The path to Zohran Mamdani’s stunning rise in New York politics runs directly through New York’s immigrant neighborhoods, enclaves of young renters, the middle class, and subway riders. Fordham Road in the Bronx and Hillsdale Avenue in Queens are home to one of the more unlikely voter types to emerge from the 2024 presidential election: the Trump/AOC voter.
Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mr. Mamdani identifies as a democratic socialist. And like both President Donald Trump and Representative Ocasio-Cortez, Mr. Mamdani is a natural in front of the camera.
Rather than wring his hands after Mr. Trump’s victory last November, Mr. Mamdani put on a dark suit and tie, grabbed a microphone, and took his campaign film crew to ask dozens of working-class New Yorkers whom they voted for and why. Then he posted his man-on-the-street conversation to social media.
Why We Wrote This
First-time voters and young voters turned out in droves for the New York mayoral primary. Their choice for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, may or may not herald a wider tea party-like revolt. But his win serves as a repudiation of the political establishment.
“He told us, ‘I want to talk to these people … about my agenda and see how it goes,’” says Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA) and a longtime friend. “It was an immediate hit. It was the first stark contrast with the failures of the Democratic Party establishment in that moment having no response to working-class voters who supported Trump.”
Mr. Mamdani’s unexpected victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor last week signals a new way of doing politics in the Trump era. It also served as a repudiation of the city’s political establishment.
New York has had socialists win public office before, but Mr. Mamdani is the first major DSA candidate with crossover appeal. He won majorities of voters in conservative outer boroughs with sizable Asian populations, wealthy liberal strongholds, and rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods thanks to charisma, slick ads, and a political message that emphasized New Yorkers’ economic insecurities. Most significantly, his campaign brought many first-time voters to the polls, including many young people.
It’s too early to say whether the race will portend a fundamental reordering of the Democratic Party similar to the tea party revolt that upended Republican incumbents and set the stage for Mr. Trump’s rise. Mr. Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, still has to face current Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent; Republican Curtis Sliwa; and perhaps Mr. Cuomo again in the general election. New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, both have declined to endorse him. Mr. Jeffries said Mr. Mamdani would have to convince voters he is “prepared to aggressively address the rise in antisemitism in the city.”
But his allies are confident, especially if all three opponents remain in the race.
“I can’t think of another candidate who has taken video communication as seriously as he has, to do political education for the public and put the campaign message forward,” Mr. Gordillo says. “Zohran is a very talented communicator, but it’s not just the style and the communication chops that were enough. The fact that he actually had a working-class agenda was really the secret sauce.”
Washington, for its part, is alarmed.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand accused Mr. Mamdani of endorsing violent rhetoric and making past statements in support of a “global intifada” after he declined to condemn the phrase in a podcast interview. Rep. Laura Gillen of Nassau County called Mr. Mamdani “too extreme” to lead the city and the “absolute wrong choice” for New York.
Those were just the Democrats. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a doctored photo of a burqa over the Statue of Liberty. Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogle sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging her to denaturalize and deport Mr. Mamdani. And President Trump called Mr. Mamdani “a 100% Communist Lunatic” and threatened to halt federal funding for the city if he didn’t “behave.”
“A hostile voter was merely an opportunity”
Communication, talent, and radical politics run in the family.
In 1991, Mahmoud Mamdani, a Ugandan intellectual who established the country’s first independent research organization, married Mira Nair, an Oscar-nominated Indian filmmaker. She released her groundbreaking romantic comedy, “Mississippi Masala,” that September. One month later, their son Zohran was born.
The family stayed in Uganda for five more years and then moved to South Africa. In 1999, Mahmoud Mamdani accepted an appointment at Columbia University, and the family decamped to the Upper West Side.
Zohran Mamdani was accepted to the prestigious Bronx High School of Science, one of the city’s most rigorous public high schools.
Kenny Burgos, a Bronx Science classmate who served in the State Assembly with Mr. Mamdani, says students were plugged into local and national politics such as the inauguration of Barack Obama and the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.
“We were all just young kids trying to figure it out in a privileged school of students who wanted to be successful and change the world,” he says.
Aurore Marechal/Sipa USA/AP/File
Mr. Mamdani started the school’s first cricket team, co-edited its newspaper, and ran for student body vice president. He lost but later said the school helped him leave his “privileged bubble” and changed his understanding of New York.
“Had I gone to a private high school in New York City, I don’t think I would have ended up on the same kind of path I am now in terms of the way that I think about things especially to do with class and race,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Mamdani attended Bowdoin College in Maine, where he majored in Africana studies and started a chapter of the group Students for Justice in Palestine. He moved to Queens after graduating in 2014 and began working as a counselor to prevent foreclosures. Deeply inspired by Bernie Sanders’ outsider presidential run in 2016, Mr. Mamdani joined DSA and worked on several campaigns in Southern Brooklyn and Queens.
He quickly became known in leftist circles for his fastidiousness as a grassroots organizer. Ross Barkan, a journalist who ran for the state Senate and hired Mr. Mamdani as his field director, wrote, “He himself was something of a master canvasser, able to charm even the frothing MAGA men at the doors who were still, out of laziness or spite, registered as Democrats. Zohran relished persuasion. A hostile voter was merely an opportunity.”
