In 2023, Astoria became notable for having a democratic socialist at every level of elected government. The neighborhood elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress in 2018, and Zohran Mamdani to the State Assembly in 2020. (Back when he was still a longshot, Mamdani used to plan his mayoral run in the Astoria branch of Qahwah House, a Yemeni coffee shop.) In 2021, it elected Tiffany Cabán, an attorney endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, to the City Council, and in 2022, it elected Kristen Gonzalez, another D.S.A. endorsee, to the State Senate. Observers of this political confluence have dubbed it the People’s Republic of Astoria, or a part of the Commie Corridor, a wider term that also includes nearby Greenpoint and Long Island City. A running joke is that candidates endorsed by D.S.A. regularly “do Assad numbers”—a reference to Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator—as if it were no contest.