New York, city of immigrants, elects immigrant mayor

By S. Mitra Kalita, Ambar Castillo and Hari Adivarekar

Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assembly member representing Astoria, Queens, was handily elected mayor of New York City on a singular message of making America’s largest city more affordable.

Voters connected with Mamdani, born in Uganda to a Hindu mother and a Muslim father, and a campaign built on his own overlapping identities, social-media algorithms and an army of volunteers who door knocked, leafletted, designed logos and led scavenger hunts. Mamdani, who polled at less than 1 percent early in his campaign, remained tirelessly on message, whether during interviews with TikTok influencers, AKA creators4zohran, or at a queer dance party called Papi Juice or the Knicks game that he watched from the rafters, or before thousands at rallies reminiscent of rock concerts.

While full voting data will be released in coming weeks, Mamdani’s victory relied on South Asian, immigrant, young and new voters for the city’s highest turnout in decades; more than 2 million people cast their ballots, a number not seen since the 1969 reelection of John Lindsay. In recent days, New Yorkers confronted a barrage of racist ads and rhetoric as the campaign grew heated. Independent candidate and former governor Andrew Cuomo appeared to agree with a conservative commentator who said Mamdani would cheer if another 9/11 terror attack happened. In an emotional speech, Mamdani dug in, appealing to New Yorkers who had ever been called a terrorist or had their name mispronounced, and unapologetically asserted his faith.

“I thought that if I behaved well enough or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith,” Mamdani said. “I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.”

Mamdani’s election has heightened the sense that the city faces a showdown with former president Donald Trump, who endorsed Cuomo on Monday and has repeatedly denounced Mamdani as a “communist.” Mamdani has said he’s willing to work with Trump on issues of affordability, but has vowed to resist the immigration crackdown Trump has focused on other Democratic-led cities.

Mamdani’s complex identity but assertive sense of self found resonance in a city where 70% of the population is not white.

“I actually never really vote … I kind of lost faith,” Aniqa Tasnim, a nursing student who lives in Woodside, told Epicenter on Election Day as she cast her ballot. “For once I feel like there’s hope for the city.”

Mamdani’s candidacy, though, resonated far beyond his own communities and formed new coalitions. As The Haitian Times, a frequent partner with Epicenter NYC and fellow member of the URL Media network, reported recently: “Since he won the Democratic primary in June, he’s appeared at the BAYO concert at the Barclays Center, where he expressed solidarity with Haitians and promised to protect their rights. He’s made appearances in Little Caribbean, where he met with community leaders and residents. He’s also vowed to protect Haitians and other NYC immigrants from ICE raids. Mamdani’s promises are centered on a focus to make New York City affordable to all, including the Haitian communities who have been a significant part of it for decades.”

“He’s our man,” Haitian Times founder Garry Pierre-Pierre said. “We’re ride or die.”

Now comes the hard part. Mamdani will have to govern the complex bureaucracy that is New York City’s government. While he appears to have won a majority vote representing a diverse cross section, there are plenty of skeptics and holdouts, notably a portion of Jewish voters, Wall Street and the areas of the city where Trump did well in 2024, starting with Staten Island. And Mamdani will have to make good on big promises such as freezing the rent for many, making buses free, and offering universal childcare, that are dependent on policy changes at all levels of government – which he does not control. (Stay tuned: In Thursday’s issue of Epicenter, our civics writer Felipe De La Hoz will dive into just what it will take to implement his ideas. And stay in touch: We want to hear from you: What’s the New York you envision under a Mayor Mamdani? Email us at hello@epicenter-nyc.com)

When Mamdani won the June primary, Epicenter published this list of nine ways Mamdani’s victory had just upended New York City politics as we know it. We’ll offer some more takeaways as the story develops.

Listen to young people

While mainstream media and pundits have decried Mamdani’s lack of experience, what’s often missed is … that’s entirely the point.

“Young people have always pushed their movements forward and into new realms. They are not yet burdened by ‘how far we’ve come,’ so they see and fight for how far we can go,” according to Sonali Kohli, a senior recruiter for URL Media and author of “Don’t Wait: Three Girls Who Fought for Change and Won,” a young-adult nonfiction book about teen activists. “It’s the job of veterans to listen and adapt, and it’s young people’s job to learn their histories. That’s how change happens, ultimately.”

Uniting the city and outreach to Jewish New Yorkers

While “Jews for Zohran” sported T-shirts and rallied support, there was an undercurrent of concern from other camps. Mamdani stood firm in his support for the Palestinian people, saying Israel has a right to exist but needs to follow international law. He was increasingly vocal about fighting antisemitism, vowing to protect all New Yorkers.

We received several thoughtful emails from Jewish voters saying they don’t know how to feel. One Queens woman wrote: “With Mamdani, I really do understand why people feel proud — it’s meaningful to see a South Asian, Muslim New Yorker rise like that. Representation matters and is in many ways, a show of progress in NYC. But I can also admit it’s been painful to watch how his words — and silences — land for Jewish New Yorkers… We — Jews — have become pawns in other people’s ideological games, and it’s exhausting.”

How to reconcile with such New Yorkers feels hard, maybe impossible. Asked about this, the woman wrote: “Honestly, I’d be thrilled if he just left Israel AND Gaza out of city politics.”

The algorithm helped elect him but governance might be different

Social-media algorithms helped propel Mamdani’s unlikely rise; you know what happens once you watch one Mamdani video — dozens more quickly populate your feed.

But governing an echo chamber is not what’s about to happen. How Mamdani reaches people not on social media, and those who don’t agree with him – in a time when the platforms favor fake AI videos over vetted news – will be a challenge. (A reminder to support community media like Epicenter NYC!)

Look north to Boston

When asked to name a politician he admires, Zohran Mamdani has frequently offered up Michelle Wu, Boston’s mayor. Epicenter asked former Boston Globe editorial page editor and journalist Bina Venkataraman to contextualize what this moment means for New York, based on what she saw in Boston.

“Major American cities have become largely unaffordable for the young, creative, hungry people who are their lifeblood, the ones who come for the opportunities, culture and confluences of people, and who remake those cities anew,” she said. “The people who, irrespective of who is in the mayor’s mansion, are the drivers of the next waves of urban progress.”

Listen to young people

Uniting the city and outreach to Jewish New Yorkers

The algorithm helped elect him but governance might be different

Look north to Boston

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