New York’s newly sworn-in mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order Friday to create an Office of Mass Engagement led by his campaign’s field director and veteran socialist organizer Tascha Van Auken.

The new office will help rebuild “our social infrastructure at scale,” Mamdani said at his first press conference at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, and will maintain the social and civic momentum he generated in this year’s election.

"For too long, city government has only listened to the wealthy and well-connected while working New Yorkers remain further and further disconnected from those elected to serve them,” Mamdani said in a statement. “The Office of Mass Engagement will fundamentally change this, creating a deeper connection between City Hall and community organizations, faith-based groups, and everyday New Yorkers looking to make their voices heard. Tascha Van Auken has been instrumental in creating the mass movement that delivered us to City Hall, and she will bring the same urgency, discipline, and principles to her work as Director of the Office of Mass Engagement.”

Before she became the architect of Mamdani’s successful canvassing operation, Van Auken was a field lead on former President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. She credits Marshall Ganz, Obama’s field organizer, with teaching her organizing theories that revolve around the idea that “anybody who wants to can learn leadership skills and step into roles of responsibility and learn how to build power with other people.”

Years later, Van Auken joined the Democratic Socialists of America, inspired by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’s (I) 2016 presidential run. Then in 2018, she managed Julia Salazar’s state senate campaign and Phara Souffrant Forrest’s 2020 assembly campaign. Both DSA-affiliated campaigns were successful.

Van Auken also has experience as deputy campaigns director for the Working Families Party and as artistic direction manager for the Blue Man Group.

Mamdani’s campaign attracted more than 100,000 volunteers. In post-election interviews Van Auken has stressed the importance of continuing “organizing after the campaign is over,” mobilizing the thousands of volunteers who showed up for Mamdani’s grassroots campaign.

"We are all too familiar with wanting to participate in City government and not knowing where to go," Van Auken said of her appointment in a statement. "At worst, when New Yorkers need support — when they are facing eviction, when they are denied unemployment, when they need to find care for a loved one — they do not know where to go. We will demystify government so all New Yorkers can be active participants and have the resources they need to thrive."

Van Auken explained in a recent interview with Democracy Now that her guidance for canvassers was simple: Talk to voters about Mamdani’s affordability agenda, specifically, fast and free buses, universal childcare, and freezing the rent.

The veteran operative’s past political candidates have run on similar platforms that celebrate the Green New Deal, universal rent control and healthcare, abortion access, and more. A highly respected operative in New York’s DSA circles, Van Auken has worked for candidates who support common DSA policy goals, like universal housing and decriminalizing prostitution.

“We can’t just look at electing a few new people as being the end goal,” Van Auken said in 2018. “We have to change the structure by which people get elected, who’s electing them, who’s running — the power dynamic underneath it all.”

New York’s new Office of Mass Engagement will, among other things, lead engagement campaigns that “organize New Yorkers to participate in City decision-making”; “proactively reach communities that have historically been excluded from policymaking”; and oversee the already-existing Public Engagement Unit, the Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, and the NYC Service.