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As Zohran Mamdani surges in the polls in his campaign for mayor of New York City, Islamophobia is also on the rise.
A recent report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), which analyzed online hate before and after New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, documented a sharp increase in digital hate speech and Islamophobia on social media in the wake of Mamdani’s primary win.
The study found that in the lead-up to the primary, between June 13 to June 23, 2025, there were between 56 and 264 hateful posts per day. On June 24, 2025 — primary day — that number jumped to 899 posts. The day after the primary, CSOH documented 2,173 hate posts. According to CSOH, four key themes dominated the online discourse: Islamophobia, anti-communist red-baiting, nativism, and Hindu nationalism.
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Explicit Islamophobic language was the most prominent theme of online hate toward Mamdani. Of the 1,933 posts reviewed by CSOH, 39.4% were categorized as Islamophobic. The study concluded that Mamdani’s Muslim identity was the primary reason for delegitimizing his campaign.
“We found a huge spike in online hate and fear-mongering targeting Muslims in the aftermath of Mamdani’s primary win, blending racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, red-baiting, and anti-immigrant sentiment into one dangerous narrative,” said Raqib Hameed Naik, executive director of CSOH, in a statement to Documented. “Muslims were portrayed as threats to national security, incompatible with democracy, or as agents of an imagined foreign agenda.”
Since his primary win, Mamdani has been subjected to death threats, requiring him to hire security.
“I get messages that say the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. I get threats on my life, on the people that I love,” said Mamdani in June, the week before winning the Democratic primary. “My focus has always been on making this a city that’s affordable, on making the city that every New Yorker sees themselves in.”
Islamophobic online attacks against Mamdani echo a growing national trend. According to data collected by the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services in 2023, they have seen a 417% increase in online hate speech against Muslims across the state since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza.
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Last year, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, found that anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents have sharply risen. From January to June 2024, CAIR documented 4,951 complaints, a 69% increase over the same period in 2023. But in 2023, CAIR saw a 56% increase in complaints compared to 2022.
Naik warned that anti-Muslim hate speech online can potentially fuel real-world violence if left unchecked.
“We know from experience that this kind of online demonization and dehumanization doesn’t stay online,” he said. “It creates a permissive environment for real-world harm.” According to Naik, social media platforms should strengthen their safeguards against hate speech before November’s general election.
On Monday, outside Mamdani’s State Assembly district office in Queens, the Italian-American Civil Rights League (IACRL), and a few dozen MAGA supporters, rallied against Mamdani, waving both Italian and Israeli flags. Founded in 1970 by reputed Mafia boss Joseph Colombo of the Colombo crime family as an advocacy group for Italian Americans, the long-defunct IACRL was revived in 2023.
Organizers from IACRL said they had gathered to stop what they call Mamdani’s “hate speech” regarding the Jewish and Italian communities. Recently, a video surfaced showing Mamdani holding up his middle finger to the Christopher Columbus statue in Astoria in 2020.
At the rally, Gerard Marrone, an IACRL member, spoke to a small crowd of a few dozen supporters. “We’re here today not because of a statue, ladies and gentlemen, we’re here because of a symbol of Italian-American pride, our ancestry,” said Marrone through a megaphone. “We will not be erased.”
Mamdani’s office did not reply to Documented’s request for comment.
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The protesters did not hide their disdain for the assemblymember. “Zohran the moron,” “Go to Gaza,” “Stop hating Jewish-Christian values,” “Communist Mamdani,” “Zohran the terrorist,” “Zohran is Hamas,” were just a handful of chants that the crowd yelled outside his office and to the pro-Mamdani counter protesters who were gathered across the street.
Meanwhile, many of the protesters were less focused on Mamdani’s supposed insult to the Italian American community; instead, they kept repeating right-wing misinformation and conspiracy theories, including the false claim that Mamdani planned to implement Sharia law.
“Zohran Mamdani is racist,” David Rem, an independent candidate for mayor and a “childhood friend” of President Donald Trump, told Documented. “He said he’s only going to raise the property taxes for white people.” (For context, Mamdani’s plan proposes shifting the tax burden “from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.” The plan does not state that he would raise property values exclusively for white people.)
As the crowd continued to chant Islamophobic slogans, 31-year-old Yemeni immigrant Alwaledd Alhas, who just so happened to stumble onto the protest, shouted back to the crowd. An Astoria resident, Alhas was not aware that protesters had been gathering outside Mamdani’s office and didn’t know why they were protesting. When he yelled back to the protesters, calling them racist as he walked past them, the crowd followed him, hurling insults and curse words at him.
The police had to escort Alhas away as the crowd grew more agitated.
“We are human beings, and this is out of control,” said Alhas to Documented when he was safely away from the protesters. “Enough is enough.”
The post Mamdani’s Rise and the Resurgence of Islamophobic Politics appeared first on Documented.
