Zohran Mamdani makes history as New York City

New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is expected to win the election to be the next mayor of New York City, bringing a democratic socialist agenda to America’s largest city and defeating Andrew Cuomo, the heir to a political dynasty.

Mamdani will be New York City’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, and the youngest in more than a century.

Mamdani didn’t just win: he won big, and the networks announced the race quickly after the polls closed. Voter turnout was the highest the city had seen in decades for a mayoral race, with more than 2 million votes cast, according to city election officials. Altogether, Mamdani not only won the mayoralty, but also a mandate from voters to aggressively pursue his vision for the city.

Speaking to supporters at his victory party on Tuesday night, Mamdani began by quoting a fellow socialist.

“The sun may have set over our city this afternoon, but as Eugene Debs once said, ‘I can see the dawn of a better day for mankind,’” he said to raucous applause.

“My friends, we have overthrown a political dynasty,” he added. “I wish Andrew Cuomo the best in his private life, but may tonight be the last time I speak his name as we turn the page on a policy that abandons many and responds only to a few.”

Mamdani said his victory was a sign that “hope is alive.”

“We won because we insisted that politics would no longer be something done to us,” he said. “Now it’s something we do.”

Reflecting on the race, the mayor-elect highlighted the tens of millions of dollars in attack ads spent against him.

“As has happened so many times, the billionaire class has tried to convince those who earn $30 an hour that their enemies are those who earn $20 an hour,” Mamdani said. “They want people to fight among us so we can continue to be distracted from the work of rebuilding a long-broken system. We refuse to allow them to continue dictating the rules of the game.”

He then turned his attention to President Donald Trump. “Since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn up the volume!”

“We will hold bad landlords accountable because the Donald Trumps of our city have become too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants,” he continued.

“We will end the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxes and take advantage of tax breaks. We will stand with unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump knows, that when workers have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed. [And] “New York will continue to be a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, starting tonight, led by an immigrant.”

“So listen to me, President Trump, when I say this, to get to any of us, you’re going to have to get through all of us.”

The crowd at Mamdani’s election night party at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater, a group representing the city’s very diverse population, was delighted with his victory and erupted in cheers Tuesday night. Every time his name appeared on the big screens that broadcast the news.

A pair of volunteers told News themezone they were inspired by the energy behind the campaign and hoped the national Democratic Party would take notice.

“The world is watching,” said David Sewell, who helped organize the volunteers. “This is what people want.”

He noted that the campaign was connecting with people across the country and abroad. Among the volunteers were some Europeans who pitched in to help canvass the city’s neighborhoods, although of course they could not vote in the elections.

In the corridors of the huge hall, occasional shouts could be heard: “Zoh-ran!”

Mamdani ran on affordability agenda

The three-term state legislator won the mayoralty by simple message: Make the most expensive city in the country affordable for workers.

In the middle of summer, when Mamdani surprised Cuomo with the surprise of the underdogs in the Democratic primaries: ultimately surpassing him by almost 13 points ― Mamdani rally crowds could finish your sentences for him. I was rushing to freeze the… “rent!” Make buses fast and… “free!” And offer universal… “child care!” that policy trio became a contrast of the campaign.

“These are not just slogans, they are commitments,” the 34-year-old said at a meeting. mass demonstration at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens before the election. “We say them not simply to inspire, but because that is what we will deliver.”

At the party Tuesday night, he added a coda to that promise: “May the words we have spoken together, the dreams we have dreamed together, become the agenda we accomplish together.”

Mamdani had an extensive platformbut it focused on the more than 2 million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized buildings (the rents it proposes to freeze) and the millions more who struggle with slow public transportation and the burden of child care and basic day-to-day needs. He has proposed establishing free daycare for children ages 6 weeks to 5 years, opening a city-run grocery store in every district, spending billions to accelerate the pace of affordable housing construction and loosening regulations that slow even market-rate construction.

He has acknowledged that he will need to work with Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and Democratic majorities in the state legislature to achieve his agenda, namely getting them to pass tax increases on corporations and the wealthy to raise billions of dollars in new revenue.

Cuomo, the son of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo (D) and a former governor, presented his campaign as one of experience and pragmatism. But he left the New York governor’s mansion. in disgrace in 2021, accused of multiple women of sexual harassment. (Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing.)

Mamdani used Cuomo’s record against him during the election campaign.

“What I don’t have in experience I make up for in integrity, and what you don’t have in integrity you can never make up for in experience,” Mamdani told Cuomo during a recent debate.

Mamdani combined his progressive agenda and young upstart image with a relentless ground game and an innovative media presence.

In a series of viral ads that marked the year-long campaign, Mamdani interviewee New Yorkers who voted for Trump, sunken in icy Atlantic waters to illustrate his proposed rent freeze, analyzed how the city’s scarce street food permits led to “halal inflation,” and path All of Manhattan from top to bottom.

Mamdani filmed advertisements not only in English, but also multiple in Spanish as well as those in Bengali, urdu/hindi and Arab. He gave an interview to a yiddish newspaperand campaign allies called on Chinese. Along the way, the candidate appeared at dozens of concerts, drag shows and religious events across the city.

Mamdani canvassers have visited this journalist’s apartment building at least half a dozen times during the primary and general election campaigns, a testament to what Mamdani field director Tascha Van Auken said Tuesday night was the work of more than 104,000 campaign volunteers. (No other campaign knocked on my door).

On Tuesday, the Mamdani campaign said its volunteers had knocked on 3 million doors over the course of the campaign.

Illustration: News themezone; Photo: Getty Images

Cuomo’s pessimistic campaign

On the contrary, Cuomo carried out the last internal campaign, helped by deep–bagged donors, including some of the same some who have supported Trump, and possibly drawing on some of the same bigotry and xenophobia.