By 2019, Mr. Mamdani decided to challenge Assembly Member Aravella Simotas, then seen as a rising star of progressive politics. Mr. Mamdani campaigned on making housing more affordable and building renewable energy sources to replace Astoria’s fossil fuel plants, while criticizing Ms. Simotas for being beholden to the Queens Democratic Party machine. His brigade of DSA volunteers mobilized immigrants and young voters at neighborhood town halls, and then over Zoom when the pandemic canceled in-person events.
The result of the June 2020 primary was close. After an anxious month waiting for city election officials to count mail-in ballots, Mr. Mamdani edged his opponent by about 300 votes.
Mr. Gordillo believes Mr. Mamdani was able to channel voter frustration with housing costs, police violence, and institutional failures during the pandemic into electoral politics.
“We were campaigning on part of Zohran running as a movement candidate,” he says. “People were drawn to a new kind of politician who isn’t just progressive but is committed to being accountable to the people that put them in office.”
When Mr. Mamdani arrived in Albany in January 2021, he found few friends. The freshman had just defeated a popular legislator and gravitated toward other new lawmakers who had earned DSA’s support.
Brooklyn Assembly Member Emily Gallagher says Mr. Mamdani frequently brought colleagues to immigrant-run restaurants around the capital and organized mini-golf and go-kart outings when the weather got warmer.
“He’s really interested in other people and asks a lot of questions, and he’s so charming that he made friends with people from all different political positions,” she says. “A common problem for him is people falling in love with him because he really makes people feel like he’s talking to them and only them.”
John Lamparski/ Sipa USA/AP/File
In his first year, Mr. Mamdani participated in a 15-day hunger strike with taxi drivers who owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. They reached an agreement with the city to restructure their loans. He partnered with Queens state Sens. Michael Gianaris and Kristen Gonzalez in 2023 to create a one-year free bus pilot in the city. And he sought to eliminate property tax exemptions for private universities and strip state funding for New York charities involved in supporting Israeli settlements.
“Now let’s talk about governance”
Last spring, Mr. Mamdani began to explore a run against Mayor Adams. He would join a crowded field including former Governor Cuomo, who resigned after allegations of sexual harassment from multiple women; two city comptrollers; and two state lawmakers.
Janos Marton, a progressive organizer and chief advocacy officer at Dream.org, hosted Mr. Mamdani at his Staten Island home last fall while the candidate was still polishing his stump speech. Mr. Marton was struck by his charisma and ability to connect with a small group.
“He was going to be the candidate with the clearest defense of the progressive, left-wing approach to governance,” Mr. Marton says. “There was a real sense that being left-wing was a bad thing to be branded and something to run away from. Other candidates were describing themselves as common-sense moderates, and he was not.”
Mr. Mamdani launched his campaign in October with a short, crisply edited video promising to freeze rents, speed up buses, and make child care free. He made several more videos speaking with voters about their concerns in multiple languages. He examined why the price of halal chicken and rice had risen to $10, a video viewed on the social platform X 19.2 million times.
But he was still met with skepticism even by sympathetic colleagues. Last winter, he met Bronx state Sen. Gustavo Rivera for breakfast at a café in Albany multiple times seeking his endorsement.
“I told him for months, ‘I like you, I would love you to be the guy, but you have to show me you can put together a campaign,’” Mr. Rivera says. “I said, ‘You’ve built the campaign; now let’s talk about governance. You need to connect with people about how these things will be achievable.’”
An impromptu confrontation with “border czar” Tom Homan in March drew notice from Democratic voters far beyond his base. Mr. Homan was visiting Republican lawmakers. A brief video clip of Mr. Mamdani screaming at him about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest of Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil while state troopers held him back made headlines. Mr. Khalil was ordered released by a judge last month while the country’s case against him proceeds.
Mr. Rivera says the episode was not designed to be a viral moment but that legislators acted out of anger and frustration.
“You look at Zohran’s history, and it is not uncommon for him to be on the front lines standing up for people,” he says. “He shows up for people.”
Two weeks after the clash, Mr. Mamdani had reached the maximum fundraising limit for his primary campaign, collecting $1.7 million from more than 20,000 contributors. (With the city’s matching funds program, he brought in more than $8 million.)
He began rising in the polls. In February, Mr. Cuomo led Mr. Mamdani 33% to 1% in an Emerson College poll. By June, Mr. Mamdani had closed the gap, with Mr. Cuomo ahead 35% to 33%.
By then, Mr. Cuomo had amassed an enormous war chest, including $25 million for a super political action committee. Mr. Mamdani mobilized an army of 40,000 volunteers who knocked on 1 million doors across the city.
“Zohran talked about working-class issues like housing, cheaper groceries, and transit instead of focusing on billionaire donors, which gave me a lot of hope,” says Matthew Smith, a Fordham student who canvassed for the campaign. “It restored hope in America’s democracy that we finally had a candidate who wasn’t beholden to billionaire donors or corporations.”
