Zohran

The emotional speech against Islamophobia from the NYC mayoral race frontrunner comes a day before early voting begins.

New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani gave an emotional speech addressing “racist, baseless attacks” from his opponents, a day before early voting begins in the race he is projected to win.

Speaking outside a mosque in the Bronx on Friday, Mamdani criticised his opponents for bringing “hatred to the forefront”, noting that their Islamophobia not only affects him as the Democratic nominee for mayor but also close to one million Muslims living in New York.

“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does,” Mamdani said in his speech, less than two weeks ahead of the November 4 general election.

Mamdani, who is currently a member of the New York State Assembly, said that while he had tried to focus his election campaign on his core message of affordability, his opponents in recent days had shown that “Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement”.

His speech also came a day after his top opponent, former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, laughed after radio host Sid Rosenberg said that Mamdani “would be cheering” if another September 11 attack occurred.

Cuomo, who is a member of the Democratic Party but lost the Democratic primary election to Mamdani in June, responded in agreement with Rosenberg: “That’s another problem.”

Basim Elkarra, the executive director of Muslim advocacy group CAIR Action, described Cuomo’s appearance on the radio programme as “despicable, dangerous, and disqualifying”.

“By agreeing with a racist radio host who suggested a Muslim elected official would ‘cheer’ another 9/11, Cuomo has crossed a moral line,” Elkarra said.

“Cuomo’s willingness to engage in this kind of hate speech, on this kind of platform, shows exactly the kind of leader he is: someone who would rather stoke fear than bring people together,” he said.

Speaking on Friday, Mamdani said he had also been “slandered” by Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa on the debate stage, “when he claimed that I support global jihad”, and faced advertisements from Super Political Action Committees that “imply that I am a terrorist, or mock the way I eat”.

He also shared his memories of his “aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11 because she did not feel safe in her hijab”, and a staff member who had the “word terrorist spray painted” on their garage, as well as the advice he had received that he “did not have to tell people” he was Muslim, if he wanted to win elections.

Top Democrat endorses Mamdani on eve of early voting

Earlier on Friday, Mamdani received a long-anticipated endorsement from Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic Party in the US House of Representatives and the representative of New York’s eighth congressional district, which includes the Brooklyn neighbourhoods of East Flatbush, Coney Island and Brownsville.

While Mamdani has earned endorsements from top Democrats, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and independent Senator Bernie Sanders, the vocally pro-Palestinian candidate has struggled to win over other top New York Democrats, such as Senator Chuck Schumer.

Despite the reluctance of some establishment figures within the Democratic Party, Mamdani resoundingly won the party’s primary election to choose its candidate for the general election back in June.

Current NYC Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who did not contest the primary after facing corruption allegations, endorsed Cuomo this week after withdrawing from the race, although his name will still appear on the ballot.

A recently published poll from AARP and Gotham Polling and Analytics shows Mamdani well ahead of his opponents with the support of 43.2 percent of voters.

He is followed by Cuomo with 28.9 percent and Sliwa with 19.4 percent, while 8.4 percent said they were undecided or preferred another candidate.

Cost of living was the main issue for nearly two-thirds of voters, with public safety and housing affordability also areas of concern, in the same poll.

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, pledged Friday to further embrace his Muslim identity in response to growing attacks by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his surrogates that he characterized as “racist and baseless.”

Encircled by faith leaders outside a Bronx mosque, Mamdani spoke in emotional terms about the “indignities” long faced by the city’s Muslim population, choking back tears as he described his aunt’s decision not to ride the subway after the Sept. 11 attacks because she didn’t feel safe being seen in a religious head covering.

He recounted how, when he first entered politics, an uncle gently suggested he keep his faith to himself.

“These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught,” Mamdani said. “And over these last few days, these lessons have become the closing messages of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams.”

At a news conference later Friday, Cuomo accused Mamdani of “playing the victim” for political purposes and denied that Islamophobia existed on a wide scale in New York.

Throughout the race, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has been criticized by Cuomo and others over his criticism of Israel’s government, which he had accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

But the tone of those attacks have amped up in recent days, drawing allegations from some Democrats that Cuomo’s campaign is leaning into Islamophobia in the final stretch of the campaign.

Appearing on a conservative radio station Thursday, Cuomo appeared to laugh along at host Sid Rosenberg’s suggestion that Mamdani would “be cheering” another 9/11 attack. “That’s another problem,” Cuomo replied.

A Cuomo social media account posted, then removed, a video depicting Mamdani eating rice with his hands and describing his supporters as criminals. A campaign spokesperson said the video was posted in error.

At an event endorsing the former governor, Mayor Eric Adams invoked the possibility of terrorist attacks in New York City, seeming to suggest — without explanation — they would be more likely under a Mamdani administration.

“New York can’t be Europe. I don’t know what is wrong with people,” Adams said, standing alongside Cuomo. “You see what’s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism.”

At a debate earlier this week, Sliwa, the Republican nominee, falsely smeared Mamdani as a supporter of “global jihad.”

Asked about Rosenberg’s comments, Cuomo said he “didn’t take the remarks seriously at the time.”

“Of course I think it’s an offensive comment. But it did not come out of my mouth,” he added.

Messages left with Adams’ and Sliwa’s campaign were not immediately returned.

In his speech Friday, Mamdani said he was aiming his remarks not at political opponents but at his fellow Muslim New Yorkers.

“The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker,” he said. “And yet for too long we have been told to ask for less than that, and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive.”

“No more,” he said.

To that end, Mamdani said he would further embrace his Muslim identity, a decision he said he consciously avoided at the start of his campaign.

“I thought that if I behaved well enough, or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith,” Mamdani said. “I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.”

He continued: “I will not change who I am, how I eat, for the faith that I’m proud to call my own. But there is one thing that I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.”

Mamdani, who won the primary in stunning fashion, has faced skepticism from some in the Democratic establishment, particularly over his criticism of Israel. On Friday, Mamdani earned the endorsement of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Cuomo told reporters that Mamdani’s criticism of Israel had made Jewish people afraid to leave their homes.

He also rejected Mamdani’s claim that Muslim New Yorkers have been made to feel uncomfortable in their own city.

“Don’t tell me New Yorkers are Islamophobic. They’re not,” Cuomo said.

“What he is doing is the oldest, dirtiest political trick in the book: divide people,” Cuomo said.

Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 24 (UPI) — U.S. House Democratic Party leader Hakeem Jeffries on Friday endorsed Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor, 11 days before the Nov. 4 election.

Jeffries hasn’t issued a public statement but his endorsement was confirmed in a statement to The New York Times, with sources telling USA Today and Politico about the House minority leader’s plans.

Early voting begins Saturday.

Mamdani, who was born in India and raised in Uganda, is attempting to become the city’s first Muslim mayor.

Jeffries, who serves Brooklyn in New York, had held off endorsing Mamdani, who is a state assembly member serving Queens since 2020.

The state’s two U.S. senators, Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, haven’t endorsed Mamdani.

Mamdani has been endorsed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letita James.

Also, he has been backed by New York Reps. Jerry Nadler, Adriano Espaillat and Yvette Clarke. Two other House members, Ritchie Torres and Dan Goldman, have said they don’t plan to endorse in the election.

And New York Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs said he doesn’t plan to endorse him.

In the June 24 primary, Mamdani, 34, defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, 67, and Mayor Eric Adams, 65. His opponents then chose to run as independents, but Adams dropped out on Sept. 28 and endorsed Cuomo on Thursday.

Mamdani is favored to defeat Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, 71, a Guardian Angels founder and radio show host. President Donald Trump has pressured Sliwa to drop out to give a better chance for Cuomo over Mamdani, whom he has labeled as a Communist.

Jeffries told The New York Times said they have had “areas of principled disagreement,” including Israel’s war in Gaza, but agreed on other matters, such as the desire to retain New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

“Zohran Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy,” Jeffries wrote.

“In that spirit, I support him and the entire citywide Democratic ticket in the general election.”

Jeffries first met with Mamdani in July in Brooklyn before the primary. They met again in August.

Jeffries had said he was focused on the federal government shutdown rather than the New York City race.

“Stay tuned,” he told reporters this week in Washington. “I have not refused to endorse. I have refused to articulate my position, and I will momentarily, at some point, in advance of early voting.”

Jeffries has questioned how Mamdani would implement his policies and combat antisemitism and gentrification.

“We’ve got to figure out moving forward how we turn proposals into actual plans so that he is successful if he becomes the next mayor, because we need the city to be successful,” Jeffries told CNN last month.

Jeffries noted that his district, which includes historically Black communities, has “been subjected to gentrification and housing displacement.”

Mamdani has sharply criticized Israel and the war in Gaza, which Mamdani describes as genocide.

During Wednesday’s debate, he said: “I look forward to being a mayor for every single person that calls the city home. All 8.5 million New Yorkers, and that includes Jewish New Yorkers who may have concerns or opposition to the positions that I’ve shared about Israel and Palestine.”

Hundreds of rabbis had signed a letter criticizing him.

And powerful real estate and finance industries have donated millions of dollars to political action committees opposing his candidacy.

NEW YORK — A few weeks before his stunning loss to Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic mayoral primary, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo put forth a political calculus long accepted as fact in New York: “Being a Democrat,” he said, “it’s synonymous that you support Israel.”

Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, could be on the cusp of shattering that convention.

An unstinting supporter of Palestinian rights, the 34-year-old democratic socialist has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, backed the movement to boycott the country’s goods and pledged to have Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if he sets foot in New York.

