That was apt messaging, because this wasn’t Sunnyside, Queens, mind you, or Bushwick, Brooklyn. Valdez spoke from a grassy lawn on the Cambridge Common, and the progressive Democrats there hoped she was addressing the next crest in a Mamdani-fueled blue wave.

“There is just a real profound sense of optimism and a way in which Zohran’s race turned to ordinary people as a source of that strength,” said Evan MacKay, a Cambridge Democrat who is challenging a sitting state representative for the second time and for whom Valdez and others gathered on a recent Saturday. “That’s something that we’re absolutely trying to do here.”

While it makes sense the Mamdani playbook would find a home in such a bastion of progressive politics as Cambridge, candidates for other offices are also putting the approach to the test in more mainstream parts of the state where a Democrat campaigning under a socialist banner would face a more uncertain reception.

On the North Shore in the Democratic primary for the Sixth Congressional District, two candidates have name-checked Mamdani on social media in hopes of boosting their own bids for Congress. An attorney running to be Norfolk County’s top prosecutor has mimicked Mamdani’s branding, down to the font and color scheme his campaign uses. And in Somerville, a state representative running for Senate dubbed Mamdani “America’s Favorite Mayor” in a cooking video about affordable housing.

They, and others around the country, are hoping to join the groundswell of democratic socialists’ victories in Colorado, Florida, and elsewhere that effectively sprouted in New York a year ago with Mamdani’s victory.

“It really does show that there is a real hunger for this kind of politics, for democratic socialist politics,” said Aaron Fernando, a 25-year-old from Astoria who works as a chief of staff for the assembly member who succeeded Mamdani in Albany after he became mayor.

Fernando admitted it feels “frankly bizarre” to hear Mamdani’s name resonate with voters outside New York City. Still, he said, “Cambridge seems like a natural place for that to continue.”

He was among the activists and volunteers from New York City who traveled north to Cambridge to knock doors for MacKay, a democratic socialist running against state Representative Marjorie Decker — a progressive Democrat herself, who edged MacKay in a recount two years ago.

Brion Rock, who is originally from Boston and now lives in Washington Heights, said he traveled to Cambridge after meeting MacKay in New York last year. Rock, 34, served as a lead field organizer for Mamdani’s campaign.

“The fight for dignity for workers, the fight for people power — it’s not a New York thing . . . it’s a human thing,” said Rock, who wore a red New York City Democratic Socialists jersey for the event. “The solidarity from Boston to New York is cool to see.”

Brion Rock 34, traveled from New York City to knock doors for Evan Mackay, a Cambridge Democrat and state representative candidate.Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

Maeve Andersen, a New York-based political data strategist who also worked for MacKay’s 2024 campaign, conducted electoral research for the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA, chapter during the Mamdani campaign.

She said “Zohran is the peak example” of a blueprint for DSA-endorsed, union-backed candidates winning office.

The election of Mamdani, she said, “is not the end of it, and it wasn’t even the start.”

Erika Uyterhoeven, a Somerville state representative running in a crowded Democratic primary for state Senate, recently posted a tutorial on making a Korean seafood stew while talking about affordable housing. The video kicked off with an image of Mamdani’s face inside an animated pink heart.

“If America’s favorite mayor can do it, we can too,” said Uyterhoeven, the only current member of the state Legislature who’s a DSA member. (The Boston DSA chapter, though, narrowly voted against backing her in the race.)

Bethany Andres-Beck, a software engineer and activist running in a six-way Democratic primary to replace Representative Seth Moulton in Massachusetts’s Sixth Congressional District, recently posted a TikTok video of themselves eating a cone at Richardson’s Ice Cream in their hometown of Middleton.

“Not all socialists can be mayor of New York City,” the caption read. “Some of us have to hold it down in Middleton.”

One of Andres-Beck’s primary opponents, Jamie Belsito, has referenced Mamdani, Valdez, and a slate of other democratic socialist and progressive candidates in her own campaigning messaging, too. “This is the future of the Democratic party,” she wrote.

Jim Barakat, a public defender running in a seven-way race for Norfolk district attorney, has modeled his campaign website to match Mamdani’s, down to the unique font and striking blue-and-yellow color scheme. He said the branding is, obviously, intentional.

“Zohran Mamdani has demonstrated that progressive candidates can break through,” the Braintree Democrat said. “I want voters to immediately understand what I stand for.”

Strategists and experts say, however, the outreach to voters must also feel organic. And while liberal cities with younger demographics, such as Cambridge, may resonate with the Mamdani association, not every community will.

“It’s an aesthetic that works for urban New York City,” said Travis Ridout, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which studies and tracks political advertising. “Would I try this in rural Tennessee or Montana? Maybe that’s not the right aesthetic. There may be something geographic about this.”

Ridout, author of “Political Advertising in the United States,” said New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent similar messages in her first campaign in 2018, using bold, slanted typeface and design that evoked old-school union posters and farmworker movements. The aesthetic, he noted, was then mimicked around the country.

“You are trying to convey you are a different type of politician,” he said. “Branding matters in politics.”

Ariana Jasmine Afshar, a New York-based content creator who made short-form videos for Mamdani’s campaign, said part of its strength was to bring together creators with followers like herself to help grow his social media presence and, subsequently, his supporter base.

“Watching his rise and how successful he’s been . . . I think it’s lit a fire for a lot of people that it’s possible,” Afshar said, noting how other Democrats, including New York congressional nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier and Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed have taken to Mamdani’s online approach. “The model has been proven to work.”

However, others warned, branding doesn’t always work.

Tobe Berkovitz, a professor emeritus of advertising at Boston University, said Mamdani proved skilled in using modern techniques and style online, but “not everybody is.”

“If you sort of become a pseudo-Mamdani, it might or might not work,” said Berkovitz, who has consulted on presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial campaigns. “It’s a TikTok world, and that means communicating parasocially to the voter: Being brief, being powerful. Not everybody can do that.”

MacKay rejects that they are trying to be Mamdani. They met Valdez over a decade ago canvassing for Bernie Sanders’ first presidential campaign, and stayed connected through the United Auto Workers, which represents workers across a wide range of industries, including colleges and universities. MacKay worked as a data science teaching fellow at Harvard, and Valdez — the Democratic nominee for New York’s Seventh Congressional District — worked as a visual arts program assistant at Columbia University.

Valdez, speaking last Saturday in Cambridge, said voters are feeling a “real, deep dissatisfaction with the establishment,” regardless of whether they have a New York ZIP code.

“It’s creating a wave of progressive victories all over the country,” she said, “that will trickle down to the local level as well.”

Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross.