Back during Michelle Wu’s first run for mayor of Boston, in 2021, I joined a Zoom call to help boost support for her strong climate policies. Wilson, for instance, entered politics by founding Seattle’s Transit Riders Union, which won free bus rides for young people across the city. Mamdani clearly knows how to communicate ebullience, a talent that is all the more potent for its scarcity in current political life. (Where Republicans now specialize in rage, Democrats tend toward the anodyne—think Chuck Schumer and his “very strong” letters to Trump.) Usually clad in a white shirt and skinny tie, he’s somehow reminiscent of J.F.K., who campaigned with a twinkle in his eye.