In a city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, where mayors have long been expected to make the long pilgrimage to the Jewish state, Mamdani identifies proudly as an “anti-Zionist.”

While he says he supports Israel’s right to exist, he describes any state or social hierarchy that favors Jews over others as incompatible with his belief in universal human rights.

City officials, Mamdani often points out, have no say in American foreign policy. And he has consistently and emphatically rejected claims that his criticism of Israel amounts to antisemitism, promising to work closely with those whom he doesn’t agree with if elected.

But as Cuomo and others have framed the race as a referendum on Israel, political observers say a Mamdani victory could reverberate far beyond New York, offering permission for Democrats to speak out on an issue long seen as a third rail of politics.

“This race is a proxy for where the party goes from here in terms of support for Israel — and that’s causing a lot of consternation,” said Basil Smikle, a former chief executive of the state’s Democratic Party. “We’re treading in territory that we’ve not really dealt with before.”

The ‘most important’ issue in the race

From the beginning, Cuomo has staked much of his political comeback on painting himself as a defender of Jewish security, both in New York and the Middle East.

Shortly before launching his campaign, he announced that he had joined Netanyahu’s legal defense team to defend the prime minister against war crimes charges brought by the International Criminal Court. He cast antisemitism as the “most important” issue facing the city and himself as a “hyper aggressive supporter of Israel.”

Mamdani’s own views, he said, presented an “existential” threat to New Yorkers.

Other candidates quickly rushed to burnish their own pro-Israel credentials, including Mayor Eric Adams, who announced he would run on an “EndAntisemitism” ballot line.

As they competed for support among Brooklyn’s prominent rabbis and other Jewish voters, each equated protests for Palestinian rights with support for terrorism and backed a contentious definition of antisemitism that includes certain criticism of Israel.

Days before dropping out last month, Adams shared a smiling photo with Netanyahu.

The strategy appeared willfully ignorant of polls showing growing public disapproval in the U.S. of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, according to Alyssa Cass, a longtime Democratic strategist.

She said a handful of deep-pocketed campaign donors and some city news outlets “created an impression that you could not ever question Israel, and that impression was completely divorced from reality.”

“The unique dynamics in New York were masking a broader, larger migration in public opinion that had been brewing for some time,” Cass added. “They didn’t realize that the ground beneath them had shifted.”

Shifting political winds

Still, with less than two weeks to go before the election, Cuomo has only leaned into the issue, claiming at Wednesday’s debate that Mamdani had “stoked the flames of hatred against the Jewish people.”

The broadsides have won support from the Anti-Defamation League and pro-Israel donors, like the hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman. But there is little indication that the strategy is working among ordinary New Yorkers.

In a Quinnipiac University poll conducted in early October, 41% of likely voters in New York City said Mamdani’s views on Israel aligned closest with their own, compared to 26% for Cuomo.

A Fox News poll conducted in mid-October found that 50% of registered voters in New York said they identified more with the Palestinians in the Middle East conflict, compared to 44% who identified more with the Israelis.

Those numbers have alarmed some Jewish leaders, who have laid at least some of the blame at Mamdani’s feet. In an open letter circulated this week, 650 rabbis warned that his candidacy has contributed to “rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization.”

Amy Spitalnick, the chief executive of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, cautioned against drawing a direct link between Mamdani’s popularity and his pro-Palestinian stance.

She noted that most Jewish voters remain strong supporters of Israel, lamenting the fact that neither Mamdani nor Cuomo had articulated “the liberal nuanced perspective that most New York Jews hold.”

“Mamdani’s views on Israel matter, but it’s not the issue on which the majority of New Yorkers are voting,” she added. “If he wins, it’s because he ran a compelling campaign on making this city more affordable.”

Weaponization and authenticity

In debates and interviews, where Mamdani often faces a barrage of questions about his views on the Israel-Hamas war, he is quick to shift the focus to his platform, which includes freezing the rent for regulated apartments, making buses free and lowering the cost of child care.

“I have denounced Hamas again and again,” an exasperated Mamdani said during a debate last week. “It will never be enough for Andrew Cuomo.”

At Wednesday’s debate, Mamdani again spoke of his proposal to increase funding for hate crime prevention and his recent outreach to Jewish voters about their fears of antisemitism.

“They deserve a leader who takes it seriously, who roots it out of these five boroughs, not one who weaponizes it as a means by which to score political points on a debate stage,” he added.

But despite months of vitriolic backlash, Mamdani has stood firm on his core criticism of Israel. In his statement marking the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, he condemned both Hamas’ “horrific war crimes” and Israel’s occupation, apartheid and “genocidal war” in Gaza.

Whether or not those views are shared by the broader electorate, the consistency of the message has served as “proxy for authenticity” in the minds of voters, according to Peter Feld, a progressive political consultant.

And it has offered a sharp contrast with not only Cuomo, but other pro-Israel Democrats in New York, including Sen. Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Both have spent weeks rebuffing questions about whether they will endorse Mamdani, indicating they were still meeting and speaking with the Democratic nominee.

“The allies divided up Europe in fewer meetings,” scoffed Cass. “At this point, they’re ignoring the majoritarian view of their voters, and there’s no way around that.”

In recent weeks, Feld said he had spoken to several potential candidates weighing primary challenges to other pro-Israel Democratic incumbents.

“Mamdani changed how candidates and donors think about what is politically possible,” Feld said. “We’ve seen that siding with Palestine over Israel doesn’t make you radioactive. It shows voters that you’ll stick to your principles.”

Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.

Zohran Mamdani, born in Uganda and raised in New York, is in the lead to become the city’s next mayor. His complex identity has sparked debate in the United States. From questions about race to immigrant experiences, his story is challenging the way Americans think about identity, politics, and who gets power.

Sept. 15 (UPI) — With less than two months before the New York City mayoral election, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has endorsed fellow Democrat Zohran Mamdani to lead the city.

Hochul, also a Democrat, issued her endorsement Sunday, penning a New York Times opinion piece.

“The question of who will be the next mayor is one I take extremely seriously and to which I have devoted a great deal of thought,” she said.

“I am endorsing Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.”

Mamdani is the frontrunner in the four-person race that includes incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo running as independents and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Recent polling shows Mamdani has 43% of the support of respondents compared to 28% for Cuomo.

The New York State assemblyman is a democratic socialist democrat who is campaigning on a platform to implement a rent freeze, make bus transit free, offer free childcare for those aged 6 weeks to 5 years and raise the corporate tax rate while taxing the wealthiest New Yorkers a flat 2% tax.

In her essay, Hochul said they discussed several issues, including the New York Police Department, which, according to Hochul, they agreed on the importance of ensuring strong leadership.

The announcement came days after Mamdani told The New York Times in an interview that he intended to apologize for a comment he made in 2020 calling the NYPD “racist,” among other insults.

Hochul also said that New York needs leaders who are willing to put aside their differences in order to stand up against President Donald Trump.

“Mr. Mamdani and I will both be fearless in confronting the president’s extreme agenda — with urgency, conviction and the defiance that defines New York,” the governor said.

“And we must never allow Mr. Trump to control our city like the king he wants to be. Anyone who accepts his tainted influence or benefits from it is compromised from the start.”

Mamdani, in a statement on X, on Sunday night thanked Hochul for her endorsement, saying he is grateful for the governor’s support “in unifying our party, her resolve in standing up to Trump and her forces on making New York affordable.

“I look forward to the great work we will accomplish together,” he said.

“Our movement is only growing stronger.”

The governor of New York state, Kathy Hochul, has endorsed Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a staunch pro-Palestinian advocate who has campaigned for a more equitable allocation of the city’s resources, for mayor ahead of a closely watched November election in the financial capital of the United States.

Writing in The New York Times, the state leader said on Sunday she made her decision after “frank conversations” with her fellow Democrat, who resoundingly won the support of the party’s voters in a primary election in May.

“In our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighbourhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family,” Hochul wrote in the city-based newspaper.

“I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support,” Hochul added.

Mamdani, a 33-year-old left-wing politician who has promised to make buses free and freeze rents for subsidised tenants, won 56.4 percent of votes among registered Democrats in the primary race, easily beating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Yet Cuomo, a pro-Israel candidate who joined a team of lawyers defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against war crimes allegations in Gaza, has taken the unusual move of choosing to stay in the race, reflecting a continued divide within the Democratic Party.

While recent polls suggest Mamdani has a 22-point lead among New York voters, some prominent New York Democrats have appeared hesitant to back him, including US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres, and, until recently, Hochul — though the governor had been more positive in comments about Mamdani than the others.

Speaking in Iowa on Saturday, Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen criticised his Democratic colleagues for failing to endorse Mamdani, accusing them of the “kind of spineless politics” that “people are sick of”.

“They need to get behind him, and get behind him now,” Van Hollen said.

Mamdani, who has campaigned alongside independent Senator Bernie Sanders and progressive Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal in recent days, has received fewer endorsements from centrist Democrats like Hochul, less than two months out from the November 4 general election.

Thanking the governor for her announcement on Sunday, Mamdani acknowledged Hochul’s “support in unifying our party” as well as her “focus on making New York affordable”.

He also praised “her resolve in standing up to Trump”.

Trump has also weighed in on the race, saying Mamdani being “up by 20” in a recent poll shows there is a “rebellion against bad candidates … they’re tired of it”.

