Zohran Mamdani is poised to become the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City after the 33-year-old democratic socialist forced his opponent Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of the state, to concede within hours after polls closed.
Mamdani, who just months ago was an unfamiliar name to most New Yorkers, racked up commanding leads across Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, even pushing Cuomo close in what was meant to be his stronghold of the Bronx.
“Eight months after launching this campaign with the vision of a city that every New Yorker can afford, we have won,” Mamdani told his supporters at a crowded bar in Long Island City early Wednesday morning.
Cuomo, 67, spoke to a somber crowd at a union hall on Manhattan’s West Side.
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“Tonight was not our night,” he said. “I want to applaud the assemblyman for a really smart and good and impactful campaign. Tonight is his night. He deserved it. He won.”
In the first round of ranked-choice voting, Mamdani garnered 43.5% of the vote and Cuomo 36.4%, according to preliminary results from the New York City Board of Elections with more than 96% of the ballots counted. Coming in third on the first round was city Comptroller Brad Lander, at 11.3%.
Mamdani exceeded more than 60% of the vote in vast swathes of the city, building a multi-ethnic coalition across brownstone Brooklyn, working-class Queens and upper Manhattan.
“The surge by Mamdani is something I’ve never seen before in New York City politics,” J.C. Polanco, a political analyst and assistant professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent, said before the results were known. “It’s been an incredible campaign that understood social media and marketing like no other.”
New York Democrats voted in sweltering triple-digit temperatures Tuesday, with overall turnout on the verge of 1 million votes with 96% of voting machines reporting – the highest at least since the terrorism-disrupted mayoral primary of 2001.
Under the city’s ranked-choice system, a candidate is declared the winner after receiving more than 50% of the votes. In each round, a candidate will be eliminated and their voters’ No. 2 choice will be distributed to the remaining candidates. The process is repeated until a candidate receives a majority. Lander and Mamdani had cross-endorsed each other, virtually ensuring Mamdani will increase his vote total more than Cuomo will. The results aren’t official until a ranked-choice runoff on July 1.
Cuomo said he plans to “look at all the numbers as they come in and analyze the rank-choice voting,” according to a statement, which suggested he may run for mayor as an independent in the November election.
The Democratic nominee for mayor of deep-blue New York has typically been a shoo-in in the general election. But this year Mamdani still needs to face Mayor Eric Adams, who won the 2021 election as a Democrat but is running this time as an independent. Adams, a former police captain, dropped out of the Democratic primary this spring after becoming the first sitting mayor in the city’s modern history to be indicted on federal charges. The Trump administration ordered those charges dismissed earlier this year, kicking off fresh controversy over whether Adams would be beholden to Trump.
Other candidates in November include Republican Curtis Sliwa, a radio talk show host and founder of the Guardian Angels, and independent Jim Walden.
Mamdani and Cuomo offered starkly different visions on taxes and policing in a race that at times mirrored the divisions roiling the Democratic Party nationally. The election also became a microcosm of New Yorkers’ views on ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, with Cuomo pledging support for Israel as Mamdani criticized the country’s wars in Gaza and Iran.
Mamdani has vowed to freeze rents and make city buses free by raising the state corporate tax rate and imposing a new 2% income tax on city residents who earn more than $1 million a year. The moves, which would require state approval, have raised anxiety among some of the region’s business elite, who poured billions of dollars into supporting Cuomo’s candidacy. He has also called for the creation of city-owned grocery stores.
The former governor, the oldest candidate and the person with the most experience working in government, pitched himself as a seasoned moderate who can manage New York’s problems – from crime in the subways to a universally acknowledged affordability crisis. He touted his achievements running the state, including the much-lauded renovation of LaGuardia Airport and the opening of the Second Avenue subway line.
But his campaign struggled as rivals repeatedly attacked him for the sexual harassment allegations that led to his resignation in 2021, as well as his handling of Covid in nursing homes. Opponents formed a group – Don’t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor – while Cuomo’s campaign frequently focused on attacking Mamdani. Cuomo largely avoided media interviews and public appearances, a strategy that some political analysts called a mistake.
If elected, Mamdani would be New York’s youngest mayor in a century, its first Muslim mayor and the first person of South Asian descent to lead the city. He rose in the polls from virtual obscurity thanks to extensive social media outreach, a sophisticated volunteer network, massive donor support and direct mail that resonated with young and progressive voters.
In a victory speech filled with soaring rhetoric, Mamdani promised to build a city “where rent-stabilized apartments are actually stabilized, where buses are fast and free, where child care doesn’t cost more than CUNY and where public safety keeps us truly safe.” CUNY is the publicly funded City University of New York.
But he also said that New Yorkers’ concerns extend beyond the five boroughs.
An activist for Palestinian causes, Mamdani faced questions over his ability to lead the largest population of Jews outside of Israel. He has refused to say that he supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum issued a statement condemning Mamdani’s defense of the use of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a reference to the armed Palestinian uprisings against Israel. That’s drawn attacks from Republicans and will likely be another flash point in the November general election.
Mamdani, who was first elected to his seat in 2020, was backed by the New York City branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Both congratulated him after Cuomo conceded, with Sanders praising his grassroots campaign and Ocasio-Cortez slamming the money that fueled Cuomo’s candidacy.
“Billionaires and lobbyists poured millions against you and our public finance system. And you won,” she said on X.
A super PAC backing Cuomo, Fix the City, raised nearly $25 million from finance and real estate billionaires including Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, as well as Bill Ackman, Daniel Loeb and Steven Roth. Home Depot Inc. co-founder Ken Langone and delivery app DoorDash Inc. have also contributed.
The PAC’s effort was the single largest independent expenditure in a city election in the 15 years since the Supreme Court paved the way for virtually unlimited outside spending.
“This is a stunning victory for progressives,” said John Mollenkopf, director of the Center for Urban Research at CUNY. Mamdani’s win “shows that the negative ads and big independent expenditures for Cuomo did not have the desired effect.”