changes in other moments that had seemed hopeless for organizers.

“The same questions that were asked of us were directed at organized labor, at the civil rights movement, at anyone who had the courage to demand a future they hadn’t yet seen. Could they wait? Did they see that they were asking for too much?” said Mamdani. “They knew we did not have the right to determine the scale of the crisis we face. We can only decide how we respond.”

A reference to Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who lost to him in the primary but is now running on the independent line, Mamdani tied the message to a broader call – not asserting that he is like Trump or a long-term failure of Democratic policy. The event also featured WNBA star Natasha Cloud and former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan; one moment of ridicule was the description of Chi Ossé as a “sad, sad figure of Rumpelstiltskin.”

Mamdani’s focus was on the future as he sharply addressed the billionaires, whom he called an “existential threat” to New York.

“I am here to acknowledge one thing: they are right,” Mamdani said amid the applause. “We are an existential threat to the billionaires who believe that their money can buy our democracy. We are an existential threat to the broken status quo that hides workers’ voices beneath corporations. And we are an existential threat to New York, where hard work does not allow for a good night’s sleep.”

– Zakhorn Mamdani

And his outlook extended beyond the election week: Mamdani accused billionaires of portraying him as a threat to be neutralized in the global fight for democracy.

“We are living in times we read about. I know that for many of us, when we look back at moments in history that echo today, where tyranny looms and state violence operates with sinister relish, we ask ourselves what we would do. We should not be surprised. The time is now,” he said. “And I am proud, looking at this crowd of New Yorkers, who despite despair continue to believe in a world better than this.”

Not only Mamdani used the night to speak to national themes. Letitia James, the New York State Attorney General, who last week was nominated with Trump’s backing, entered the hall to a standing ovation – the first public appearance since charges were brought by the president’s former attorney.

Shortly after, she raised a fist in the air in a sign of protest.

“I stand on solid ground. I will not bow, I will not break, I will not retreat, I will not capitulate”

– Letitia James

In the end, the event underscored that federal-scale politics is increasingly threading through New York’s urban vantage points, where local leaders are trying to steer national discussion in a new direction in the coming months before the elections.