“I’m not looking at the polls too carefully, but it would look like he is going to win, and that is a rebellion,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” on Fox News on Friday, describing Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as “my little communist mayor”.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed Mamdani with 45 percent support among likely voters, and a comfortable 22-point lead over his closest rival, Cuomo, with 23 percent.

Repeat Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, who cofounded the Guardian Angels to combat “violence and crime” on the New York subway in the 1970s, is polling at 15 percent, according to the Quinnipiac poll, while embattled incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, running as an independent candidate, has just 12 percent support.

Trump has dismissed Sliwa as a candidate, describing the Republican candidate known for his trademark red beret as “not exactly prime time”.

Mamdani, meanwhile, has portrayed Adams as a “puppet” of Trump’s following meetings between the mayor and the US president and his team. Trump has described Adams as a “very nice person” but has denied recent reports that he offered the mayor an ambassadorship.

NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Sunday urged New Yorkers to vote for Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City, giving the Democratic nominee one of his most significant endorsements to date in the contest to lead the nation’s biggest city.

Writing in the New York Times’ opinion section, Hochul said that while she and Mamdani diverged on some issues, they came together on the importance of addressing the affordability crisis in the city and across the state.

“But in our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family,” wrote Hochul, a fellow Democrat. “I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support.”

The stunning success of Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, in the race for New York City mayor has exposed divisions within the Democratic Party as it struggles to repair its brand more than half a year into Donald Trump’s presidency. Hochul’s endorsement is the latest sign that Democratic leaders who had been skeptical of Mamdani’s left-leaning views are beginning to consolidate around him.

Mamdani thanked Hochul for the boost, saying it’s a sign that “our movement is growing stronger.”

“Governor Hochul has made affordability the centerpiece of her work. I look forward to fighting alongside her to continue her track record of putting money back in New Yorkers’ pockets and building a safer and stronger New York City where no one is forced to leave just so they can afford to raise a family,” Mamdani said in a statement Sunday night. “I’m grateful to the Governor for her support in unifying our party — as well as the work she’s done standing up to President Trump, securing free lunch meals for our kids, and expanding access to childcare.”

In recent weeks, the other candidates in the race — former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa — have intensified their criticism of Mamdani over his platform and past statements ahead of the city’s general election in November.

U.S. House Republican Leadership Chair Elise Stefanik, a New York congresswoman, said Hochul’s endorsement is a sign that the governor is moving left to shore up falling poll numbers.

“At the exact moment when New Yorkers are looking for strong leadership from their Governor with a majority opposing Zohran Mamdani, Kathy Hochul embraces this raging Communist who will destroy New York making it less affordable and more dangerous — once again putting criminals and communists first, and New Yorkers LAST,” Stefanik said in a Sunday statement.

Mamdani soundly defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary. Cuomo has since relaunched his campaign as an independent. Adams, a Democrat, skipped the primary to run as an independent in November. Sliwa ran unopposed in the Republican primary.

Hochul served as lieutenant governor to Cuomo and replaced him after he stepped down in 2021 following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations. He denied wrongdoing during the campaign, maintaining that the scandal was driven by politics.

Zohran Mamdani campaigned for the Democratic nomination for New York mayor on the promise that he would make the largest city in the United States an affordable one.

The 33-year-old Democratic socialist proposed plans that would transform the city – including a free bus programme and freezing rent increases on rent-stabilised apartments – paid for by a heightened income tax for millionaires and an increase in the corporate tax rate.

Those promises catapulted him to ultimately win the mayoral primary 12 points ahead of his next closest competitor, Andrew Cuomo, who had been endorsed by the likes of former President Bill Clinton.

McKayla Lankau, a 25-year-old tech worker, had canvassed for Mamdani’s campaign. She lives in Bushwick, a Brooklyn neighbourhood which Mamdani won by a 79-point margin, and said housing was among the many economic policies that emboldened her to vote for Mamdani.

“I believe that if people are living a better life in a more affordable community, we all will, and Zohran’s campaign fulfilled that from my perspective,” said Lankau.

As the cost of living rises and US President Donald Trump continues a rightward march as he shapes political discourse, many voters feel Democratic leaders have offered little more than symbolic gestures and strongly worded statements.

Mamdani, a three-term state assembly member, presented something different– a campaign centred around grassroots organising over big donors, detailed policies over vague slogans, and the kind of charisma and gravitas that defined other change candidates like Barack Obama’s successful presidential bid in 2008 or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise win of the House of Representatives in 2018.

Affordability was central to Mamdani’s message – and it resonated. But Mamdani also faces another side of New York – the ultra-wealthy investor class. They are the ones who have made New York City known as the epicentre of global finance and commerce. They are a powerful force to be reckoned with, and they are not happy.

“They are mad that they lost, and they’re used to getting their way. They’re used to setting the rules…. Mamdani ran a transparent, clear campaign and New Yorkers showed up in droves to support it,” political strategist Adin Lenchner of Carroll Street Campaigns told Al Jazeera.

Some investors and lenders are threatening to pull out of deals amid fears of new taxes and regulations. Michael Comparato, a managing director at Benefit Street Partners, said he walked away from a $300m hotel investment in New York. “The financial capital of the world could be in the hands of a socialist. Hard to fathom,” he posted on LinkedIn. Comparato did not respond to requests for comment.

While Democratic socialism – an ideology that believes in shifting power from corporations to workers within the framework of a capitalist democracy – is different from socialism, that sentiment echoed across the city’s financial power players.

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said he was “gravely concerned” about Mamdani’s rise, warning that the city would become “economically unviable”. He pledged to support a more “centrist” candidate. Pershing Square, his firm, declined to comment.

“The fear isn’t about economics, I think it’s about power,” Lenchner said. “That doesn’t mean the policy is unsound. I think affordability is economic growth.”

Mamdani’s funding proposals are ambitious but not unprecedented. He would raise the city’s corporate tax rate to 11.5 percent – matching New Jersey next door – up from the current corporate tax rate of up to 7.25 percent. Fortune 500 firms like Johnson & Johnson and Prudential Financial base their headquarters in New Jersey despite its higher rate. Mamdani’s campaign estimates this would generate $5bn annually.

Historically, higher rates haven’t driven business away. In the late 1990s, private sector employment grew at an annualised pace of 2.6 percent, while wages and private sector salaries increased by 9.6 percent.

“I think there’s a lot of exaggeration here on the part of the wealthy investor class on how much this is going to economically harm New York,” Daniel Wortel-London, professor of history at Bard College and author of The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, told Al Jazeera.

Mamdani also proposes a new tax of an additional 2 percent on individuals earning more than $1m. That is projected to raise another $4bn annually. Today, earners who make $1m already pay a combined federal, state and local tax burden of about 46 percent (37 percent of that is the federal income tax set by the federal government).

Currently, the marginal local rate for someone making $40,000 (3.82 percent) is nearly identical to a millionaire’s (3.88 percent), due to New York City’s flat local tax structure for anyone making more than $50,000 annually.

Still, Mamdani can’t unilaterally change tax policy. Any adjustments would require approval from Governor Kathy Hochul. Wortel-London says that shared priorities between Mamdani and Hochul – such as expanding childcare – could create opportunities for collaboration, including on free bus service proposals that would also need state buy-in.

The state already raised personal income taxes on millionaires in 2021 under then-Governor Cuomo, pushing rates to 46 percent (when state, local and federal income taxes are combined), the highest in the country.

Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital and a former Trump White House communications director, warned in a podcast with journalist Katty Kay that Mamdani’s platform could accelerate the migration of wealthy residents to states like Florida. Scaramucci did not reply to a request for comment.

To an extent that is true, according to the Citizen Budget Commission, a New York-based nonpartisan think tank. Because of the millionaire migration, the city missed out on $2bn of tax revenue that ended up going elsewhere.

As per the data, the net negative migration for the highest income earners was highest in 2020 and 2021 – when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak and could have been a major contributing factor behind the move, as was the case all over the country with people moving out of cities – and began trending back towards historical rates in 2022.

With the exception of that period, high-income earners did not leave at a significantly higher rate before or after.

However, just because millionaires are moving out doesn’t mean that new ones aren’t moving in. According to a Henley & Partners report, New York has gained more new millionaires than any other city in the world – up 45 percent from 2014 to 2024.

“Most high earners really don’t relocate just to avoid taxes. They certainly don’t really relocate across the country. Most high-earners are staying in the city for prestige or their family or a culture. I think there have been scares before. We’ve seen it when [former Mayor] Bill de Blasio got in. They were also worried about tax hikes, and they didn’t leave in droves,” Wortel-London said.

Rather than courting the ultra-wealthy, Mamdani’s economic pitch is aimed at small businesses, which employ the majority of New Yorkers. He plans to appoint a “Mom-and-Pop Tsar” to cut red tape, streamline permits, reduce fees and fines (including not charging first-time offenders), and increase funding for small business support agencies by 500 percent. His platform promises to cut business fees in half.

How realistic are the plans?

Nowhere is Mamdani’s message more resonant than in housing. As rents skyrocket, nearly half of New Yorkers say they’ve considered leaving the city, according to the think tank, the 5boro Institute.

His campaign promised to freeze rent increases on rent-stabilised units, which account for about 28 percent of New York’s housing stock, which is important to voters like Lankau, who currently lives in one. These are typically buildings built before 1974 with six or more units. While some newer buildings opt in, they do so in exchange for tax breaks.

