This is how the party aligned with Mamdani helped the Ada Colau of 2019

BarcelonaJune 2017. Catalonia is in turmoil amidst the independence movement, on the cusp of a summer that would mark a turning point in Catalan politics. But while the discussion focuses on the October 1st referendum, Barcelona En Comú, led by then-mayor Ada Colau, organizes a municipal summit that brings together 180 cities and some 700 activists from the international left in the Catalan capital. This is Fearless Cities, an event that will later expand to the United States and Europe. There, a connection is forged that will be key to BComú's mobilization strategy from then on: that of the Working Families Party (WFP), a like-minded organization. to the new mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdaniand a new hope for the left in a time of rising far-right sentiment. The first contact occurred when Colau became mayor, at the request of this party, due to the victory of the BComú candidacy in the 2015 elections. However, the relationship between the two groups grew even closer in the lead-up to the 2019 campaign, when Colau managed to retain her position thanks to the PSC's Ernest Maragall.

But what is the WFP? It is a left-wing organization that has tried to carve out a niche within the American two-party system by attempting to promote more progressive candidates within the Democratic ranks—although, in some elections, they have also fielded their own candidates. Zohran Mamdani was one of those candidates, and in fact, on the day of the municipal elections, the mayor did not cast his vote in the Democratic voting line: he cast it in the WFP line. a gesture that did not go unnoticed in the local pressLeaders of Barcelona en Comú also maintained contact with the party during a trip to Las Vegas, when figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders were beginning to emerge.

20,000 doors knocked

But the turning point came in the 2019 campaign, Colau's first after winning (against all odds) the first contest against Xavier Trias by a margin of 17,000 votes. In this context, BComú's team received guidance from the World Fund for Popular Participation (WFP) through two experts in citizen mobilization, Nelini Stamp and Valery Alzaga, with the aim of improving a key technique for reaching their constituents: door-to-door canvassing. These sessions revolutionized the party, which soon began studying voting data in Barcelona's districts to try to adapt the American methodology to the city. A key figure in this relationship was BComú's head of international affairs, Kate Shea Baird.

As Enric Bárcena, then head of mobilization for BComú, recalls, there was the challenge of "overcoming prejudices" against incorporating ideas from the Americans, on the one hand, and adapting the strategy to the Catalan electoral system (where, unlike in the United States, there are no voter registration lists to guide door-to-door canvassing). "But it turned out that talking to neighbors is a very Mediterranean thing," recalls Bárcena, now an advisor to Comuns in the Catalan Parliament. From that idea came one of the slogans for the door-to-door campaign: "Do something radical. Talk to your neighbor"

With this strategy, leaders and activists knocked on 20,000 doors before the municipal elections, according to party data, following a pilot test in the Sant Antoni neighborhood. The methodology included noting the duration of each contact and tracking the topics that came up in conversation, which, according to Bárcena, had more to do with concerns about the state of the city than with the Process, contrary to what had been anticipated. But, beyond the electoral objectives, the party values how this technique, which they repeated in 2023, "gives a voice" to the citizens and makes them participants in the political conversation, also as a way to combat disaffection. "It helps to take the pulse of issues and conversations that are happening on the street," notes an activist who participated and who emphasizes that, in addition, it allows them to reach people who wouldn't normally approach a campaign stall.

Mamdani's hope

For BComú, door-to-door canvassing was a "decisive" factor in their 2019 results, but also in recruiting members to a party, BComú, that was barely five years old and still lacked momentum: that same year they welcomed 300 new members, some of whom would eventually become neighborhood councilors, or even a thousand. Six years later, the relationship between BComú and the WFP continues. They have conducted joint training sessions in Berlin with the housing union movement and collaborate on working networks in Puerto Rico and Latin America.

Sources within the Comuns party don't hide their enthusiasm (and even hope) for Mamdani's victory in New York, at a time when BComú is striving to establish its profile against a PSC that is leading in the polls, while searching for a candidate to replace Colau. The former mayor has already ruled out running in the primaries to choose the mayoral candidate, scheduled for January. In the name of Gerardo Pisarello, which this summer was strongly rumored as a reliefThe writer and activist Bob Pop has unexpectedly joined the list, who has already expressed his willingness to take a step forward.