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A year ago, Zohran Mamdani was a political unknown. Now, the 34-year-old democratic socialist will be New York’s first Muslim mayor with a profile that stretches far beyond the city, across America and indeed the world.
The one-time underdog turned main character has had a meteoric rise. With a savvy social media presence and grassroots campaign that garnered widespread media attention and galvanized thousands of first-time voters - many of whom are young or people of color, or both - Mamdani has provided a blueprint for canvassing to progressives online.
His relatable videos have also offered a particularly hopeful and affectionate vision of New York, built unwaveringly on the premise that life doesn’t have to be as hard as it’s become.
For the uninitiated, Mamdani’s many social media hits have included his coining of “halalflation” and pledging to freeze rent before jumping headfirst into the frigid waves at Coney Island. There have been viral subway elopement photos and a breathless Mamdani waxing poetic about rent prices while running the New York City marathon. His viral video in which he interviewed working-class New Yorkers of color about why they voted for Trump – or hadn’t voted at all – last year, in particular, struck a chord with many.
His snappy content and his persistence in getting out and meeting people – including his critics – positioned Mamdani in stark contrast to the scandal-plagued old guard candidate, the disgraced former state governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent and benefitted from the backing of ultra-rich donors and corporations.
Mamdani and Cuomo represented two very different wings of a Democratic party whose popularity is waning nationally; one deeply unpopular and infuriatingly uninspiring, the other genuinely ambitious and exciting. New Yorkers have signalled whose vision for America it should put stock in.
Born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, Mamdani moved to New York City with his family at the age of seven. The son of an acclaimed film-maker and a Columbia University professor, he attended public school at the Bronx High School of Science, where he co-founded the school’s first cricket team. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Africana studies from Bowdoin College in 2014, where he founded its first Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. He became a naturalized US citizen in 2018.
Before entering politics, Mamdani worked as a community organizer and a foreclosure prevention counselor. In November 2020, he was elected to the state assembly representing New York’s 36th district, becoming the first south Asian man, the first Ugandan, and one of only three Muslims to ever serve in the body.
He met the Syrian American artist, illustrator, and ceramicist Rama Duwaji on a dating app in 2021, the two got married in a city hall ceremony earlier this year.
Since the political earthquake of his convincing victory in the Democratic mayoral primary on 24 June, the charismatic state legislator gradually won the endorsement of New York’s long apprehensive top – and centrist – Democrats. They included former vice-president Kamala Harris and state governor Kathy Hochul to House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, along with a current of small-dollar financial donors, leading the race by double digits on his bold affordability agenda.
Ingeniously posting slick, joyful, often hilarious but always on-message videos to TikTok and Instagram, he attracted thousands of enthusiastic young and first-time voters and volunteers to the Democratic party and ran an uplifting campaign. He stayed laser-focused on rent prices and people’s quality of life, childcare and groceries, and espoused policies like hiking taxes on New York City’s wealthiest, raising corporation tax and freezing stabilized apartment rental rates. He also proposed universal childcare, fare-free buses (which he actually rides), and city-owned grocery stores.
In the face of an opposition campaign laced with Islamophobia and racism, Mamdani campaigned in Urdu, Hindi and Spanish, from mosques and on the night shift, reaching a diverse coalition of voters from a wide range of New York’s communities, including among the South Asian diaspora. His embrace of his Muslim faith, his advocacy for Gaza and Palestinian rights, and his willingness to stand up for immigrants particularly struck a nerve.
Mamdani’s policies have made him a target for Republican attacks and a risky prospect to the Democratic establishment, with his critics concerned that New York’s competitiveness would suffer if he was victorious and dismissing his ideas as unrealistic and unlikely to appeal outside New York.
But they have also resonated with thousands of New Yorkers and allowed Mamdani to dramatically expand the electorate, energizing younger voters in particular who are hungry for generational and ideological change by tapping into an anger over inequality, soaring prices and frustration with Democratic centrism.
With Donald Trump’s threats of deploying the national guard and withholding federal funding looming over New York and his repeated attacks on Mamdani on social media – and even threats to deport him - the new city mayor’s election will have huge implications for New York City, the Democratic party and the US at large.
His political star has been born in a moment of raging white nativist fervor and growing authoritarianism in the second Trump era. But he held fast to his core messages of making New York life more affordable and holding Israel accountable. Now Mamdani, who grew up in the shadow of 9/11, will blaze the trail as the first Muslim and first South Asian mayor-elect in arguably the second most difficult job in the country. The task ahead of him may be great, but the iron is also hot.