Under the current law, rent increases are approved annually by the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, an independent panel appointed by the mayor. Mayor Eric Adams, the incumbent, approved a combined 9 percent hike in his first three years in office, followed by another 4.5 percent earlier this month. If elected, Mamdani would appoint new members to this board and seek to reverse course.

But the proposal has drawn criticism. The New York Apartment Association (NYAA) – a pro-landlord group that backed Cuomo – says a freeze could worsen the city’s housing shortage. Landlords, they argue, may choose to leave apartments vacant rather than perform costly repairs that can’t be recouped through rent increases due to a 2019 law. As a result, tens of thousands of rent-stabilised units are currently vacant.

“Freezing rents will just accelerate the distress and physical decline of these buildings,” NYAA CEO Kenny Burgos told Al Jazeera.

Mamdani’s platform doesn’t currently include a proposal to address these vacancies or to cap rent increases on market-rate apartments directly.

But to elevate pressure on the housing market, which does indirectly impact the cost of market-rate apartments, the campaign has proposed building 200,000 new affordable units over 10 years – tripling the city’s current pace. His housing plan also includes overhauling zoning laws, eliminating parking minimums, and supporting mixed-use development.

“I think those two, hand in hand, [freezes on rent-stabilised units and plans to build more housing] would be the kind of holistic programme that would make New York more affordable,” Lenchner said.

It remains unclear whether Mamdani would adopt policies proposed by Brad Lander, the third-place primary finisher who endorsed him. Lander had proposed converting some city-owned golf courses into housing. Lander did not respond to a request for comment.

Mamdani also wants to raise the city’s minimum wage to $30 per hour by 2030 – up from $16.50. A Cornell University study estimates a true living wage in New York would be $28.54, meaning Mamdani’s proposal would exceed that. It would also tie future increases to inflation and productivity metrics.

Even so, the gap between “living” and “comfortable” is wide. A SmartAsset study found that a New Yorker would need to earn $66 per hour to live comfortably. Mamdani hopes to relieve some of that pressure through policies like universal childcare, free bus service and a public grocery store option.

The city-run grocery store plan would start with one location in each borough to address food deserts. Much similar to city-owned hospitals or public housing, it would not replace the private sector but augment it. Regardless, this proposal has sparked backlash from John Catsimatidis, the Republican megadonor and owner of Gristedes, a local grocery store chain. He threatened to close his stores if Mamdani wins.

Catsimatidis, who donated over $500,000 to Republicans this year, according to Federal Election Commission records, did not respond to a request for comment.

Grocery costs remain politically sensitive. The latest Consumer Price Index shows grocery prices are up 2.4 percent over last year.

Mamdani also wants to make city buses permanently free. He championed a successful pilot programme in the State Assembly, which boosted weekday ridership by 30 percent and weekend ridership by 38 percent. Making that permanent would require cooperation from state leaders and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which is state-run, and might require some concessions on his part.

“The kind of momentum and energy behind this campaign makes a powerful case in arguing before Albany to make those kinds of investments, giving him that kind of public mandate to pressure state lawmakers to move this kind of proposal forward,” Lenchner said.

This, however, comes as the MTA is under additional pressure from the federal government. The US Department of Transportation recently threatened to withhold funding over New York’s congestion pricing plan, a toll on cars entering parts of Manhattan during peak hours, designed to fund transit improvements.

The political calculus

Like any mayor, Mamdani wouldn’t govern in a vacuum. He’d have to navigate complex City Council dynamics, work with borough presidents and contend with powerful interest groups.

Democrats have struggled across the country because they have such a broad coalition, suggesting little conviction on policy positions which has turned off their base. Even if Mamdani’s proposals are seen as more “radical”, he enters negotiations with a clear starting point and non-negotiables – something Republicans mastered a decade ago when they embraced it and Democrats still have not figured out, Lenchner suggested.

“It’s hard to think in recent memory of a campaign that spoke with such clarity about its objectives, about its convictions, about its moral clarity, and about its practical policy objectives,” Lenchner added.

To win in November, he’ll need to expand his coalition, particularly among Jewish and Black voters where he underperformed.

In a city still defined by finance, Mamdani will also have to show he can hold Wall Street accountable without alienating it. His campaign appears to be trying. The Partnership for New York City – a business group representing more than 300 top firms – hosted a meeting between Mamdani and executives, at the campaign’s request, which according to reporting from the outlet The City, went well and attendees left feeling that he was “willing to listen” and “find solutions to the city’s challenges that will work for all” but they were sceptical if he was genuine.

Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

July 17 (UPI) — California Democratic congressional lawmaker Ro Khanna announced on Fox & Friends Thursday morning that he will endorse Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York.

“He spent a lot of time talking about the cost of living in New York, in this country, and how we address it,” Khanna said. He said Mamdani is a “very charismatic, relatable person.”

Host Lawrence B. Jones asked Khanna if he agrees with Mamdani’s views on Israel. Mamdani has said that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to New York, he’d have him arrested.

He answered that he doesn’t agree with Mamdani on every issue. He argued that the Democratic party should focus more on the working class. It should work to raise wages and have a more economically populist agenda.

Since Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor, he’s been seeking endorsements from higher-ranking progressives. Khanna fits that bill.

The endorsement came after a breakfast meeting in New York hosted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., where Mamdani met with a variety of Democratic representatives.

Other endorsements Mamdani has gained include: Reps. Jerry Nadler,D-N.Y., and Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y. Espaillat initially endorsed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo on Monday formally announced he is running as an independent for mayor, three weeks after he lost to Mamdani.

Former Mayor Eric Adams announced last month that he will also run as an independent.

Mamdani is expected to meet soon with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., The Hill reported.

New York City, the US: Swinging around a tree mimicking the signature open-arm lean of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, Zohran Mamdani asks, “Hey! Have you ever voted before?” An enthusiastic group of Hindi/Urdu-speaking New Yorkers respond: “Yes!”

In the June 4 video posted on X, the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist member of the New York State Assembly then explains ranked choice voting using mango lassi, a yoghurt-based drink from the Punjab region of India, amid clips from popular Bollywood films and scores.

This is just one example of the kinds of videos populating Mamdani’s social media leading up to his 56 percent win in the New York City mayoral Democratic primary on July 1.

Mamdani was relatively unknown before the primary election, polling as low as one percent in an Emerson College survey in February 2025. But his grassroots campaign mobilised a multicultural coalition of voters, in part, by speaking directly to them — in their native tongue.

The government of New York state estimates that New Yorkers speak more than 800 languages, and as many as 2.5 million struggle with communicating in English. Experts, however, say Mamdani successfully used his skills in multiple languages to appeal to voters who often are not targeted by mainstream election campaigns, highlighting policy proposals targeting voters’ biggest concerns, like affordability.

Moments after ranked-choice voting totals were finalised, Mamdani’s team posted a campaign message garnering more than 5.7 million views on X alone, explaining a five-point breakdown of “What We Won on Election Day”: Trump voters, Adams voters, new voters, coalitions and turnout.

“Most campaigns focus on ‘triple primes’ – New Yorkers who voted in the last three primaries,” said Mamdani. “But this strategy ignored most of our city. We knew we could turn them out if they saw themselves in our policies.”

Speaking between clips of himself using Hindi, Urdu and Spanish, Mamdani explained, “We ran a campaign that tried to talk to every New Yorker, whether I could speak their language or simply tried. And the coalition that came out on Tuesday reflected the mosaic of these five boroughs.”

Among the areas Mamdani won by large margins were South Asian neighbourhoods such as City Line, Ozone Park and Jamaica Hills; Latino neighbourhoods including Corona, Washington Heights, Pelham Bay and Woodhaven; and Chinese communities in Flushing, Chinatown and Bensonhurst.

A Ugandan-born South Asian Muslim immigrant himself, Mamdani speaks both Hindi and Urdu – a fluency that allowed him to extend his reach to voters through social media videos.

Soniya Munshi, associate professor in urban studies and adviser to Asian-American community studies at Queens College, told Al Jazeera that these types of videos worked as conversation starters through Bollywood references that span the decades – from the 1970s onwards – recognisable to many South Asian diasporas of different ages and with different pathways to the US.

“I saw his Hindi/Urdu video move from Instagram to text chats among second-generation South Asians to WhatsApp family threads to discussions about Zohran’s platform for an affordable NYC,” said Munshi, who herself is a second-generation South Asian New Yorker. “These videos opened up a bigger conversation with friends, families and communities about our experiences, our conditions, our own hopes for the city we call home, and they also moved voters to come out for Mamdani.”

Cultural references and direct messaging

More than half of New York City’s South Asian population is of Indian descent, but Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities have seen the most growth over the past two decades. South Asians now make up 22.5 percent of the city’s Asian population, most of them immigrants. Mamdani’s campaign materials – in Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Bengali and other languages – spoke directly to immigrant New Yorkers about the material issues affecting their lives.

“It’s critical to note the significance of Mamdani’s videos in Hindi/Urdu and Bangla,” said Munshi. “These two communities are among those with the highest levels of limited English proficiency households, essential workers, and poverty rates of all immigrant groups in NYC … Ultimately, what made these South Asian language videos so powerful was the culturally relevant references combined with the direct message of his vision and platform.”

Chowdury Md Moshin, 68, a native of Bangladesh who now lives in Jackson Heights, sat in Travers Park on a warm late June day reading a newspaper, his stark white hair and shirt contrasting with the bright green of the swaying trees around him.

A speaker of Bengali or Bangla himself, Moshin appreciated hearing from a mayoral candidate speaking a language he understands.

