Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday night, solidifying an ascent from relative political obscurity to one of the U.S.’s most notable left-wing leaders, buoyed by a promise to make the city affordable for those who call it home.
In a record-breaking push to victory, the 34-year-old New York State Assembly member defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose campaign was bankrolled in the millions by corporations including DoorDash and The Durst Organization as well as tech companies, real estate developers and former mayor Michael Bloomberg — who donated $3.5 million on Oct. 29, campaign finance records show — and Republican candidate Curtis Sliaw.
Mamdani, by contrast, relied on grassroots donations, heavy door-to-door campaigning and a robust network of volunteers, as well as a dominating social media presence and small-dollar donations, to garner support, while casting himself as a mouthpiece for everyday New Yorkers and thwarting threats of financial restrictions from the Trump administration.
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“If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.
After securing victory on Tuesday night, Mamdani addressed Trump directly.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power,” Mamdani told a raucous crowd of supporters. “So Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”
Following Mamdani’s win, Trump took to Truth Social with one line:
“…AND SO IT BEGINS!”
Mamdani’s success was commanding, his assumption clinched by more than one million votes in his favour. That represents over 50 per cent of the electorate, according to the New York City Board of Elections’ unofficial results.
Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and The Bronx — four of New York City’s five boroughs — cast their ballots for Mamdani, while Staten Island opted for Cuomo, the New York Times reported.
A self-proclaimed democratic socialist, Mamdani, the son of immigrants, swatted aside a late multi-million-dollar attack ad depicting him standing in front of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001 to etch his place in history as New York City’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage, the first born in Africa and its youngest in 133 years.
More than two million New Yorkers cast ballots in the contest, the largest turnout in a mayoral race in more than 50 years, according to the city’s Board of Elections. With roughly 90 per cent of the votes counted, Mamdani held an approximately nine percentage point lead over Cuomo.
Born in Uganda and raised in New York City, Mamdani boasts a track record of activism grounded in defending the working class, the through line of his mayoral campaign.
During his political career, he participated in a hunger strike alongside taxi drivers to secure more than $450 million in debt relief; he secured more than $100 million in the state budget for increased subway service and a fare-free bus pilot, another tenet of his mayoral bid, alongside the promise of rent freezes, universal child care and sturdy social safety nets funded by taxes collected from the city’s wealthiest one per cent.
Mamdani declared in front of a roaring crowd at his victory party on Tuesday, “The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.”
— With files from The Associated Press
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