NEW YORK (AP) When Zohran Mamdani declared his intention to run for mayor in October, he was a state senator who was unknown to the majority of people in New York City.
After former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded, the 33-year-old announced his victory in the Democratic primary from a rooftop club in Queens on Tuesday night, marking his incredible political rise.
Here is a look at the former rapper running to become the city’s youngest mayor in generations and its first Muslim and Indian American mayor, even if the final result of the contest has not yet been confirmed by a ranked choice count set for July 1.
Mamdani s mother is a famous filmmaker
Mamdani was born to Indian parents in Kampala, Uganda, and shortly after completing college, he obtained U.S. citizenship in 2018.
Before relocating to New York City at the age of seven, he briefly resided in Cape Town, South Africa, with his family.
Award-winning director Mira Nair, Mamdani’s mother, has worked on films such Mississippi Masala, The Namesake, and Monsoon Wedding. Mahmood Mamdani, his father, teaches anthropology at Columbia University.
Earlier this year, Mamdani got married at the City Clerk’s Office to Syrian American artist Rama Duwaji. The pair, who reside in Queens’ Astoria neighborhood, met on the dating app Hinge.
Mamdani was once a fledgling rapper
According to his legislative biography, Mamdani co-founded the first cricket team at the public Bronx High School of Science.
He co-founded the Students for Justice in Palestine branch at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he received a degree in Africana studies in 2014.
He claims that his work assisting Queens people in avoiding eviction as a foreclosure prevention counselor after graduating from college served as the impetus for his decision to run for public office.
Rapping as Young Cardamom and then Mr. Cardamom, Mamdani also had a noteworthy side gig in the local hip-hop scene. Mamdani acknowledged his brief musical career during his first campaign for state parliament, calling himself a B-list rapper.
As his mayoral candidacy gathered steam, a song he wrote in 2019 in memory of his grandmother, Nani, even found new life and a much larger audience. However, some have pointed to his 2017 ode to being Muslim in New York, Salaam, as evidence of his antisemitism.
Early political career
Mamdani began his career in municipal politics by working on Democratic politicians’ campaigns in Brooklyn and Queens.
In 2020, he was elected to the New York Assembly for the first time, defeating a long-serving Democratic incumbent in a Queens district that included Astoria and the neighboring areas. He has won reelection twice with ease.
Passing a pilot program that made a few city buses free for a year was the Democratic Socialists’ most noteworthy legislative achievement. Additionally, he has put forth legislation that would prohibit nonprofit organizations from unapprovedly endorsing Israeli settlement activities.
Cuomo in particular has criticized Mamdani as being terribly unfit to handle the challenges of leading the biggest city in America.
However, Mamdani has presented his relative inexperience as a strength, stating during a mayoral debate that he is pleased to lack Cuomo’s background in scandal, corruption, and shame.
Viral campaign videos
In order to gain support from voters outside of his Queens constituency, Mamdani has employed popular campaign films, many of which make joking allusions to Bollywood and his Indian ancestry.
He broke down his strategy to freeze rents on New York’s Day by participating in the yearly polar plunge into the cold waters off Coney Island while wearing a full dress suit.
Mamdani walked the entire length of Manhattan as the race was nearing its finish line, sharing pictures and videos of his encounters along the route to chronicle the approximately 13-mile (21-kilometer) journey.
He has even used Spanish, Bangla, and other languages to appeal to voters of color in TikTok videos.
Progressive promises
Unlike politicians like Cuomo, who have mostly concentrated on concerns of crime and law and order, Mamdani has presented a more hopeful outlook.
Free child care, free buses, a rent freeze for rent-regulated apartments, and new affordable housing are just a few of the lofty promises he made during his campaign to cut the cost of living for regular New Yorkers. A large portion of these promises came from tax increases on the wealthy.
He has, predictably, won over the liberal wing of the Democratic party with his lofty promises.
U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, two of the nation’s leading progressives, endorsed Mamdani.
Pro-Palestinian views
In the mayoral contest, Mamdani’s vocal support for Palestinian causes caused friction as Cuomo and other rivals attempted to characterize his forceful criticism of Israel as antisemitic.
Shia Muslims have referred to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide and stated that the nation ought to function as an equal rights state instead of a Jewish state. Pro-Palestinian citizens, particularly the city’s approximately 800,000 Muslims, who make up the largest Muslim community in the nation, have responded favorably to that message.
On the eve of the election, host Stephen Colbert questioned Mamdani if he thought the state of Israel had the right to exist during an interview on CBS’s The Late Show. “Yes, I think it has a right to exist and a responsibility to uphold international law, just like all nations,” he replied.
In the days before the election, Jewish organizations and other candidates accused Mamdani of failing to denounce calls to globalize the intifada, which is a popular chant at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, in a podcast.
He promised to collaborate closely with people who disagree with him on contentious matters in his victory speech on Tuesday.
“You have my word to reach further, to understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree, and to wrestle deeply with those disagreements,” Mamdani stated, adding that he would not renounce his convictions or values, which are based on a demand for equality, humanity, and all people on this planet.
This report was written by Anthony Izaguirre and Jake Offenhartz of the Associated Press in New York.
Sign up for the Today newsletter
Receive all the information you require to begin your day, given directly to your inbox each morning.