“I think he will be a good mayor and will make New York City cleaner,” said Moshin. “I love him.”

In one of the videos posted during the final push before the Democratic primary election, Mamdani demonstrated ranked-choice voting with Council Member Shahana Hanif’s 39th New York City Council District, using a plate of mishti doi, a sweet yoghurt dessert from the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent.

“His Bangla-language video with Shahana Hanif, the first Bangladeshi Muslim woman to serve as city councilperson in NYC, was also significant,” said Munshi. “Bangla is not a South Asian language Mamdani is fluent in, and we see him making a good effort to speak with Hanif about the election.”

The digital agency behind this content, as well as Mamdani’s first viral video with over 3.5 million views on X, is called Melted Solids. The Brooklyn-based collective, founded in 2019 by Anthony DiMieri and Debbie Saslaw, has worked with Mamdani on various campaigns since as early as 2021.

In an interview with Adweek, Saslaw spoke to the 2025 primary, saying, “I’m [a] marketer and storyteller, and what I thought was necessary and needed in the political space was the ability to speak to regular New Yorkers, like using advertising … as a vessel to hear their concerns.”

Mara Einstein, digital marketing critic and author of Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults, told Al Jazeera that, “They [Melted Solids] know him, which is why they could produce content that conveyed his specific voice.”

“They are also not a traditional agency,” added Einstein. “What Melted Solids did that was different is get rid of the red, white, and blue colour scheme that has dominated political campaigns. Purple and yellow/gold [colours used by Mamdani’s campaign for flyers, signs and branding] is striking and unexpected. The typography harkens back to grocery store signs, giving it a neighbourhood-y, everyman feel.”

‘I like how he talks’

For a campaign run on affordability and reaching every New Yorker, this analysis bodes well. But ultimately, experts say that Mamdani’s social media engagement performed well because his vision and platform were at the core of all of his content.

“The social media content was delightful to watch, well-produced, and engaging, but what was most important was that it had substance,” said Munshi. “It gave us something to talk about that was bigger than Mamdani as an individual or even his campaign. It activated something at a collective level.”

Outside the polls in Woodside on election day, Munshi asked an older Spanish-speaking Latina woman whom she planned to vote for. The woman reached into her purse, pulled out a worn Working Families Party flyer, and pointed to Mamdani’s face. “Him,” she said. “I like how he talks.”

“To me, this indicated that Mamdani’s communication wasn’t just about the language he is speaking in,” said Munshi. “But how he used language – clear, simple, focused, relatable to New Yorkers who are concerned with their everyday needs in this city.”

With five months until the general election, Mamdani and Melted Solids still have work to do as they face off against incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is backed by US President Donald Trump.

But if former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s failed 2025 mayoral bid – backed by $25m raised by the super PAC Fix the City – is any indication, Einstein said, “No marketing, no matter how good it is, can sell a bad product. Cuomo is evidence of that.”

If he wins the general election in November, Zohran Mamdani could become New York City’s first South Asian mayor and the first of Indian origin.

But the same identity that makes him a trailblazer in United States politics has also exposed him to public outcry in India and within its diaspora.

Ever since Mamdani achieved a thumping win in the Democratic mayoral primary on June 24, his campaign has weathered a flood of vitriol – some of it coming from the Hindu right.

Experts say the attacks are a reflection of the tensions that have arisen between supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and critics of the human rights abuses under his leadership, particularly against religious minorities.

A number of those attacks have fixated on Mamdani’s religion: The 33-year-old is Muslim. Some commenters have accused the mayoral hopeful of being a “jihadi” and “Islamist”. Others have called him anti-Hindu and anti-India.

Kayla Bassett, the director of research at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), a Washington-based think tank, believes the attacks against Mamdani are a vehicle to attack the Muslim community more broadly.

“This isn’t just about one individual,” she said. “It’s about promoting a narrative that casts Muslims as inherently suspect or un-American.”

Backlash from Modi’s party

That narrative could potentially have consequences for Mamdani’s campaign, as he works to increase his support among New York voters.

Mamdani will face competition in November from more established names in politics. He is expected to face incumbent mayor Eric Adams in the final vote. His rival in the Democratic primary, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has also not yet ruled out an independent run.

The mayoral hopeful has vocally denounced human rights abuses, including in places like Gaza and India.

That unabashed stance has not only earned him criticism from his rival candidates but also from overseas.

Members of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for example, have been among the voices slamming Mamdani’s remarks and questioning his fitness for the mayor’s seat.

BJP Member of Parliament Kangana Ranaut posted on social media, for example, that Mamdani “sounds more Pakistani than Indian”.

“Whatever happened to his Hindu identity or bloodline,” she asked, pointing to the Hindu roots of his mother, director Mira Nair. “Now he is ready to wipe out Hinduism.”

Soon after Mamdani’s primary win, a prominent pro-BJP news channel in India, Aaj Tak, also aired a segment claiming that he had received funding from organisations that promote an “anti-India” agenda.

It also warned of a growing Muslim population in New York City, an assertion it coupled with footage of women wearing hijabs.

But some of the backlash has come from sources closer to home.

A New Jersey-based group named Indian Americans for Cuomo spent $3,570 for a plane to fly a banner over New York City with the message: “Save NYC from Global Intifada. Reject Mamdani.”

A critic of human rights abuses

Much of the pushback can be linked to Mamdani’s vocal criticism of Hindu nationalism and Modi in particular.

In 2020, Mamdani participated in a Times Square demonstration against a temple built on the site of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya that was destroyed by Hindu extremists in 1992. He called out the BJP’s participation in and normalisation of that violence.

“I am here today to protest against the BJP government in India and the demolition of the Babri masjid,” he said.

Then, in 2023, Mamdani read aloud notes from an imprisoned Indian activist ahead of Modi’s visit to New York City.

That activist, Umar Khalid, has been imprisoned since 2020 without trial on terrorism charges after making speeches criticising Modi’s government.

More recently, during a town hall for mayoral candidates in May, Mamdani was asked if he would meet with Modi if the prime minister were to visit the city again. Mamdani said he wouldn’t.

“This is a war criminal,” he replied.

Mamdani pointed to Modi’s leadership in the Indian state of Gujarat during a period of religious riots in 2002. Modi has been criticised for turning a blind eye to the violence, which killed more than a thousand people, many of them Muslim.

In the aftermath, Modi was denied a US visa for “severe violations of religious freedom”.

“Narendra Modi helped to orchestrate what was a mass slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat, to the extent that we don’t even believe that there are Gujarati Muslims any more,” Mamdani told the town hall. “When I tell someone that I am, it’s a shock to them that that’s even the case.”

Barriers of class and religion

It’s that “fearless” and consistent criticism of Modi that has made Mamdani the target of outrage from the Hindu right, according to Rohit Chopra, a communications professor at Santa Clara University.

“Among the Hindu right, there is a project of the political management of the memory of 2002. There’s this silence around Modi being denied a visa to enter the US,” said Chopra.

The professor also said class fragmentation among Hindu Americans may also fuel scepticism towards Mamdani.

Hindu Americans are a relatively privileged minority in terms of socioeconomic status: The Pew Research Center estimates that 44 percent Asian American Hindus enjoy a family income of more than $150,000, and six in 10 have obtained postgraduate degrees.

That relative prosperity, Chopra said, can translate into social barriers.

“They don’t necessarily even identify with other Hindu Americans who may come from very different kinds of class backgrounds – people who might be working as cab drivers, or dishwashers, or other blue-collar jobs,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Suchitra Vijayan, a New York City-based writer and the founder of the digital magazine Polis Project, has noticed that many lines of attack against Mamdani centre on his identity.

“Mamdani is an elected leader who is unabashedly Muslim,” she said.

She pointed out that other Muslim politicians, including US Congress members Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, have sparked similar backlash for reproaching Modi over the Gujarat violence.

But Mamdani’s family ties to the region make the scrutiny all the more intense.

“In Mamdani’s case, he’s Muslim, he’s African, but also his father is of Gujarati descent and has openly spoken about the pogrom in Gujarat,” Vijayan said.

A ‘seismic’ victory

Despite the online backlash, experts and local organisers believe Mamdani’s campaign can mobilise Indian American voters and other members of the South Asian diaspora who traditionally lean Democratic.

The Pew Research Center estimates that there are 710,000 Indians and Indian Americans living in the New York City area, the most of any metropolitan centre in the US.

Preliminary results from June’s mayoral primary show that Mamdani scored big in neighbourhoods with strong Asian populations, like Little Bangladesh, Jackson Heights and Parkchester.

A final tally of the ranked-choice ballots was released earlier this week, on July 1, showing Mamdani trounced his closest rival, Cuomo, 56 percent to 44.

“I’ve heard his win described as ‘seismic’,” said Arvind Rajagopal, a professor of media studies at New York University. “He can speak not only Spanish but Hindi, Urdu, and passable Bangla. A candidate with this level of depth and breadth is rare in recent times.”

Rajagopal added that Mamdani’s decision to own his Muslim identity became an asset for him on the campaign trail, particularly in the current political climate.

With President Donald Trump in office for a second term, many voters are bracing for the anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies that accompanied his first four years in the White House.

Back then, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”, saying they represented an “influx of hatred” and “danger”.

“The moment of Trump is something that Mamdani answers perfectly,” Rajagopal said. He called Mamdani’s success “a big reality check for the Hindu right”.

Whatever backlash Mamdani is facing from Hindu groups, Jagpreet Singh is sceptical about its influence over New York City.

