There are five days until Election Day, and I’m dressed as a Labubu, on my way to a Halloween party for mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. At the Market Hotel, Bushwick’s version of a Berlin nightclub, I get in line behind Santa Claus and someone in a cape patterned with brownstones, who tells me she’s dressed as Mamdani’s proposed rent freeze. Next to us, two angels in pink diamanté wings and sunglasses are yelling into microphones.
The event is being thrown by Hot Girls for Zohran, the grassroots collective working independently from Mamdani’s official campaign to rally young voters and canvas for the frontrunner. In many ways, they’ve pioneered a new era of political campaigning, one that’s playful, sexy, and perfectly engineered to appeal to young voters. The hot-girls blueprint has proved so effective that Andrew Cuomo’s camp copied it, and founders Cait Camelia and Kaif Kabir have been approached by other politicians seeking advice. “It’s definitely something that we hope will continue in the future,” Kabir tells me over the phone before their party. “But I have a feeling it will.”
In Bushwick, the Market Hotel is steeped in New York’s underground music scene; it was once a haven for punk and indie bands, and musicians used to sleep in cubbies. Stepping inside feels a little bit like stepping back in time, until I glance across the disco-balled dance floor and see two girls dressed as Charli xcx and a Jet2 holiday, a UK travel company’s discounted vacation package that became a popular audio meme over the summer.
It was “essentially the song of the summer,” the Jet2-costumed 38-year-old, Sierra Reed, tells me (meaning, derogatory). “Andrew Cuomo is a Jet2 holiday. He’s terrible.”
Reed, who says she’s done some canvassing for Mamdani and “lives in Cuomo-ville Upper East Side,” makes it clear she doesn’t want to get ahead of herself, despite the movement’s growing momentum. When I ask her how she feels about Cuomo, she takes a long pause as the music pulses between us. “I feel that he’s a representation of the past and what we’re trying to move away from,” she says. “The government has worked for very few and not the many.”
Meanwhile, “Charli xcx,” a.k.a. 18-year-old fashion student Alexandra, introduces herself to say she came across tonight’s party on the Market Hotel website, saw “hot girls,” and didn’t clock that it was in support of Mamdani.
“I got this shirt at the Brat tour in April,” she shouts, as the music amplifies and the room fills. “I’m such a big Charli girl, but also a party girl, you know what I mean?”
“Are you Charli?” someone yells, interrupting us.
“OMG, I love it,” Alexandra screams back. “We should take a picture.”
The organizers tell me they sold 250 tickets to tonight’s party, and by 8 p.m., the bar is buzzing. Tickets were originally $20 per person, but because of the heavy rain, they offered two tickets for $30, with all the proceeds going back into their programming to cover the venue, talent, videographers, and decor. On the menu is the Hot Girl Elixir, a deliciously sweet vodka, lime, and cranberry concoction priced at $15. There’s also the Chani Potion, if you prefer gin, named for astrologer Chani Nicholas, a vocal Mamdani supporter who has over half a million followers on Instagram and is offering tarot readings for early arrivals in a back room. A table lined with rainbow crayons has been set up opposite the bar for people to write notes. “I wish to banish Cuomo to Florida,” reads one in pastel blue and purple.
I ask 32-year-old Christine Pagano what she ordered, and she confirms it’s a Hot Girl Elixir, adding, “It’s delicious; only a hot girl would know.” Pagano is dressed as a Tylenol bottle, a clear nod to President Donal Trump’s controversial comments linking use of the medication during pregnancy to autism in children. She has canvassed for Zohran for a while and met like-minded friends in the process.
“This campaign is really unique; it’s very sexy, and the branding is so fun,” Pagano tells me. When I ask her if she’s voted yet, she says she’s waiting until Election Day.
“I love the camaraderie of the day voting. I want my sticker,” she adds. “I changed my flight to Florida so I could go on the day and tell my dad, who is a Republican, that we won.”
Next to her stands 26-year-old Momo, who has 713K followers on Instagram and tells me, “I love Zohran.” He is dressed as the lobby boy from Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, and stands next to a friend dressed as Austin Powers, who puts his fake teeth back in before he addresses me.
“Now it’s looking like a landslide,” Momo tells me. “I think when they look back, they’ll see there was a lot of work that wasn’t accounted for. It’s a little too late for Cuomo.”
A young DJ wearing huge glittery silver hoops takes over the set, and the dance floor fills. There is lots of leather, velvet, and black lacey bunny ears. The tarot list gets longer and longer, and a couple dressed as Fiona and Shrek become the focal point of the party. “It’s popping,” a girl in a Penny Lane coat shrieks at her friend. Someone painted entirely blue enters the conversation.
As I leave, people are still trickling in. Someone in the foyer is telling their friend that their roommate wanted to vote together and she had to make up an excuse. I glance back and see rent freeze dancing with Austin Powers, while Jet2 holiday is still talking to her friend. Tylenol is nowhere to be seen.
Someone dressed as Curtis Sliwa, I’m told, was announced as the costume party winner later on in the night. She wore a red leather dress and beret, and held a pill box that had “THC” and “Crohn’s” scribbled across it in sharpie.
In the last few days of the mayoral race, Mamdani has been busier than ever, campaigning well into the night. Yesterday he met with senior citizens in Fort Greene, addressed canvassers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and held a late-night news conference in Queens. In between stops, he made the time to appear on Track Star, a viral social media show where guests listen to musical clips and have to guess the artist. Then, while his young canvassers were partying in costume, he was visiting nurses and bus operators in the city working on the night shift.
“We ended the night on Diversity Plaza with a promise: my administration will fight just as hard for the New Yorkers who keep our city running while most of us sleep,” Mamdani posted on X at 2:40 a.m.
I ask Camelia as I get to the stairs what she’d do if he made an appearance.
“I would tell him good luck,” she says, “Next time I see you, you’re going to be the mayor of NYC.”
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