Zohran Mamdani IE
- Ads
- Production
- TV
New Yorkers for Lower Costs was the official independent expenditure supporting Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for mayor.
Zohran Mamdani had a powerful message on affordability, but a tight spending cap left his campaign massively outspent by the right-wing billionaires supporting Andrew Cuomo. New Yorkers for Lower Costs needed a modern TV and digital persuasion program that could help spread Mamdani’s message clearly, credibly, and at scale.
The Challenge
Because Zohran’s campaign participated in the city’s matching funds program, it had strict limits on fundraising and campaign spending. Meanwhile, Cuomo and his right-wing billionaire allies were flooding the airwaves with tens of millions of dollars in TV, mail, and digital ads to support his campaign.
To compete, we had to scale smart, reaching persuadable voters with creative that would actually resonate with them. Polling revealed that older Black and Latino men, too often overlooked by traditional persuasion programs, were key to moving the needle. With a limited budget and a quick-approaching election, we needed to produce powerful ads that would hit home with the right people, fast and put them on the biggest screens we could find – from TV and CTV to taxi cabs and mobile.
The Approach
Creative Development
To reach these key audiences, we produced high-end, 30-second cinematic TV ads, shot on location in New York City with a local director and crew who were fans of Zohran themselves.
Each spot was grounded in lived experience and designed to center the people hit hardest by rising costs. Pushed Out was also filmed in Spanish for Spanish-speaking audiences.
In total, we produced 12 ads across the primary and general elections.
Creative Testing
Before launching our creative, Middle Seat partnered with Blue Rose Research to run randomized control trial (RCT) tests — the gold standard in measuring real-world persuasion.
Unlike firms that rely solely on polling or focus groups, we use RCTs built around Average Treatment Effects (ATEs) — a more rigorous measure of actual opinion change. The testing isolated which messages shifted support for Zohran Mamdani versus Andrew Cuomo, and by how much, across multiple voter segments.
Results showed clear, quantifiable movement. Day in the Life generated a +8.2% persuasion lift overall, while Pushed Out delivered a +5.6% lift, with the largest gains among Black and Hispanic men, our primary target audience.
Buying Strategy
Our mixed-media strategy reached voters across TV, CTV, digital out-of-home, and social. We secured direct deals with Univision, BET, Peacock, Disney, ESPN, New York Times, CBS and others to make sure our message was showing up where it mattered at the most efficient costs.
From geo-targeted ads for young people to saturation TV buys across Spanish-language stations, our placement strategy was designed to complement the campaign’s limitations — and expand Zohran’s coalition in key neighborhoods.
The Outcome
$1.7M
total spendWe ran a full-scale TV and digital program.
Across the primary and general elections, we ran 12 ads in two languages with a total spend of over $1.7 million. That investment allowed us to test, optimize, and scale creative that made an impact in a race where the campaign itself was outspent.+8.2%
persuasion lift overallVoters moved decisively toward Mamdani.
One of our best testing ads, Day in the Life, generated a +8.2% increase in support for Zohran Mamdani and a -7.0% drop in support for Cuomo, showing clear movement among undecided voters.+10.7%
Black men over 35 and+10.3% Hispanic men over 35
We reached persuadable voters.
Testing showed exceptional gains among key persuasion audiences, especially older Black men and younger Latino men — groups frequently underserved by traditional media.The Impact
Even with a fraction of our opponents’ budget, our paid media team built a fast, effective program with cinematic-quality creative that delivered measurable persuasion gains – and helped deliver a landmark progressive win.
Our program amplified Zohran Mamdani as the leader on affordability and reached voters often overlooked or rarely reached. The results set a new benchmark for how targeted persuasion media – especially TV – can be high-impact, high-quality, and cost-efficient, with art and analytics working in sync. Our program provided not only a measurable persuasion lift, but a new standard for how progressive I.E.’s can win smarter—on both quality and cost.
Testimonial
Middle Seat was an incredible partner throughout the entire IE. They helped deliver Zohran’s message in powerful, high-impact creative that resonated deeply with voters. The ads they produced were creative, polished, and data-driven — we saw in the testing how their ads moved Black women in the primary, and Black and Latino men in the general. They navigated placement strategy artfully when our budget was just $200k and scaled up to over $1.7m by the end of the campaign. We couldn’t have asked for a better team.
Regina Monge, Chair of New Yorkers for Lower Costs