“I can assure you – it’s not coming from within the city,” said Singh, the political director of DRUM Beats, a sister organisation to the social justice organisation Desis Rising Up and Moving.

That group was among the first in the city to endorse Mamdani’s candidacy for mayor.

Since early in his campaign, Singh pointed out that Mamdani has reached out to Hindu working-class communities “in an authentic way”.

This included visiting the Durga Temple and Nepalese Cultural Center in Ridgewood and speaking at events in the Guyanese and Trinidadian Hindu communities, Singh pointed out. During his time as a state assembly member, Mamdani also pushed for legislation that would recognise Diwali – the Hindu festival of lights – as a state holiday.

At a Diwali celebration last year, Singh said Mamdani “took part in lighting of the diyas, spoke on stage, and talked about his mother’s background as being somebody who is of Hindu faith”.

To Singh, the message was clear. South Asian groups in New York City, including Hindu Americans, “have adopted him as their own”.

Early Saturday morning, New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani stepped on stage in the historically Black neighbourhood of Harlem.

His message was a familiar one: that he would be the best candidate to fight for the city’s marginalised and working classes.

“There have been many a question as to whether this city will simply become a museum of a place that once was — a museum of where working people could thrive,” Mamdani told the crowd.

On June 24, Mamdani scored an upset, winning New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary over frontrunner Andrew Cuomo, a former governor.

Just this Tuesday, the round-three results were released, showing Mamdani with a whopping 56 percent of the ranked-choice vote, dwarfing Cuomo’s 44 percent.

That dominant performance sent ripples around the United States political sphere. But it also led to scrutiny about where Mamdani’s weaknesses may lie.

Preliminary results suggest that Mamdani struggled in lower-income neighbourhoods like Brownsville and East Flatbush, where Cuomo took a marked lead.

In both of those areas, more than 60 percent of residents are Black. The neighbourhoods also share high poverty rates, with Brownsville at 32.4 percent and East Flatbush at 18.9, compared with the citywide rate of 18.2 percent.

One widely cited analysis from The New York Times found that 49 percent of precincts with a low-income majority tilted towards Cuomo, compared with 38 percent for Mamdani.

In precincts with a majority of Black residents, the pro-Cuomo number rose to 51 percent.

Those statistics raised questions about whether Mamdani’s promise to restore affordability in New York failed to resonate — or whether the numbers conceal a more complicated story.

A big-name opponent

Even before the primary results were called, there were some indications that Mamdani faced a steep challenge among lower-income and Black voters.

A Marist poll (PDF) from May found that 47 percent of respondents whose household income was less than $50,000 planned to vote for Cuomo as their first choice.

Mamdani was a distant second among the nine possible candidates, with 11 percent support. Meanwhile, he came in third place in the poll among Black voters, with 8 percent support to Cuomo’s 50 percent.

Experts say Cuomo had several factors weighing in his favour. Jerry Skurnik, a political consultant, pointed out that Cuomo was a well-known figure before June’s primary.

Not only was Cuomo a two-time governor, but he is also the son of a former governor.

His decades-long career in politics included stints in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton. Establishment figures like Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina ultimately backed his campaign.

Mamdani, by contrast, is newer to the political arena: The 33-year-old has served in the New York State Assembly since 2020.

“Most people expected Cuomo to do well in the minority areas,” Skurnik said.

“He had name recognition, and he also had endorsements in most of those areas by local elected officials.”

Skurnik also noted that primaries typically attract older voters, who are considered a greater part of Cuomo’s voting bloc.

There, however, Skurnik points out that Mamdani defied the odds. A New York Times analysis suggested that voters in their 20s and 30s turned out in significantly higher numbers than for the 2021 mayoral primary.

That contributed to the highest overall Democratic primary turnout since 1989, when David Dinkins campaigned to become the first Black mayor of New York City.

“Younger voters came out in much higher numbers than anticipated,” Skurnik said. “Even in areas that Mamdani lost, he did by lower margins than people anticipated, paving the way for his victory.”

Courting the risk-averse

Other experts speculated that Mamdani, as a progressive candidate facing a centrist, might have been perceived as a riskier option.

John Gershman, a professor of public service at New York University, indicated that uncertainty can affect voter choices, particularly for those from vulnerable communities or precarious economic circumstances.

“For low-income families and the Black community, I think very much the calculus is not so much who’s the best candidate, but with which candidate am I risking the least, or am I least likely to lose?” Gershman said.

“In some ways, the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”

Gershman added, however, that Mamdani fit into a broader trend within the Democratic Party.

He pointed out that low-income voters leaned rightwards towards Republican Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election despite Democrats having a stronger “anti-poverty element” in their agenda.

Trump even made headway among Black voters, though the majority remain Democrats.

Gershman tied the trend back to name recognition and media habits. More low-income voters, he said, get their news from legacy media sources like television and newspapers.

Cuomo relied more heavily on those outlets for publicity. While Mamdani did make a sizable TV ad buy, he also campaigned heavily on social media with videos that were more informal and conversational.

Some conservative commentators, however, seized upon The New York Times’ analysis to arrive at a different interpretation about why certain voters might perceive risk in Mamdani’s campaign.

Speaking to Fox News, Republican strategist Karl Rove cited the statistics to argue that low-income voters may fear the tax burden that might accompany greater anti-poverty spending.

“Low-income voters said, ‘You know what? We’re not dumb enough to think that this is all going to be cost-free,’” Rove said, taking a swipe at Mamdani.

“There aren’t enough rich people to pay all of the promises he’s making.”

A complex demographic patchwork

But many experts say the broad voting trends fail to capture the complexity and overlaps of the communities they represent.

Michael Lange, a writer and political strategist who researched the primary, noted that many low-income communities in New York are Hispanic or Asian — demographics that gave strong backing to Mamdani.

“There were many lower-income neighbourhoods that Zohran Mamdani did well in, particularly in Queens, [like] Elmhurst and Flushing, that are almost exclusively Asian,” Lange said.

Those areas, he added, “verge on low income to working poor to working class”.

Activist and local historian Asad Dandia, who supports Mamdani, warned it would be wrong to see his campaign as solely drawing white or upper-class voters.

Rather, Dandia argued that Mamdani’s candidacy brought together a patchwork of diverse communities, from the Pakistani enclave in Brighton Beach to the Latino majority in Corona, Queens.

Even in some Black and low-income neighbourhoods, Dandia pointed out that Mamdani came out on top.

“How can you say that he’s not appealing to low-income voters when he’s winning Harlem?” Dandia asked.

But communities are constantly evolving, as are their politics. Juan Battle, a professor at the City University of New York, emphasised that every election cycle is different — and voter priorities can shift.

He pointed out that, during the last mayoral election, crime was the dominant theme. It helped buoy the current mayor, former police officer Eric Adams, to power.

“If this were happening four years ago, where crime was a big issue, I don’t think that Mamdani would have won,” Battle said. “Cuomo would have definitely won.”

No monoliths in election season

Mandami is set to face Adams himself in November’s general elections. Cuomo, too, has not yet ruled out a third-party run on the final ballot.

Still, as the Democratic nominee, Mamdani has become the frontrunner in the race — and his campaign is likely to continue building its coalition, including through appeals to the demographics it may have lost in the primary.

That includes Black voters. But in order to succeed, Portia Allen-Kyle, the executive director of the racial justice group Color of Change, believes that Mamdani needs to understand the spectrum of viewpoints in the Black community.

“Black voters are not a monolith, as we saw that on [election] day,” she said.

Allen-Kyle believes authenticity and innovation will be key to reaching Black voters come November. She also warned against relying too heavily on the same popular shows where other politicians make appearances.

“In the same way you can no longer just go to churches to reach Black voters, we’re not all listening to The Breakfast Club or to Ebro in the Morning,” she explained, referencing two radio shows that Mamdani has appeared on.

As he continues to reach out to Black voters ahead of November, Mamdani has made allies with a civil rights icon: Reverend Al Sharpton.

At Saturday’s event, Sharpton himself reflected on The New York Times’ findings about Mamdani and the Black vote.

“There was a story in The New York Times, two days after the primary, about Black votes,” Sharpton told the crowd.

He pointed out that Mamdani could have chosen to appeal to other communities, where his support was stronger. But Mamdani’s “courage” had won his support.

“Any other kind of politician would have played against the Black community,” Sharpton said. “He decided to come to the Black community.”

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani has won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, a new vote count confirmed Tuesday, cementing his stunning upset of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and sending him to the general election.

The Associated Press called the race after the results of the city’s ranked choice voting tabulation were released and showed Mamdani trouncing Cuomo by 12 percentage points.

In a statement, Mamdani said he was humbled by the support he received in the primary and started turning his attention to the general election.

“Last Tuesday, Democrats spoke in a clear voice, delivering a mandate for an affordable city, a politics of the future, and a leader unafraid to fight back against rising authoritarianism,” he said. “I am humbled by the support of more than 545,000 New Yorkers who voted for our campaign and am excited to expand this coalition even further as we defeat Eric Adams and win a city government that puts working people first.”

Mamdani’s win had been widely expected since he took a commanding lead after the polls closed a week ago, falling just short of the 50% of the vote needed to avoid another count under the city’s ranked choice voting model. The system allows voters’ other preferences to be counted if their top candidate falls out of the running.

