A cost of living crisis, a rising progressive tide, and a coordinated grassroots campaign led to a reversal of fortunes for local democratic socialists who gained their biggest foothold to date in the Central New York political landscape. When Maurice “Mo” Brown declared victory in his race against Bill Magnarelli, he delivered the crescendo to democratic socialists’ resounding performances in statewide primary elections. Brown became one of eight Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates for state office to win Democratic primaries against incumbents in 2026 when he won the race for the New York State Assembly’s 129th District.  Brown and key campaign staffers across several interviews with Central Current characterized the upset as the culmination of 10 years of frustration with the Democratic establishment, paired with optimism that the party’s voters, progressive or not, will embrace candidates offering visions bolder than the status quo. “This is a political revolution,” said Jo Bennett, a candidate who won their race for Onondaga County Legislature’s 15th District.  DSA’s success was actualized not by dollar amounts but doors knocked.  Through campaign messaging and conversations, Brown’s team connected policy proposals to practical concerns for prospective voters, he and others said. When Brown took to Instagram to announce his win, campaign manager Ayden Whitted stood next to him. Whitted is the campaign worker who Brown most credited with helping Brown overcome the power of Magnarelli’s name recognition and purse (the incumbent assemblyman spent more than twice what Brown expended). Whitted, a Manlius Pebble Hill graduate, only began working on the campaign full-time in mid-May after returning from his freshman year at Columbia University. Brown described Whitted as a crucial contributor to Tuesday’s success, saying he transformed Brown’s campaign “from a Toyota Camry to a Maserati.” “We were able to reach people, we were able to convince them, and we were able to let them know that there is a choice — that they don’t just have to circle the same box that they’ve been circling for the last 26 years,” Whitted said in an interview on Thursday with Central Current. Brown’s campaign and Whitted are demonstrative of where Democratic politics appear to be headed in the coming years. Younger candidates are positing that progressive policies will achieve solutions to the kitchen table issues that they say the establishment has failed to address. That movement is growing locally. Tuesday’s success built on progressive wins in the Onondaga County Legislature and Syracuse Common Council.  A crop of Democratic progressives — many of them political newcomers and younger than their party predecessors — flipped control of the legislature for the first time in almost half a century. Meanwhile, Councilor Hanah Ehrenreich, a democratic socialist, defeated incumbent Amir Gethers for a position on the council. Those trends mimic downstate races. Democratic socialists and their allies dominated the Democratic primaries in New York City, springboarded by endorsements from the city’s democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani last year pulled off one of the biggest political upsets of the century, defeating Democratic titan and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on an affordability platform in a battle that reflected the ideological war within the Democratic Party. Three Mamdani-endorsed candidates swept their Congressional races last week, including two democratic socialists who unseated entrenched moderate Democrats.  Within a month of Mamdani’s and Ehrenreich’s victories, Brown said, the “Affordability Slate” — Brown, Honeywell, and Bennett’s shared policy platform — came together. Brown’s team included 30 remote interns who reached out to voters, edited social media posts, and researched policies and donors, Whitted said. Those interns supplemented a team of canvassers whose engagement got voters excited to support a candidate responding to an affordability crisis, Whitted said. In Syracuse and New York City, progressive success hinged on communicating persuasive plans to achieve affordability for average Americans. Magnarelli argued his connections and experience could help him ply the system. Brown argued he could challenge it.  “People in this district want affordable health care. They want affordable child care, and if you reach people where they are, you present that vision to them, you’re able to convince a lot of people,” Whitted said. “And I think that will be the story of this campaign.” An affordability crisis Brown’s template, like that of his downstate counterparts, came from the elder statesman of American democratic socialism: Bernie Sanders.  The jubilance at the Affordability Slate’s watchparty on election night was the result of a decade of dissatisfaction. The three DSA candidates campaigning on affordability were responding to years of rising costs of living pushing average Americans to the brink of financial crisis.  The Brookings Institution, a public policy research center, in Dec. 2025 published a report analyzing affordability for middle-class families across 160 metro areas, including Syracuse. The report found that one-third of American families cannot afford basic necessities, a national trend mirrored in Syracuse and across upstate. As costs of essential goods rise faster than earnings, Americans are also struggling to keep up with rising costs of housing, health care, gas, and groceries. Brown got his start in politics in 2016, first knocking doors, then serving as a delegate for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. Sanders, a democratic socialist, characterized that campaign — rooted in policy proposals aimed at fighting social and wealth inequality — as the beginning of a political revolution against an untenable economic status quo for average people. Sanders lost in 2016, but his dark horse campaign