Lydia Little

Emma Mintz, operations lead on Mayer Mamdani transition team.

When Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral primary election in June of 2025, New York City and the whole country were shocked. Who was this guy? 

Over the next few months “this guy” would gain enough support to become youngest South Asian and Muslim mayor of New York City. To get there, Mamdani had a lot of help—like all politicians running for an elected office.

Emma Mintz is a New York City resident who has worked on seven campaigns since 2019. Among those include Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential race and Kamala Harris’s presidential race in 2024. Most recently, Mintz was the operations lead on Mamdani’s transition team, which entailed setting up the systems for their team to go out and scout the people who would become the deputy mayor, police commissioner, and more. 

On other campaigns, Mintz’s experience has been to make sure that voters who cast a ballot get that ballot counted, which is called voter protection. “I really like voter protection because it feels very tangible—you literally get to help someone make sure that their vote counts, so it feels like you’re saving a vote,” Mintz said.

But what about young people who can’t vote yet? Mintz believes that the best way to get involved in politics is to volunteer on campaigns and tell people who can vote about issues that are going to affect you—even if you can’t vote. Although those issues might be different from the ones that affect older people, it’s important for everyone to understand what others are going through and why those things should matter.

It’s important now more than ever for everyone to be informed on politics and what’s going on in the world. Mintz became interested in politics as a consumer of them, and she says she tends to lean toward more traditional news sources. However, she also said that there are so many social media accounts and websites that serve as alternatives, and those can be great for teens.

Mamdani campaigned to make New York City more affordable, and that is something that affects everyone. “His agenda generally makes it so that people can stay; people who grow up in New York don’t have to leave, people who are first out of college can actually afford to live in the city that they want to live in. New York should be for New Yorkers,” Mintz said.

She also talked about how Mamdani really connected with voters by making complex issues easy to understand. From the rent freeze to fast and free buses, the things Mamdani campaigned for would make New York City an easier place to live in. “He really believes in listening to New Yorkers,” Mintz said and she has high hopes that Mamdani will go through with what he promises.

Before working in politics, Mintz worked as a lawyer. “I was working at a law firm and I didn’t want to do that anymore, and the thing that I was most interested in doing in my free time was politics, so I decided that that would be the best way to make a career, to do the thing that I like to do for fun anyways,” she said.

As students and young people growing up in NYC, we have a responsibility to be aware of what is going on in our city. Mintz is one person out of so many who help protect our freedoms and opportunities in this city by advocating for people who they believe will make real change. With Mamdani beginning his first term, we may see a lot of change.

Emma Mintz, for one, is looking forward to this administration. “I’m extremely excited about [Mamdani’s] win and very, very excited about the start of his mayoral term,” Mintz said. “There’s a lot of excitement around it. I think a lot of people in the city are really excited and I think that it could bring a real change. Yeah, I feel like there are a lot of great things to come.”