Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democratic socialist, has been elected as New York City's mayor, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo in a race focused on affordability. He becomes the city's youngest mayor in over a century and its first Muslim mayor. The victory caps a meteoric rise for the former South African schoolboy amid high voter turnout.
On November 4, 2025, Zohran Mamdani clinched the New York City mayoral race, defeating Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in June, and Republican Curtis Sliwa. The 34-year-old, a state lawmaker and Democratic socialist, built his campaign around affordability issues, including universal childcare, freezing rents for nearly a million stabilized apartments, making city buses free, raising taxes on the wealthy, and hiking the corporation tax.
Mamdani's win marks him as the youngest mayor in more than a century, the first millennial in the role, and the first Muslim to lead America's largest city. Raised in Uganda and South Africa, he is the son of academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair; his wife is Rama Duwaji. Voters like Grace Owens, a Brooklyn resident undergoing IVF, cited Mamdani's universal childcare pledge as key, saying it would concretely affect daily life in one of the world's most expensive cities. Sarah Chase, a grad student, supported him for prioritizing lower-income people over the wealthy, while Jahan Shaikh welcomed the change from usual candidates.
The election saw record turnout, with over 730,000 early ballots—the highest ever for a non-presidential vote in New York—and more than 2 million total ballots, the most since 1969. President Donald Trump endorsed Cuomo and threatened to withhold federal funds if Mamdani won, calling him a 'communist' on Truth Social. Yet some voters, including a Mamdani campaign volunteer, said this backlash in anti-Trump New York drove support for the progressive candidate, who they saw as standing up to the president.
The race, closely watched nationally, tested Democratic strategies post-Trump's 2024 victory, highlighting progressive versus moderate approaches amid economic concerns.
