The election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York caps an extraordinary rise for the left-wing local lawmaker who emerged from relative obscurity to lead a high-octane campaign for the top job in the American megalopolis.
Since his surprise victory in the Democratic Party primary in June, New Yorkers have grown accustomed to seeing his bearded, smiling face on television — and on the badges proudly worn by his supporters.
The 34-year-old election winner was born in Uganda to a family of Indian origin and has lived in the United States since the age of seven, becoming a naturalized American citizen in 2018.
He is the son of filmmaker Mira Nair (“Monsoon Wedding,” “Mississippi Masala”) and Mahmood Mamdani, a professor and respected Africa expert – leading some of his detractors to label him a “nepo baby.”
He followed a path blazed by other young people from elite liberal families, attending the elite Bronx High School of Science and then Bowdoin College in Maine, a university considered a bastion of progressive thought.
Under the pseudonym “Young Cardamom”, he ventured into the world of rap in 2015, influenced by the hip-hop group “Das Racist”, which had two members of Indian origin who played with references and tropes from the subcontinent.
Mamdani’s attempt to break into the competitive world of professional music did not last, with the artist-turned-politician labeling himself a second-rate artist.
He became interested in politics when he learned that rapper Himanshu Suri, who performed under the pseudonym Heems, was supporting a city council candidate — and joined that campaign as an activist.
Mamdani later became a foreclosure prevention advisor, helping financially distressed homeowners avoid losing their homes.
He was elected in 2018 as a lawmaker from Queens, a melting pot of largely poor and migrant communities, representing the region in the New York State Assembly.
“Dissatisfied voters”
The self-proclaimed socialist, re-elected three times, has placed at the heart of his campaign the objective of making the city affordable for all those who are not rich, the majority of its approximately 8.5 million inhabitants.
He promised more rent control, free daycare and buses, and city-run neighborhood grocery stores.
Mamdani is also a longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause, although his positions on Israel – which he has called an “apartheid regime” while calling the war in Gaza a “genocide” – have angered some in the Jewish community.
In recent months, he has made a point of loudly denouncing anti-Semitism – as well as the Islamophobia of which he is a victim.
Playing the race card, President Donald Trump, who calls Mamdani a “little communist,” denounced him as “a proven, self-proclaimed Jew-hater” Tuesday as New Yorkers headed to the polls.
Mamdani is something of an “outsider” to the establishment, according to Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University.
“He has successfully galvanized support from disaffected voters and others in New York who are dissatisfied with the status quo and a power they perceive as neglecting their needs and policy preferences,” he said.
Mamdani, an avid football and cricket fan, recently married American illustrator Rama Duwaji and parlayed his activism experience into a strategically coordinated canvassing and pamphlet campaign that he combined with extensive and often humorous use of social media.
“It’s really kind of a hybrid between a great campaign of the 1970s and a great campaign of 2025,” said Lincoln Mitchell, a professor at Columbia University.