Mamdani, who declared victory the night of the June 24 primary, will face a general election field that includes incumbent Mayor Eric Adams as well as independent candidate Jim Walden and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

The former governor, down but not out

Cuomo conceded defeat just hours after the polls closed last week but is contemplating whether to run in the general election on an independent ballot line. After the release of Tuesday’s vote count, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said, “We’ll be continuing conversations with people from all across the city while determining next steps.”

“Extremism, division and empty promises are not the answer to this city’s problems, and while this was a look at what motivates a slice of our primary electorate, it does not represent the majority,” Azzopardi said. “The financial instability of our families is the priority here, which is why actionable solutions, results and outcomes matter so much.”

Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and member of the state Assembly, was virtually unknown when he launched his candidacy centered on a bold slate of populist ideas. But he built an energetic campaign that ran circles around Cuomo as the older, more moderate Democrat tried to come back from the sexual harassment scandal that led to his resignation four years ago.

The results, even before they were finalized, sent a shockwave through the political world.

Democratic support?

Mamdani’s campaign, which was focused on lowering the cost of living, claims it has found a new blueprint for Democrats who have at times appeared rudderless during President Trump’s climb back to power.

The Democratic establishment has approached Mamdani with caution. Many of its big players applauded his campaign but don’t seem ready to throw their full support behind the young progressive, whose past criticisms of law enforcement, use of the word “genocide” to describe the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and “democratic socialist” label amount to landmines for some in the party.

If elected, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim mayor and its first of Indian American decent. He would also be one of its youngest.

Opposition mounts

For Republicans, Mamdani has already provided a new angle for attack. Trump and others in the GOP have begun to launch broadsides at him, moving to cast Mamdani as the epitome of leftist excess ahead of consequential elections elsewhere this year and next.

“If I’m a Republican, I want this guy to win,” said Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University. “Because I want to be able to compare and contrast my campaign as a Republican, in a national election, to the idea of, ‘This is where the Democratic Party is.’”

New York City’s ranked choice voting model allows voters to list up to five candidates on their ballots in order of preference. If a single candidate is the first choice of more than 50% of voters, then that person wins the race outright. Since no candidate cleared that bar on the night of the primary, the ranked choice voting process kicked in. The board is scheduled to certify the election on July 15.

Mamdani has been a member of the state Assembly since 2021, and has characterized his inexperience as a potential asset. His campaign promised free city buses, free child care, a rent freeze for people living in rent-stabilized apartments, government-run grocery stores and more, all paid for with taxes on the wealthy. Critics have slammed his agenda as politically unrealistic.

Cuomo ran a campaign centered on his extensive experience, casting himself as the only candidate capable of saving a city he said had spun out of control. During the campaign, he focused heavily on combating antisemitism and leaned on his name recognition and juggernaut fundraising operation rather than mingling with voters.

Confronted with the sexual harassment allegations that ended his tenure as governor, he denied wrongdoing, maintaining that the scandal was driven by politics and that voters were ready to move on.

Cuomo did not remove his name from the November ballot last week, ahead of a procedural deadline to do so, and has said he is still considering whether to mount an actual campaign for the office.

Adams, while still a Democrat, is running in the November election as an independent. He dropped out of the Democratic primary in April after he was severely wounded by his now-dismissed federal bribery case. Though he had done little in the way of campaigning since then, he reignited his reelection operation in the days after Mamdani declared victory, calling it a choice between a candidate with a “blue collar” and one with a “silver spoon.”

Izaguirre writes for the Associated Press.

Thirty-three years old, socialist, Muslim – and now, the likely Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City – Zohran Mamdani was barely known a few months ago. Today, he may be the most popular political voice of a generation. How did he get here – and could he be here to stay?

Zohran Mamdani is a stylish, millennial, African-born Muslim with a Hollywood pedigree who just won the Democratic primary in the New York City mayor’s race.

If he sounds like Donald Trump’s worst nightmare, he just might be. But he’s also a lot like him.

They’re both charismatic leaders who have bucked their parties, tapped into the current political ethos that eschews traditional loyalties and by doing so, made themselves popular enough with fed-up voters to win elections when — to many in the political elite — they seem exactly like the kind of candidate who shouldn’t be able to get their grandmother’s vote.

“Working-class people want somebody who really takes on the status quo, who pushes an economic populist agenda and convinces them that something’s going to change,” Lorena Gonzalez told me.

She’s the head of the California Labor Federation, which represents unions, and even she’s fed up with Democrats.

“There are days that I’m like, why am I still in this party?” she said. “When I see them cozy up to tech, when I see this abundance issue that streamlines worker protections, when I see this fascination with billionaires and this acquiescing to not taxing billionaires and not doing anything about rent control, you know, there’s a point where I’m like, come on, grow some balls, go decide who you’re for.”

Or, as Trump put it in a social media post after Mamdani’s win, “Yes, this is a big moment in the History of our Country!”

Trump is right, words that I don’t often say — Mamdani’s victory may signal something deeper than a lone mayor’s race on the East Coast. People — both on the left and the right — crave authenticity, and want someone to believe in, be it an orange-hued boomer or a brown-skinned hipster.

The Democrats, as political strategist Mike Madrid put it, are having their own Tea Party moment, when populist anger eats the old guard, as it did beginning in 2007 when the far-right of the Republican party began its now-successful takeover. Trump was never the impetus of the party’s swing to the fringe, he just capitalized on it.

“This is just a populist revolt of the Democratic Party against the establishment base,” Madrid said.

There’s been ad nauseam amounts of pontificating about the current state of the Democratic party. Should it go more centrist? Should it embrace the progressive end? But the truth is the voters have already decided. They do indeed want lower grocery prices, as Trump promised but failed to deliver. But they also want democracy to not crumble. And they want to buy a house, and maybe not have their neighbors deported. But really, in that order.

And they don’t trust many, if not most, of the current Democrats in office to deliver. Like Republicans before them, they want outsiders (Mamdani, 33, is serving in the state Assembly), or at least someone who can sound like one.

Gonzalez spends a lot of time talking to voters and she said left and right, Democrat and Republican, they see few differences remaining between the two parties, and are tired of voting for career politicians who haven’t delivered on economic issues.

Mamdani, whose mother is the film director Mira Nair (and who once rapped under the name Young Cardamom), campaigned on “a New York you can afford.” That included freezing payments on rent-controlled apartments, building new affordable housing with union labor, making both transit and child care free and — you guessed it — cheaper groceries. Whether he delivers or not, those were messages that a broad swath of New Yorkers, struggling like all of us with the cost of living, wanted to hear.

And he delivered them not just with credibility, but with an entertainment value that nods to his mom’s influence: hamming it up Bollywood style for the South Asian aunties, walking the length of Manhattan to talk with people, jumping in the Atlantic ocean in a suit with a skinny tie.

Charisma and chutzpah.

Which, of course, is how Trump made his own rise, promising, with showman verve, to be the voice of the toiling voiceless who increasingly are in danger of becoming the working poor. Yes, he is a con man who is clearly for the rich. But still, he knows how to deliver a line to his base: “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the dogs.”

That may be the biggest lesson for California, where we will soon be voting for a new governor from a crowded field — of establishment candidates. Even Kamala Harris, maybe especially Harris, fits that insider image, and certainly Gavin Newsom, despite zigzagging from centrist to pugilist, can’t forward his presidential ambitions as anything but old-guard.

“What makes someone like Zohran so compelling, is even if you don’t agree with him on everything, which few voters do, you understand that he believes it and that you know where he’s coming from,” said Amanda Litman, the co-founder and executive director of Run for Something, a PAC that recruits young progressives to run for office.

“I think that’s the distinction between him and say someone like Gavin Newsom, which is, like, does Gavin believe what he says? Does he buy his own bull—? It’s sort of unclear,” Litman added.

The anger of voters is strikingly clear, though, especially for ones who have for so long been loyal to Democrats. A new Pew analysis out this week found that about 20% of the Republican base is now nonwhite, nearly doubling what it was in 2016. Republicans have made gains with Black voters, Asian voters and Trump drew nearly half of Latino voters. Ouch.

“One of the real challenges for the Democrats is two central pieces of the orthodoxy has been that they are the party of the working class and that they are the party of nonwhite voters,” Madrid said. “Both of those are increasingly proving untrue, and the question then becomes, well, how do you get them back? The way you get them back is by having some sort of economic populist policy framework.”

Litman said that the way to capture voters is by running new candidates, the kind who don’t come with history — and baggage. In the 36 hours after Mamdani was elected, her organization had 1,100 people sign up to learn more about how to run for office themselves, she said. It’s the biggest spike since the inauguration, and it shows that voters aren’t disinterested in democracy, but alienated from the existing options.

“The establishment is not unbeatable. They’re only unchallenged,” Litman said. “And I think the more that the Democratic Party establishment, as much as it exists, can understand that the people and the playbooks that got us here will not be the people and playbooks that get us out of it, the better off we’ll be.”

So maybe there are more Mamdani’s out there, waiting to lead the way. If Democrats are looking for advice, Trump may have offered the best I’ve seen in a while — highlighting the insider/outsider Democrats who have, like Mamdani, made their name by rattling the establishment.

“I have an idea for the Democrats to bring them back into ‘play,’” he wrote on social media. “After years of being left out in the cold, including suffering one of the Greatest Losses in History, the 2024 Presidential Election, the Democrats should nominate Low IQ Candidate, Jasmine Crockett, for President, and AOC+3 should be, respectively, Vice President, and three High Level Members of the Cabinet — Added together with our future Communist Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani and our Country is really SCREWED!”

Or not.