“I don’t think New York City has a future if Zohran Mamdami [sic] is elected mayor”, Cuomo said at a recent campaign stop, mispronouncing “Mamdani” as he usually does (his opponent’s name actually ends with “NI”). “I don’t think the city will survive and prosper.”

In particular, Cuomo highlighted Mamdani’s defense of Palestinian human rights. Mamdani has participated in his efforts to boycott Israel, he described Israel’s military assault on Gaza since October 7, 2023 as a genocideand fiance arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in New York City, pursuant to an International Criminal Court warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest. In an interview during the primary campaign, he refused condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada“fueling months of accusations of anti-Semitism. (Finally, Mamdani saying would discourage others from using the phrase.)

Cuomo pounced at the time, and frequently mentioned that Mamdani did not support the notion of Israel being a Jewish state. Mamdani said in the first debate: “I would not recognize the right of any State to exist with a system of hierarchy based on race or religion.” The mayor-elect has sought to emphasize his focus on religious freedom and the protection of all religious minorities, including Jews and Muslims.

While it is true that Mamdani’s views on Israel make him an extreme outlier in American politics: to some, including many of New York’s nearly 1 million Jews, this is positive: Cuomo seemed determined to ai fuel racist and Islamophobic attacks centered on Mamdani’s identity.

During a radio interview, for example, Cuomo Serious like radio host Sid Rosenberg, who previously He called Mamdani an “anti-Semitic terrorist” and said Cuomo’s rival would celebrate another 9/11 attack. Cuomo separately he said in a News interview that Mamdani “doesn’t understand New York culture, New York values, what 9/11 meant.” (Mamdani was in primary school when the attacks occurred.)

Attacks by elected Republicans are frequent Little by little it went further, including staining Mamdani as a “jihadist” and saying should be denatured.

Cuomo’s campaign too awareand quickly deleted, ad filled with artificially generated criminals (a domestic abuser, a drug dealer, a sex trafficker, a keffiyeh-clad thief, and others) cheering on Mamdani, whom the ad showed eating rice with her hands and letting men out of prison.

Current Mayor Eric Adams (D) launched a similar attack recently in the process of endorsing Cuomo.

“New York cannot be Europe, friends. I don’t know what’s wrong with people. You see what’s happening in other countries because of Islamic extremism.” he said. (Adams’ own decision to drop his re-election bid and endorse Cuomo certainly helped the former governor, but you might not realize it from listening to Cuomo; during a speech last month, Cuomo said that “in some ways, the city really hasn’t had a competent mayor, a competent administrator, since Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg.” the later walked back those commentswith Adams standing behind him).

After defeated In Mamdani’s Democratic mayoral primary in a surprising upset in June, Cuomo did not drop out of the race. Rather, he continued to run, although not as a Democrat. Instead, he ran along the “Fight and Save” party line. Cuomo recorded the party line earlier this yearwhich will allow him to remain on the ballot.

However, key institutional Democrats largely failed to support Mamdani’s campaign.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), for example, never responded who I would vote for in the race. In September, when asked by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow if she supported Mamdani’s campaign, former Vice President Kamala Harris responded“I support the Democrat in the race, of course.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), whose congressional district covers part of Brooklyn, only endorsed Mamdani on the last day before early voting began. Asked A few days later, if he thought Mamdani was the future of the Democratic Party, Jeffries said no.

Barry Williams/New York Daily News via Getty Images

Part of that hesitation may have been Mamdani’s democratic socialist views, which Cuomo said would lead to “a reduction of the 1970s fiscal crisis” in New York City. But much of the traditional democrats’ misgivings seemed to be related to Mamdani’s outspoken views on the human rights of the Palestinian people.

Mamdani spoke emotionally several times during the election campaign about his Muslim faith and the death threats he was regularly made.

“To be a Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not distinguish us,” he said in a recent speech about the Islamophobic attacks against him. “There are a lot of New Yorkers who deal with it. What does it is tolerance for that indignity.”

“Islamophobia is not considered unforgivable,” he added. “One can incite violence against our mosques and know that condemnation will never come. Elected officials in this city can sell T-shirts calling for my deportation without fear of being held accountable. The consequences amidst this inaction are stark: over a million Muslims in this city, existing while we are made to feel like guests in our own home. No more.”

In light of those attacks, one of Mamdani’s closing campaign announcements was notable. Although it was filmed entirely in Arabic, it made no mention of the anti-Islamic sentiment that prevailed at the race.

Rather, he repeated the central themes of his campaign, petting a bodega cat, and promised that he would try to “make it easier to open your small business, pay your rent, and build a future in New York.”

Trump is coming

Trump was always going to loom over the city’s future, regardless of who became mayor.

Federal agents have already flooded immigration courthouses in Manhattan, arresting people who showed up for routine checks, and ICE agents recently targeted street vendors on nearby streets, making several arrests in a brazen show of force. Trump has also already withheld infrastructure funding for New York.

But the president has threatened a much broader presence in the city, suggesting he could retain even more money and increase the federal footprint in the Big Apple.

And in a “60 Minutes” interview published a few days before Election Day, the president made his preference in the race clear.

“It’s going to be difficult for me, as president, to give a lot of money to New York,” Trump said.

“Because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there. So I don’t know if he’s won, and I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or another, but if it’s going to be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’ll pick the bad Democrat every time, to be honest with you.”

He reiterated that message on Truth Social later.

“Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice,” Trump wrote. “You have to vote for him and expect him to do a fantastic job. He can do it, Mamdani can’t!”

Cuomo, who presented himself as capable of taking on Trump, was clearly uncomfortable with the partnership.

When asked in a radio interview the day before Election Day about Trump’s endorsement, the former governor had no answer.

Sara Boboltz contributed reporting.