What to know concerning the NYC mayoral candidate : NPR

Zohran Mamdani is poised to turn out to be the Democratic nominee for New York Metropolis mayor, after main within the metropolis’s ranked-choice major on Tuesday.

The 33-year-old state assemblymember and democratic socialist was just about unknown when he jumped into the crowded major subject final fall. However he had not too long ago skyrocketed within the polls, fueled by in-person interactions, viral movies and coverage proposals that seem to have resonated particularly amongst youthful and first-time major voters.

With 93% of precincts reporting, Mamdani garnered 44% of ballots — the many of the 11 candidates and way over the 36% of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the one-time frontrunner. Cuomo conceded to Mamdani on Tuesday night time, however has left the door open to run as an unbiased in November’s common election.

The first is not formally over: The shedding candidates’ ballots should be redistributed to voters’ second-choice candidates till one in every of them breaks the 50% threshold, a course of that’s set to start on July 1.

However Mamdani’s commanding lead despatched a transparent message — and was sufficient for him to declare victory simply after midnight.

“I would be the mayor for each New Yorker, whether or not you voted for me, for Gov. Cuomo or felt too disillusioned by an extended, damaged political system to vote in any respect,” Mamdani advised supporters at his Lengthy Island Metropolis watch celebration. “I’ll battle for a metropolis that works for you, that’s inexpensive for you, that’s protected for you.”

If Mamdani does win the first, he’ll face off towards a slew of candidates in November — together with Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who ran unopposed in his celebration’s major, and embattled Mayor Eric Adams, who bypassed the Democratic major by saying he’d search reelection as an unbiased.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans eight to 1 in New York Metropolis, in accordance with Gothamist.

However Mamdani’s rise was removed from assured: With the assistance of tens of hundreds of unpaid volunteers, the Ugandan-born progressive mobilized younger and first-time voters to tug off a shocking upset towards the Democratic Celebration institution in America’s most populous metropolis, with implications for the remainder of the nation.

Here is what else to learn about him.

He could be a history-making mayor 

If elected, Mamdani could be New York Metropolis’s first Muslim mayor. He would even be its youngest in additional than a century.

Mamdani, who turns 34 in October, would share the dignity with John Purroy Mitchel — nicknamed the “Boy Mayor” — who took workplace at age 34 in 1914.

Mamdani was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, to tutorial Mahmood Mamdani and Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair, who’s finest recognized for movies together with Mississippi Masala and Monsoon Marriage ceremony.

The household moved to New York Metropolis when Mamdani was seven years outdated, and he turned a U.S. citizen in 2018.

Mamdani would even be New York Metropolis’s first mayor to meet his spouse on a courting app, as he revealed on The Bulwark. He married Syrian animator and illustrator Rama Duwaji in a civil ceremony on the Metropolis Clerk’s workplace in early 2025.

He was first elected to the New York State Meeting in 2020 

After graduating from Bowdoin Faculty with a level in Africana Research, Mamdani labored as a foreclosures prevention housing counselor in Queens — a job he says impressed him to run for workplace.

“After having spent each day negotiating with banks that valued earnings over individuals, he got here face-to-face with the truth that this housing disaster – one which predated this pandemic – was not pure to our lives, however as an alternative a alternative,” reads Mamdani’s official biography.

Mamdani received a seat in New York’s State Meeting in 2020 after narrowly beating a four-term incumbent within the major, changing into the primary South Asian man to serve in that physique. He has represented the thirty sixth district — which incorporates the Queens neighborhood of Astoria — ever since, profitable reelection unopposed in 2022 and 2024.

Mamdani’s legislative — and marketing campaign — priorities embody inexpensive housing, free public buses and reducing the price of residing by elevating taxes on huge firms and the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers.

He launched greater than 20 such payments throughout his four-plus years in Albany, although the New York Occasions notes that solely three “comparatively minor gadgets” really turned legislation. Considered one of his signature achievements was a yearlong pilot program free of charge bus routes — one in every of the town’s 5 boroughs — that was not renewed.

He was endorsed by high-profile progressives

Within the remaining weeks of the first race, Mamdani scored endorsements from Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — whose congressional district consists of components of Queens — and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who congratulated him and “his hundreds of grassroots supporters” in a tweet on Tuesday night time.

“You took on the political, financial and media Institution- and also you beat them,” Sanders wrote. “Now it is on to victory within the common election.”

Mamdani’s roster of political endorsements additionally consists of figures like Rep. Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., former New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, New York Legal professional Normal Letitia James, New York Metropolis Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

Along with the New York Metropolis chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani was endorsed by organizations together with the New York Working Households Celebration, the nationwide youth local weather group Dawn Motion, and a number of native unions.

A variety of celebrities additionally expressed public help for Mamdani, from actor and former New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, musician Lorde, and Saturday Night time Stay forged members Bowen Yang and Sarah Sherman.

Notably, Mamdani was cross-endorsed by a few of his fellow Democratic mayoral hopefuls, former Assemblymember Eric Blake and New York Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander, with whom he fashioned a public alliance within the hopes of holding Cuomo off voters’ ballots.

Lander was in third place within the race as of Tuesday night time, poised to ship a large share of votes to Mamdani.

His views on Israel have been divisive

Mamdani — who co-founded his school’s first College students for Justice in Palestine chapter — has been a vocal critic of Israel’s army response to the Hamas assaults of Oct. 7, 2023, a difficulty that has deeply divided the Democratic Celebration.

Whereas mourning the lack of Israeli and Palestinian lives, Mamdani condemned Israel’s determination to chop electrical energy to Gaza and the occupation in an announcement the day after the assault on Israel, which he later known as a “horrific struggle crime.” However critics, together with some Jewish teams, have pointed to Mamdani’s observe report on Israel even earlier than Oct. 7.

It consists of his long-standing help of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) motion (he is declined to say whether or not he would advocate for the coverage as mayor), and a 2023 invoice he drafted that might prohibit New York nonprofits from supporting Israeli settler exercise. The laws was broadly criticized by Democratic lawmakers — who known as it “a ploy to demonize Jewish charities” — and didn’t cross.

Mamdani additional stirred controversy the week earlier than the first when, in an interview with The Bulwark, he refused to sentence the phrase “globalize the intifada” — which many Jewish individuals interpret as a name for violence towards them and Israel, whilst some pro-Palestinian protesters say it’s a peaceable name to withstand Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Financial institution.

When requested whether or not the slogan made him uncomfortable, Mamdani stated it captured “a determined need for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”

After his remark was condemned by the U.S. Holocaust Museum and different Jewish leaders, Mamdani advised reporters that “it pains me to be known as an antisemite.”

“I’ve stated at each alternative that there is no such thing as a room for antisemitism on this metropolis, on this nation. I’ve stated that as a result of that’s one thing I personally consider,” he stated.

Mamdani broke down in tears as he described the vitriol he has confronted over his personal religion on the marketing campaign path.

“I get messages that say the one good Muslim is a lifeless Muslim,” he stated. “I get threats on my life, on the those that I like.”