Wouldn’t that be a slate?

Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old who soared to the lead in the New York City mayoral Democratic primary, describes himself as a democratic socialist. But some politicians and social media posts falsely labelled him a communist.

President Donald Trump called Mamdani “a 100% Communist Lunatic”, in a June 25 Truth Social post.

Nick Sortor, a conservative podcast host, wrote June 23 on X, “Zohran Mamdani is not even a socialist. He’s a full on COMMUNIST,” sharing a video clip of Mamdani calling for a network of city-owned grocery stores. “Even FURTHER left than Bernie Sanders. He wants government-run grocery stores.”

Ben Shapiro, cofounder of conservative website The Daily Wire, said on his podcast, “The big news of the day: A communist is likely to be the next mayor of New York City.”

Representative Elise Stefanik also wrote on X that Mamdani is a “communist”.

Mamdani’s platform calls for making transportation, housing and groceries more affordable, but experts say he hasn’t espoused key tenets of communism, such as government takeover of industry and private property.

“Mamdani is NOT a communist,” wrote Anna Grzymala-Busse, Stanford University professor of international studies, in an email to PolitiFact. “Communism involves a centrally planned economy, with no market forces. Prices and quantities are set by a central government authority. There is no democratic political competition, and instead a single party rules the country. He is not calling for any of this.”

Accusing Democrats of being communists or communist sympathisers is a frequent misleading attack line by some Republicans. It is a red scare tactic that has existed in US politics for decades, but has been transformed by the success of some democratic socialists, including US Senator Bernie Sanders.

Mamdani made national headlines June 24 after former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded the primary. When the city completes the ranked choice voting process, Mamdani is expected to win. Mamdani’s office did not respond to our requests for comment.

In November, Mamdani will face Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, the founder of civilian crime-fighting group Guardian Angels, and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent. Cuomo left open the door to running as an independent.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Mamdani’s platform calls for some city-owned grocery stores, other affordability policies

Mamdani, who represents part of the Queens borough in the New York State Assembly, identifies as a democratic socialist.

The New York City Democratic Socialists of America endorsed Mamdani, who is a member.

The group defines its goal as “to collectively own the key economic drivers that dominate our lives, such as energy production and transportation”, and to have “a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighbourhoods, and society”.

Mamdani’s platform includes freezing rent for tenants in buildings with preexisting caps on price increases between lease terms. He also proposed creating city-owned grocery stores, and said in a June interview with Spectrum News NY1 that he would start with one grocery store in each borough modelled on municipality-owned stores in Kansas.

He also proposed free buses and child care, and raising the corporate tax rate and the minimum wage.

Mamdani does not call for getting rid of private ownership. One of the goals included on his website is to “make it faster, easier, and cheaper to start and run a business”.

He told The New York Times that he changed his mind about the role of the private market in housing construction, saying, “I clearly recognise now that there is a very important role to be played.” The story links to Mamdani’s website, which calls for the public sector to build affordable housing but not take over all housing.

What are the differences between communism and democratic socialism?

We sent highlights from Mamdani’s platform to seven experts across academic disciplines including political science, law and anthropology. None concluded that Mamdani is a communist.

“The idea that Mamdani is a communist is an absurd slander,” said Geoffrey Kurtz, associate professor of political science at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York.

When US politicians use the term democratic socialism, they are referring to generous social insurance programmes often available in European countries, such as heavily subsidised child care, along with high tax rates, if needed, to pay for education and healthcare.

Mamdani doesn’t seek to do away with private property or advocate a government takeover of any industry, said Ted Henken, a Baruch College professor. Instead, Mamdani proposes targeted interventions to tackle high living costs in New York City, Henken said.

“The New Yorkers who support him seem to do so not because of any communist ideology on his or their part, but because he proposes to address this crisis of affordability,” Henken said.

“For example, his city-run grocery store idea does not propose to take over or do away with the private grocery chains (they already receive city subsidies) but to complement them with nonprofit city-run stores,” Henken said.

Although Mamdani said in a campaign TikTok video that he would “redirect funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores”, he did not say he would get rid of corporate markets. Mamdani also said city-owned markets would work with privately owned small businesses and farms.

Political theory experts said many of Mamdani’s proposals have existed in other democracies for decades.

“Many western democracies – from France to Canada – have policies such as free or heavily subsidised child care and public transit,” said Oxana Shevel, a Tufts University associate professor of comparative politics.

Under a communist agenda, the government would own everything and entirely control prices, not only rent control or operating some supermarkets. And under communism, there are no political parties other than the communist party.

“This is not what he’s advocating,” Shevel said. “So no, he’s not a ‘communist’.”

Democratic socialism emerged as an alternative to communism, said Harvey Klehr, an Emory University expert on the history of American communism.

“At least in theory, they reject such communist concepts as the vanguard of the proletariat and the communist hostility to representative democracy, as well as the communist belief in state ownership of the means of production,” Klehr said. “That said, there are a number of issues on which they agree, including hostility to capitalism.”

Experts said there are reasonable critiques of Mamdani’s proposals, but that doesn’t make his proposals communist.

Our ruling

Trump said Mamdani is a communist.

Mamdani’s mayoral platform proposes making New York City more affordable, including via free buses and day care, rent control and city-owned grocery stores. That is not akin to communism, a system in which the government controls the means of production and takes over private businesses. Mamdani has not called for the elimination of private ownership.

He also hasn’t called for eliminating democracy and political parties, another tenet of communism.

We rate this statement False.

Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check

A political earthquake, say the headlines. A stunning victory. A wake-up call for the Democratic Party in the United States.

Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City’s mayoral primary has sent the news media into overdrive.

But what’s behind his win, and how significant is it for US politics?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests: 

Linda Sarsour – Palestinian-American activist and political strategist in New York

Joi Chaney – Democratic political strategist in Washington, DC

Omar Rahman – Political analyst and fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs in New York

Zohran Mamdani’s surprising win in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary over ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo has rocked city politics. But can he turn progressive momentum into victory this November — and become mayor of America’s biggest city?

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani was a state lawmaker unknown even to most New York City residents when he announced his run for mayor back in October.

On Tuesday evening, the 33-year-old marked his stunning political ascension when he declared victory in the Democratic primary from a Queens rooftop bar after former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded.

While the race’s ultimate outcome has yet to be confirmed by a ranked choice count scheduled for July 1, here’s a look at the one-time rapper seeking to become the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor, and its youngest mayor in generations.

Mamdani’s mother is a famous filmmaker

Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to Indian parents and became an American citizen in 2018, shortly after graduating from college.

He lived with his family briefly in Cape Town, South Africa, before moving to New York City when he was 7.

Mamdani’s mother, Mira Nair, is an award-winning filmmaker whose credits include “Monsoon Wedding,” “The Namesake” and “Mississippi Masala.” His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is an anthropology professor at Columbia University.

Mamdani married Rama Duwaji, a Syrian American artist, earlier this year at the City Clerk’s Office. The couple live in the Astoria section of Queens.

Mamdani was once a fledgling rapper

Mamdani graduated in 2014 from Bowdoin College in Maine, where he earned a degree in Africana studies and co-founded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.

After college, he worked as a foreclosure prevention counselor in Queens helping residents avoid eviction, the job he says inspired him to run for public office.

Mamdani also had a notable side hustle in the local hip-hop scene, rapping under the moniker Young Cardamom and later Mr. Cardamom. During his first run for state lawmaker, Mamdani gave a nod to his brief foray into music, describing himself as a “B-list rapper.”

“Nani,” a song he made in 2019 to honor his grandmother, even found new life — and a vastly wider audience — as his mayoral campaign gained momentum.

Early political career

Mamdani cut his teeth in local politics working on campaigns for Democratic candidates in Queens and Brooklyn.

He was first elected to the New York Assembly in 2020, representing a Queens district covering Astoria and surrounding neighborhoods and has handily won reelection twice.

The Democratic Socialist’s most notable legislative accomplishment has been pushing through a pilot program that made a handful of city buses free for a year. He’s also proposed legislation banning nonprofits from “engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.”

Mamdani’s opponents, particularly Cuomo, have dismissed him as woefully unprepared for managing the complexities of running America’s largest city.

But Mamdani has framed his relative inexperience as a potential asset, saying in a mayoral debate he’s “proud” he doesn’t have Cuomo’s “experience of corruption, scandal and disgrace.”

Pro-Palestinian views

Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinian causes was a point of tension in the mayor’s race as Cuomo and other opponents sought to label his defiant criticism of Israel as antisemitic.

The Shia Muslim has called Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a “genocide” and said the country should exist as “a state with equal rights,” rather than a “Jewish state.” That message has resonated among pro-Palestinian residents, including the city’s roughly 800,000 adherents of Islam — the largest Muslim community in the country.

During an interview on CBS’ “The Late Show” on the eve of the election, host Stephen Colbert asked Mamdani if he believed the state of Israel had the right to exist. He responded: “Yes, like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist — and a responsibility also to uphold international law.”

Mamdani’s refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” on a podcast — a common chant at pro-Palestinian protests — drew recriminations from Jewish groups and fellow candidates in the days leading up to the election.

In his victory speech Tuesday, he pledged to work closely with those who don’t share his views on controversial issues.

“While I will not abandon my beliefs or my commitments, grounded in a demand for equality, for humanity, for all those who walk this earth, you have my word to reach further, to understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree, and to wrestle deeply with those disagreements,” Mamdani said.

Marcelo writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.