against former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination has inspired a wave of progressive candidates across the country to pursue the ideals he championed. Brown is one of 17 New York candidates endorsed by Sanders this year; 12 candidates have won their races, three have lost, and one is heading to a recount. “Fundamentally people want a government that stands up for working people and rejects corporate interests, and that’s what I’m going to deliver for this community,” Brown said on election night. ‘Razor-thin margins’ Genevieve Garcia Kendrick, the field director for Honeywell’s campaign and a DSA member, and DSA have built the organization beyond elections. When she joined the organization last year, the organization was built on mutual aid, a social practice that sees groups pooling together resources to provide valuable services to residents who have fallen through the cracks of various social safety net programs.  For the last year, the local DSA chapter spent a bulk of its time combating food insecurity, giving away food and giving clothing to those in need. After seeing community members’ needs grow, Garcia Kendrick said, the chapter knew they needed to combine local mutual aid efforts with transformative electoral action. In December, Brown, a DSA member, recruited Bennett and Honeywell to run alongside him as a slate. Both candidates are well-known progressive politicians who have in years past tried and failed to secure elected office in the county.  This time, however, they were buoyed by how they can relate to the inescapable material questions faced by families all across the region. Volunteers for the affordability slate knocked on the doors of 4,000 families in the 129th Assembly District, as well as the legislature districts in play for Bennett and Honeywell, said Beau Williams, who coordinated volunteers for the affordability slate’s outreach efforts. “Affordability really made the most sense for what these candidates can change in office, and I think it’s at the forefront of everyone’s mind right now,” Garcia Kendrick said.  Honeywell lost, as she did last year, leaving room for questions about Syracuse DSA’s inroads versus that of its New York City sister chapter. Despite that, local progressives say the affordability slate’s performance is encouraging. “Seeing an unambiguous victory for our movement is showing us that people-powered campaigns, like we see here, can fight and win,” Williams said. “We, as New Yorkers, can come face to face with Goliath, and you can say, ‘bring it on,’ and fight and win. Even if it’s by razor-thin margins, that’s because people believe in our movement.” ‘This is just the start’ Soon after polls closed at 9 p.m. Tuesday, the mood in the Westcott Theater shifted from revelry to tense anticipation as results began to trickle in. The downstate races were decisive, the upstate tallies bittersweet: a win for DSA in the 15th District, a loss in District 8. All the while, the Brown-Magnarelli tally idled.  As results from early voting ballots in the 129th district began to update after a delay, some of the energy in the theater deflated. The initial results showed Magnarelli commanding a decisive lead. But then, a reversal of fortunes. Whitted, the campaign’s crucial player, took to the stage to reassure attendees that the screen was only displaying early voting tallies. Whitted declared that election day votes from several precincts — including the Westcott neighborhood itself — remained uncounted. “We’re still in this!” Whitted yelled, to the more than 100 progressives gathered in the epicenter of Syracuse’s progressive hotbed. Brown and his supporters watched as votes, some from the very neighborhood where they stood, carved away at his opponent’s lead. Within the hour, Brown had taken the lead. A week later, he clinched the win.  After Brown closed the gap, Syracuse City Auditor Alex Marion, who broke with other leading city Democrats in supporting Brown, praised the legislator’s campaign for its outreach efforts. “Big money gets involved in campaigns, but campaigns still matter,” Marion said. “Mo ran a great campaign that didn’t involve hundreds of thousands of dollars falling out of the sky from other places.” The curtains have finally fallen on the drama in the 129th District, but the results appear to have incited the beginnings of a new story. Multiple attendees at the Westcott Theater watch party told Central Current they intend to run for office in ensuing electoral cycles. For instance, Williams, who coordinated hundreds of volunteers for the affordability slate, plans to vie for a seat on the Syracuse Common Council in 2027. He added that DSA could eye multiple of those seats. “We already have one democratic socialist in the Common Council, but we think on a city level we can do more,” Williams noted. Those challengers may benefit from the insight of campaign operatives like Whitted who now know what it’s like to drive winning campaigns, newfound supporters and DSA elected officials — should Brown and Bennett win their general election races.  Bennett said on election night that victory was not the end goal, declaring “this is just the start” after winning. The local DSA party that carried Bennett and Brown to victory believes the same of their political future. State Sen. Rachel May, one of the few establishment politicians who endorsed Brown against the 27-year incumbent, saw in Brown’s race a harbinger of the Democratic Party’s future. While May doesn’t identify as a democratic socialist like Brown and Bennett, she said their wins pointed Democrats away from “the status quo.”  On stage, Bennett delivered a blunter message. “One thing that needs to be clear is the Dem Party needs to understand this is where the party’s going,” he said. “So either get out of the way or step up.” The post How democratic socialists reshaped the Central New York political landscape appeared first on Central Current. ...read more read less