I got Mamdani wrong, he’s been great. So I ponder what can I learn from this in terms of reading candidates better. Lots of people want to jump straight into their pet policy positions. Others are all about the slick social media strategy. I think this misreads it. You end up with people being like “your posters need a cool typogarphy.” What made Mamdani work is genuine authenticity and kindness. Those are the winning traits that can manifest in many different ways and many different candidates.