As of today, @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social is holding a double-digit lead over disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo in most polling around the race to become NYC’s mayor. In an interview with Teen Vogue, Mamdani credited the power of in-person community for bringing young people into his campaign.

NEW 🚨 @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social made time to catch up with @teenvogue.com in advance of Tuesday's elections 🗳️ we talked about the campaign's base of energized young people, and why politics isn't just about the ballot box — it's about "a sense of belonging in the city that you call home."

And yes, Mark Zuckerberg was in the room.

Across the Hudson River, Ali is described as Zohran Mamdani's twin flame: a progressive Muslim running against a disgraced former governor—in his case, Jim McGreevy—churning out campaign memes on Instagram and TikTok. Also like Mamdani, Ali's seen support from progressive politicians across the US.

In 2017, Mussab Ali was elected to Jersey City’s Board of Ed at 20, becoming school board president 3 years later. Now 28, equipped with organizing and nonprofit experience, he’s running on affordable housing, fast and free buses, and stopping corrupt practices like pay-to-play in local politics.

welcome to @teenvogue.com new series Challengers: talking to candidates either challenging an incumbent candidate who isn't meeting the moment—or challenging the political system's expectations of what a candidate can look like up first @mussabali.bsky.social, 28, who might be Jersey City's Zohran

I very much like the idea of this series. Teen Vogue is really out here meeting the moment.

Lia Smith, a transgender student at Middlebury College in Vermont, has been confirmed dead by local authorities. Smith, 21, had been reported missing by her father on October 19.

via @wired.com: Today’s high schoolers face an uncertain road ahead. Evolving factors like AI and the Trump admin are changing what most professions could look like in the next 10 years, let alone 50. Now, students interested in STEM are asking: What can my career look like, and how do I get there?

Online censorship is one of the many levers of state power right-wingers have been pulling to try and snuff out queer and trans existence. But instead of fighting back, some Democrats are helping them at the controls. Read the full #OpEd from @fightforthefuture.org

🥁 new @teenvogue.com as politics editor, I'm now writing our newsletter The Take (with a refresh from our art team 😍) first one focuses on plugging into organizing post-No Kings, from ICE watch to salting a workplace. it is 100% free and sends Wed + Sat! sign up! www.teenvogue.com/newsletter/t...

Nearly a year after the 2024 election, Democrats are still trying to figure out what went wrong. In the midst of this soul-searching, a new piece of advice has appeared: “Don’t say climate change.” But why? Read the full story:

Evelyn Parts, who goes by Evie, was banned from competing with her college's varsity cross country and track team because she is a transgender woman. Now, she's taking action. On August 14, she filed a federal lawsuit against the NCAA and Swarthmore College. Read the full story:

there are lessons from No Kings' scale that serve us all. if this is the sum of your protest experience, what's next for you? if you are someone plugged into movement and direct action outside electoral politics, can this be an opportunity for you to radicalize someone and bring new resources in?

"Let this be a springboard, not the end of your journey." Teen Vogue's @leximcmenamin.com speaks with “No Kings” organizer @leahgreenberg.bsky.social of @indivisible.org on leveraging change even after the protest. Read the full story:

Christopher Cade's summer was supposed to be a federal internship and campus work study. Both got called off due to Trump administration policies. "For them to close down all these programs, that essentially told me that I wasn't cared about.” Read the full story:

Nine universities across the country, including MIT and Dartmouth, were given a test of loyalty from the Trump administration. Now, students are demanding their schools not sign the president’s 10 point compact agreement. Read the full story:

new @teenvogue.com: students at the 9 colleges invited to Trump's "college compact" have been pushing their universities to reject it. + a bit of a scoop: @sunrisemvmt.bsky.social tells us that they're launching a national coalition to support students pushing their schools to fight the Trump admin

'Su voto es su voz.' Your vote is your voice. These are the electrifying words with which Willie Velásquez led the movement that forever transformed Latino political power in the United States. Read more on how Velásquez mobilized countless voters in his twenties and thirties:

In 2023, then-President Biden enshrined Indigenous Peoples Day. Now Trump is blaming left-wing "radicals” and “arsonists” for "canceling" Columbus.

This is “in the broader context of 2 going on 3 years of Columbia's indifference towards the wellbeing and health and safety of its students and workers,” an officer with Student Workers of Columbia told @teenvogue.com. “[Their willingness] to cooperate with the [admin] is part of a larger pattern.”

Mary Retta on the Trump admin's attacks on higher ed and diversity itself, from the "compact" to their hostility enabling colleges to seemingly stonewall their unions and dispose of roles @teenvogue.com "I think the numbers of Black and certain other minoritized students and faculty will decrease.”

According to July 2024 research from the Movement Advancement Project, at least 256 bills have been introduced in state legislatures attacking DEI in different settings — a number that is no doubt higher now, in September 2025. Read more: www.teenvogue.com/story/trump-...

"Slightly less covered is the wealth of Boricua history that makes his art as powerful as it is, including over 100 years of fraught Puerto Rico-U.S. relations that led to his arrival. This history is crucial for understanding the significance of where Bad Bunny stands now, & where he is going next"

Under the Trump administration, fashion is losing its playfulness and taking cues from authoritarian aesthetics and conservatism.

