(Nov 5): Zohran Mamdani was elected the 111th mayor of New York in a historic victory that will put an avowed democratic socialist in charge of the city that serves as the capital of global finance.
Mamdani, a Democrat, received 50.4% of the votes, while former governor Andrew Cuomo, running on an independent line after his loss to Mamdani in the primary, garnered 41.6% with more than 90% of the vote counted. Republican Curtis Sliwa got 7.1%.
When Mamdani is sworn in on Jan 1, the 34-year-old state lawmaker from Queens will be the youngest person to hold the office in a century. He’ll also be New York’s first Muslim mayor and first person of South Asian descent to lead the city in its 400-year history. He’ll replace first-term mayor Eric Adams, who dropped out of the race amid low poll numbers and a series of scandals.
The election was one of the most competitive races the biggest US city had seen in more than a decade — a fact reflected in high levels of voter interest and turnout. More than two million people voted, the most since 1969, according to the New York City Board of Elections. Mamdani won four of the five boroughs, with his strongest showing in Brooklyn, where he held his victory party.
Mamdani rose from relative obscurity to break through a crowded field of candidates in the June primary with a combination of charisma, social media savvy and messaging aimed at tackling New York City’s affordability crisis, a strategy some political observers see as a model for national Democrats to emulate.
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He campaigned on promises to freeze the rent on more than one million stabilised apartments, and fund free buses and universal child care with new taxes on corporations and high-earners. Median asking rents have surged to roughly US$3,400 (RM14,268) a month, and the city’s housing vacancy rate reached 1.4% last year, the lowest in recorded history.
Mamdani also proposed ending mayoral control of the city’s public schools and creating a new office within the New York Police Department to handle calls related to people suffering severe episodes of mental illness. He also wants to create five city-owned grocery stores to provide more affordable food options amid rising inflation.
His proposals and inexperience — he’s sponsored only a handful of bills while serving three terms as a state assemblyman — unnerved business leaders, real estate groups and wealthy donors who poured money into PACs supporting Cuomo. (Former mayor Michael R Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, has contributed to PACs supporting Cuomo).
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At least some of his critics relented on Tuesday, with billionaire investor Bill Ackman — who donated more than US$1 million to the anti-Mamdani effort — congratulating the mayor-elect.
“Now you have a big responsibility,” Ackman posted on X. “If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.”
Mamdani built a massive army of volunteers, with his campaign saying on Tuesday that more than 100,000 volunteers knocked on three million doors.
In Fort Greene, blocks away from where Mamdani celebrated his win, cars honked as Mamdani’s speech played out on a bar’s television screen. Anita Brathwaite, who works in a bar and lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, lamented the difficulty of staying in New York.
“I’m from New York and there’s an exodus, right? Like, all our friends are leaving, they’re moving because maybe rent’s cheaper, you can get more space,” she said. “I’m voting because I want to stay.”
She said the Mamdani campaign knocked on her door three times.
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“That’s something that’s never happened — we’ve always kind of been skipped over.”
He also launched a prodigious fundraising effort that was able to raise millions of dollars from thousands of individual small-dollar donors, in order to leverage the city’s generous public matching funds program. The city matches donations from city residents to mayoral candidates with US$8 for every US$1 given, up to a maximum of US$250.
Mamdani’s campaign energised younger voters who turned out in much higher numbers than they had in previous elections. He also appealed to New York’s growing Asian electorate, who have risen to become nearly 16% of the population over the past 20 years.
One of his first challenges as mayor will be managing the city’s relationship with the White House. President Donald Trump has repeatedly lambasted Mamdani, calling him a “communist lunatic” and threatening to withhold funding from the city.
“It is my strong conviction that New York City will be a Complete and Total Economic and Social Disaster should Mamdani win,” Trump posted Monday on Truth Social. “I don’t want to send, as President, good money after bad.”
Moments after the race was called, House Speaker Mike Johnson said the consequences “will be felt across our entire country” as it “cements the Democrat Party’s transformation to a radical, big-government socialist party”.
The Republican congressman made the comment even as moderate Democrats prevailed elsewhere on Tuesday night. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, easily won the Virginia governor’s race, while Mikie Sherrill, a Navy veteran and ex-prosecutor, triumphed in New Jersey. California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom, also won a significant victory when his state’s voters approved Proposition 50, allowing a redrawing of congressional maps to favour Democrats before the 2026 midterms.
Different visions
Mamdani and Cuomo offered voters different visions on taxes and policing in a race that at times mirrored the divisions roiling the Democratic Party nationally.
The election also became a microcosm of New Yorkers’ views on ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. Mamdani, who has said he doesn’t believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, slammed the nation’s military action against Hamas in Gaza and Iran while advocating for Palestinian rights. Cuomo, who defended Israel, accused Mamdani of fostering antisemitism, which Mamdani has denied.
The former governor, the candidate with the most experience working in government, pitched himself to voters as a seasoned moderate who could manage New York’s problems — from crime in the subways to the universally acknowledged affordability crisis. He touted his achievements as governor, including the much-lauded renovation of LaGuardia Airport and the opening of the Second Avenue subway line.
But he failed in his effort to stage a comeback after resigning in disgrace from his third term as governor amid sexual harassment allegations, which he denies. He also failed to break through with Republicans, many of whom criticised him for his Covid-era policies and criminal justice reforms.
“There was no reason to vote for Cuomo,” Jennifer Neidig, a registered nurse, said on Tuesday at a party for Sliwa in Manhattan. “He started cashless bail allowing criminals to get released from prison. Why would I vote for such a person?”
Cuomo congratulated Mamdani on Tuesday night, before telling supporters his own campaign “was the right fight to wage”.
“This campaign was to contest the philosophies that are shaping the Democratic party, the future of this city and the future of this country,” Cuomo said. But he added that the tallies show “almost half of New Yorkers did. not vote to support a government agenda that makes promises that we know cannot be met”.
Mamdani is the Ugandan-born son of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani, a Columbia University professor and scholar of colonialism. He moved to New York at age seven, attended Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College in Maine, and tried his hand at multiple careers, including as a rap artist, working on his mother’s films, and as a foreclosure-prevention counselor at a nonprofit named Chhaya before turning towards politics.
He became a naturalised US citizen in 2018, and he first won election to the Assembly in 2020, representing a district in western Queens.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called Mamdani’s election an “historic rebuke” of Islamophobia and commended young voters for helping to carry the candidate alongside pro-Palestinian activism, according to a statement on Tuesday.
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