As a resident unlocks the door and walks into an apartment building in Astoria, Caleb Green and Aafia Syed look at each other and duck inside before the door closes.

A smartphone app guides them to apartments occupied by registered Democrats. No one’s home at the first two, but at the third a young man opens the door, and the novice canvassers nervously launch into their script.

“Are you Gregory, by any chance? We’re volunteers for Zohran Mamdani. He’s running for State Assembly,” Syed said. “We’re wondering if we can collect your signature. It’s just a petition to put him on the ballot.”

Before they can recite the rest of the spiel, Gregory nods affirmatively, reaches for the clipboard and signs. They barely remember to hand him a flyer, before he closes the door.

Gregory, who declined to give his name or discuss his thoughts about the DSA and local politics, will represent 25 percent of Syed’s and Green’s haul of signatures on this cold and rainy evening.

Local members of the DSA are very focused on electing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders as president of the United States. At the same time they’re trying to channel support for Sanders to send Democratic Socialists to the New York State legislature with the insurgents’ playbook: tap into shifting neighborhood demographics, recruit hundreds of supporters and use social media, technology and lots of shoe leather to find new voters.

“Our opponent is going to spend more money than us,” said Aaron Taube, while training them, “but we are going to knock a lot of doors and talk to our neighbors and bring a more just vision for New York to our neighbors in Astoria.”

Both ideologically and strategically, the idea is to build on the frustrations with Albany and Washington that led to the election, in 2018, of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens/Bronx) to Congress and Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) to the State Senate. A third DSA example whom organizers look to for inspiration is 32-year old public defender and political novice Tiffany Caban, who came within 60 votes of becoming the Queens District Attorney.

The goal is to pull the Democratic majority in Albany further to the left and, ultimately, force the party to make good on long-standing promises like state-level single-payer healthcare; more aggressive taxes on the wealthy; broader tenants’ rights; desegregation of schools; and ending solitary confinement.

“Frankly, you don't need a majority of the 150 legislators in the Assembly,” said Mamdani, a tenants’ rights organizer who works on preventing evictions. “What you need is to have a critical mass, a critical minority, really, of voices who refused to be cowed.”

In addition to Mamdani, Ocasio-Cortez and Salazar, the DSA is backing two other candidates challenging veteran lawmakers in the Assembly; and two for open seats in the State Senate and Congress. Many other self-identified progressives who say they’re ideologically allied with the DSA but not full-fledged members are also primary-challenging Democratic incumbents.

Aravella Simotas, who has represented Astoria in the Assembly for a decade, said it’s not clear to her what the challengers are clambering for that incumbents like her aren’t already working toward. She said that since the Democrats gained a majority in the State Senate -- which previously vetoed the Assembly’s initiatives -- the party has steadily begun enacting a progressive agenda. She highlighted legislation last session that addressed abortion rights, workplace discrimination, rent regulations, and a ‘Green New Deal.’

“I don't disagree with any of the issues that they've put forward,” Simotas, 41, said of the DSA, “from criminal justice reforms, to decarceration, to making sure that we expand healthcare, to making sure that we protect our environment -- I don't know how you can run from the left of me. There is no room.”

Coincidentally, both Simotas and Mamdani were born in Africa -- she in Rhodesia (now Zaire) to parents from the Greek diaspora, and he in Uganda, to parents whose forebears were from India. Both families fled unrest and landed in Astoria. But there, their stories diverge. Simotas’s working class family owned a delicatessen, where she sometimes worked, and Mamdani’s parents are a famous filmmaker and a well-known Columbia University anthropology professor.

Mamdani says that his candidacy isn’t just about a set of Democratic Socialist policies but also about forging a social movement that brings together both urban professionals and community members who share his South Asian and Islamic heritage.

“There's only one Muslim in the Assembly, one in the State Senate and one in the City Council,” he said. “It’s all just crumbs really, in terms of representation.”

Only about 16 percent of registered Democrats in this Assembly District participated in last summer’s District Attorney primary, and Muslim and South-Asian participation were around 8-9 percent, according to an analysis by the Mamdani campaign.

“We want to double the participation rates in both of those communities,” he said.

Given Simotas’s deep roots in the Greek community, her backers in other communities, backing by the county Democratic party and her deeper pockets -- she has almost $100,000 cash on hand according to the most recent filing, and he has less than half that -- Mamdani will need to make good on his pledge to find new voters. But city politics watchers say he will also need to turn the increasing gentrification of Astoria to his advantage.

“I think you’re going to see the strongest insurgent challenges this year in districts where the demographics are changing.” said Democratic strategist Jerry Skurnick, citing the examples of Ocasio-Cortez and Salazar.

“AOC lost the African-American areas [of the Bronx], but she carried the gentrified white areas [in northwest Queens] overwhelmingly and got like 40 or 50 percent of the Hispanic vote,” he said. “Salazar was able to because she was able to combine a share of the minority vote with an overwhelming amount of the white progressive votes.”

That’s similar to the coalition Mamdani is trying to assemble, but with a focus on South Asian voters, rather than Hispanic ones.

Skurnick said another key stratagem that worked for Ocasio-Cortez that subsequent DSA candidates have been able to rely on less is the element of surprise -- and being underestimated Davids to party machine Goliaths, like former Queens Congressman and party boss Joe Crowley.

“I think there's more energy on the left than there was last time, and some of these candidates are very attractive,” he said. “But they may not do as well, because the incumbents are going to be better prepared to handle them.”

Simotas’s only previous contest was when she first ran for office -- though both of her challengers dropped out before party primary day. She conceded she is working harder on reelection this year than previous cycles, but she said getting out and talking to constituents is what she does, anyway.

“I find it exhilarating because it gives me an opportunity to talk to my neighbors in the cold, at the park, at a senior center, at a diner,” she said. “They bring me their issues and questions, and I'm able to talk to them about how we can improve their lives.”

We talked inside Mike’s Diner, a neighborhood stand-by, warming up from leafleting out in the cold. While we were outside, in the shadow of the Ditmars Boulevard elevated subway tracks, she encountered constituents both who praised her and others who gave her an earful.

“Where’s our elevator to the subway?” said a long-haired man in a Mets cap who declined to give his name. “Are you part of the Queens Machine? They hid all those Tiffany Caban ballots. ‘Vote early and vote often’ is their motto.’

Others said they like what she’s done for the neighborhood, especially with regard to school funding.

“I have no problem with socialists,” said Owen Evans, 44, a financial analyst for Bloomberg LP. “I grew up in the U.K., so by American standards I’m practically a communist. But I do think if you’re going to have more progressive people make challenges for the state Assembly, it makes more sense for them to challenge in more conservative areas, rather than taking on someone who’s liberal, but, perhap, they think, not quite liberal enough.”

Like Evans, Shea Rogers, 34, paused to greet Simotas. She said she knows and respects her Assemblywoman.

Rogers hadn’t heard about the Democratic Socialist challenge, but she said she thinks it’s a good thing.

“I think people treat the word “socialist” as a nasty label,” Rogers said. “But I think if you look at the countries of Europe, where democratic socialism is sort of the way of getting things done. They have universal healthcare and things we think we just can’t do in this country.”

She said before the June 23rd primary she would look into the DSA candidate and weigh his proposals against Simotas’s record.