Just a few months ago, it would have been difficult to imagine that a 33-year-old Muslim Democratic Socialist – a little-known assemblyman who represented Queens, has never held a job in the private sector and who vowed to impose more taxes on businesses – could potentially be New York City’s next mayor.
But Zohran Mamdani did what would have been considered impossible: beating the Democratic establishment’s candidate, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo in the party’s mayoral primary on Jun 24.
This is despite Cuomo, a business-friendly political centrist, having the support of his party’s ageing establishment figures, including former president Bill Clinton and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, as well as financial backing from the city’s ultra rich, such as hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman.
Instead, Mamdani gained a stunning victory as a candidate who promised a lot of big things to New Yorkers, including free bussing, free childcare and a rent freeze.
He could become the first Muslim mayor of a city with the largest concentration of Jews outside Israel – a possibility that worries some American-Jewish leaders as well as the business elite in this commerce and finance capital. Despite spending millions in an assault of attack-ads depicting him as a dangerous radical, they were unable to stop Mamdani’s rise.
Meanwhile, incumbent Eric Adams, who plans to re-contest as an independent, has cast Mamdani, the son of an acclaimed film-maker and professor, as having a “silver spoon”.
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Nevertheless, it seems the charming and cheerful Mamdani, a natural communicator with an appeal akin to former president Barack Obama’s, has won the hearts and minds of young New Yorkers – including many Jews, never mind his refusal to disavow the anti-Zionist phrase “globalise the intifada”.
Like Obama, Mamdani appears to embody a natural and intuitive sense of the media. His team of video creators have deftly used TikTok and Instagram to electrify his supporters, running a brilliant campaign energised by 46,000 enthused foot soldiers.
Similar to the former president, Mamdani’s has other talents that have boosted his political career and a personal background that can be considered “exotic”.
He was born in Kampala, Uganda, and moved to New York at the age of seven when his father Mahmood Mamdani joined the faculty at Columbia University.
The younger Mamdani studied at the famously competitive Bronx High School of Science and later graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine, where he co-founded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
After college, he became a social justice activist and had a short-lived music career as a rapper, with one of his tracks paying homage to his grandmother.
In 2018, he entered politics after becoming a naturalised American citizen and was elected to represent Astoria, Queens, in the New York State Assembly in Albany. He told supporters then that he was “going to Albany to fight to tax the rich, heal the sick and build a socialist New York”.
This is also basically what he plans to do as mayor of New York, promising, among other things, to put city-run supermarkets in areas without them.
There is no doubt that an effective campaign is what helped Mamdani win the primary. At one point during the campaign, he even walked the length of Manhattan.
Cuomo, on the other hand, had hoped his name recognition would bestow him victory, even if allegations of sexual harassment had forced his resignation.
In a way, the outcome of the race and Mamdani’s rise reflect a generational revolt.
Many among the younger voters are now leaning to the political left and are fed up with the older generation – the likes of 67-year-old Cuomo and most of his supporters, who are baby boomers. Younger voters are seeking younger and “cool” candidates, the kind that may have a chance to beat the likes of US President Donald Trump.
Trump himself seems outraged by the outcome of the New York primary. He called Mamdani a “communist” and warned that New York could become “a communistic city” if he is elected as mayor in November.
“I can’t believe that’s happening,” the president told reporters at the White House. “That’s a terrible thing for our country, by the way.”
Trump’s political narrative and that of the Republican Party’s is likely going to be that the Democratic Party has fallen into the hands of anti-Israel radical leftists, whose views run contrary to those of the American people.
Those who voted for Mamdani, on the other hand, would argue that their party is finally choosing an attractive candidate with an obvious sense of personal destiny. The kind of candidate – 35-year-old New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez comes to mind – that could beat the Republicans in the general election.