"Just as police tracked civil rights, Black Power, feminist, and anti-war protesters in the 1960s and ‘70s, today they snoop on organizers taking a stand against ICE, Israel’s war on Palestine, and Atlanta’s Cop City." Read more: www.teenvogue.com/story/police...

"where's the left media?" "where's fact-checked reporting?" lately @teenvogue.com has run profiles: of Assata Shakur's revolutionary history; a 23-year-old Palestinian journalist; what's happening in Chicago's ICE protests; and organizing supporting LGBTQ+ youth 📍 www.teenvogue.com/news-politics

“It often feels like it's a dystopian world that we live in, and the only thing that is real is Gaza and what's happening there.” Politics editor @leximcmenamin.com speaks with 23-year-old journalist Plestia Alaqad about her book, leaving Gaza and the impact all of it has on young people.

“I could talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment. Trust me. But that is not the story,” Thunberg said during a press conference following her release. Read more:

The United States has officially entered a government shutdown 🫠 Here's what you need to know ⤵️

our Assata obituary by Marian Jones is up now @teenvogue.com. "Shakur was a militant Black revolutionary who rejected the doctrine of nonviolent civil disobedience... a symbol of 'revolutionary Black feminist agency, a living embodiment of successful resistance to anti-Black state repression.'"

“Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” a statement from the Jane Goodall Institute read.

To some, mainly some white Americans and government officials, Assata Shakur was a controversial figure. To others, including many Black Americans, she was a revolutionary, oppressed and wrongly convicted. Read more:

Assata Shakur's story, Marian Jones writes in @teenvogue.com, is "also a reminder of the impact of COINTELPRO, and how it continues to impact activists today through technological surveillance, the criminalization of protest, and the targeting of dissidents." Shakur passed in Cuba on Friday.

In my @teenvogue.com debut, I spoke with congressional candidate @katmabu.bsky.social about the incident involving her and an ICE agent at the Broadview ICE facility earlier this month, where protests against the Trump administration's aggressive immigration policies are ongoing daily.

new @teenvogue.com: @maiamcdonald.me covers the latest w/ Chicago protests. outside an ICE facility that's come under national focus, protesters and journalists have been arrested and teargassed. @katmabu.bsky.social was shoved to the ground; she says more politicians should be on the frontlines.

Earlier this month, U.S. House candidate @katmabu.bsky.social, 26, was involved in a confrontation at an ICE rally that went viral. “If they are willing to do this to a congressional candidate in front of a bunch of press, imagine what they're doing behind boarded-up windows.” Read more ⤵️

The season 7 finale of "Welcome to Plathville" airs tonight. Here's what Olivia Plath told us about Christian fundamentalism, the show, and deconstructing:

Ya girl is in @teenvogue.com! Thank you @hifortesa.bsky.social for putting this story together! share.google/xIxbTlCd2i2i...

We are begging J.K. Rowling to find a new way to spend her time.

Some people are less than excited about Bad Bunny headlining the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show, and took to social media to spout racist backlash about it: www.teenvogue.com/story/bad-bu...

Maddie Block, the 28-year-old daughter of New Mexico State Senator Jay Block, speculated on TikTok about why her father and other state-level politicians took what she calls a “propaganda trip” to Israel ⤵️

Recent reporting alleges that civilian men are impersonating ICE agents to kidnap and sexually assault immigrant women, with cases in North Carolina and New York. Unmasking ICE agents is important, but it’s a Band-Aid on a broader, systemic crisis. Read @kylietcheung.bsky.social's full Op-Ed ⤵️

#RaptureTok has quickly picked up speed over the last few weeks, with many Christian TikTokers showing how they're preparing themselves and their families for the big event. So what happens when the rapture doesn't come? ⬇️

"Efforts to cure autism are built on the false idea that there is something inherently wrong with us." Read the full #OpEd asserting that RFK Jr.'s autism “cure” is less about Tylenol than it is "fixing" autistic people who do not want or need fixing. ⬇️

Via @them.us: Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a sweeping trans bathroom ban with fines up to $125,000 into law on Monday. Abbott shared a video of himself signing the bill in a September 22 X post, writing, “I sign a law banning men in women’s restrooms. It is a common sense public safety issue.”

new from @kylietcheung.bsky.social in @teenvogue.com: recently, men have impersonated plainclothes ICE agents to assault women—only possible, she argues, because state agents commit violence with impunity. "To be clear, men wouldn’t be posing as ICE agents and assaulting women if ICE didn’t exist."

#OpEd: "We can’t bury the deeper, driving forces behind why this is happening. This phenomenon is only possible because of the outsized power that state agents — ICE, police officers, prison staff — have always had to abuse and control women and victims' bodies." Read the full story here. ⬇️

During her Teen Vogue Summit panel discussion, @thevivllainous.bsky.social said that despite "this widespread misinformation and demonization where, especially right now, they're painting us all as violent mass sh**ters,” she isn't capable of any such thing. Read more: teenvogue.visitlink.me/C_Mxoh

That’s a wrap! Thanks for tuning into this year’s #TeenVogueSummit and we’ll see you next year! ❤️