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(Bloomberg) — Zoharan Mamdani was elected New York’s 111th mayor in a historic victory that will put a distinguished democratic socialist in charge of the city that serves as the capital of global finance.
According to the Associated Press, Democrat Mamdani received 50.4% of the vote, while former Governor Andrew Cuomo, running on the independent line after losing to Mamdani in the primaries, received 41.3% of the vote, with 75% of the vote counted. Republican Curtis Sliwa received 7.5%.
When Mamdani is sworn in on Jan. 1, the 34-year-old state lawmaker from Queens will be the youngest person to hold the office in a century. He would also be the first Muslim mayor of New York and the first person of South Asian descent to lead the city in its 400-year history. He replaces first-term Mayor Eric Adams, who dropped out of the race due to low polling numbers and a series of scandals.
The election was one of the most competitive races America’s largest city had seen in more than a decade – a fact reflected in the high levels of voter interest and turnout. More than 2 million people voted across New York City, the most since 1969, according to the New York City Board of Elections.
Mamdani broke into a crowded field of candidates in the June primary with a combination of charisma, social media savvy and messaging aimed at tackling New York City’s affordability crisis, a strategy that some political observers see as a model for national Democrats to emulate.
He campaigned on promises to fund free buses and universal child care with a freeze on rents for more than 1 million stabilized apartments, and new taxes on corporations and high-income people. The average asking rent has risen to nearly $3,400 a month, and the city’s housing vacancy rate reached 1.4% last year, the lowest in recorded history.
Mamdani also proposed ending mayoral control of the city’s public schools and creating a new office within the New York Police Department to handle calls involving people suffering severe episodes of mental illness. He also wants to create five city-owned grocery stores to provide more affordable food options amid rising inflation.
His proposals and inexperience — he has sponsored only a handful of bills during three terms as a state Assemblyman — upset business leaders, real estate groups and wealthy donors who poured money into PACs supporting Cuomo. (Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, parent company of Bloomberg News, has contributed to a PAC supporting Cuomo).
Mamdani gathered a vast army of volunteers and launched a prodigious fundraising effort that was able to raise millions of dollars from thousands of individual small-dollar donors to take advantage of the city’s generous public matching fund program. The city matches donations made by residents to mayoral candidates $8 for every $1, up to a maximum of $250.
Mamdani’s campaign energized young voters who turned out to vote in far greater numbers than in previous elections. He also appealed to New York’s growing Asian voters, who have grown to about 16% of the population over the past 20 years.
One of his first challenges as mayor will be managing the city’s relationship with the White House. President Donald Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Mamdani, calling him a “communist maniac” and threatening to cut off funding from the city.
“It is my firm belief that New York City will be a complete economic and social disaster if Mamdani wins,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday. “As president, I don’t want to send good money after bad.”
Moments after the race was declared, House Speaker Mike Johnson said the results “will be felt throughout our country” as it “solidifies the transformation of the Democrat Party into a radical, big-government socialist party.”
The Republican congressman made the comments as moderate Democrats prevailed elsewhere on Tuesday night. Former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger easily won the Virginia governor’s race, while Navy veteran and former prosecutor Mickey Sherrill won in New Jersey.
Mamdani and Cuomo offered voters starkly different visions on taxes and policing, at times reflecting the divisions rife in the Democratic Party nationally. The election also became a microcosm of New Yorkers’ views on the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, with Cuomo promising support for Israel as Mamdani criticized the Jewish state’s military actions against Hamas in Gaza and Iran while advocating for Palestinian rights.
The former governor, the candidate with the most experience working in government, presented himself to voters as an experienced liberal who could manage New York’s problems – from crime in the subways to a universally acknowledged affordability crisis. He touted his accomplishments as governor, including the highly praised renovation of LaGuardia Airport and the opening of the Second Avenue Subway Line.
Mamdani is the son of Ugandan-born Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia University professor and decolonization scholar Mahmoud Mamdani. He moved to New York at age 7, attended the Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College in Maine, and tried his hand at several careers, including as a rap artist, working in his mother’s films, and working as a foreclosure-prevention consultant at a nonprofit called Shadow, before turning to politics.
He became a naturalized US citizen in 2018, and he first won election to the Assembly in 2020, representing a district in western Queens.
Sliwa has accused Cuomo of being behind efforts to convince Republicans to drop out of the race, so that the anti-Mamdani vote could coalesce around the former governor. At his election party on Tuesday night, a teary-eyed Sliwa said someone tried to bribe him “up to $10 million” to get out, adding that “some of the most powerful people in the world worked to silence us.”
Cuomo has denied Sliwa’s allegations, saying they would be illegal.
Disclaimer: This story is published from a wire agency feed without any modifications to the text.
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