When he announced his run for Mayor of New York City back in October, Zohran Mamdani was a state lawmaker unknown to most of the Big Apple’s residents. 

On Tuesday evening, the 33-year-old marked his stunning political ascension when he declared victory in the Democratic primary from a Queens rooftop bar, beating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. 

While the race won’t be decided until November, the former rapper and self-described socialist appears well on his way to becoming the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor – and its youngest in generations.

Mamdani’s stunning primary victory truly put the cat among the pigeons on both sides of the aisle.  

Donald Trump branded him a ‘100 per cent Communist lunatic’ – a comment to which Mamdani duly retorted.

‘You know, this is not the first time that President Trump is going to comment on myself.

‘We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city that they can afford… And it is where the mayor will use their power to reject Donald Trump’s fascism.’

Meanwhile, the Democrats must face up to Mamdani’s popularity following his win over establishment-backed – and scandal-blighted – Cuomo. 

Critics have said the Big Apple would slide back into the type of permissive lawlessness that scarred the city during the COVID crisis under Mamdani’s hard-left, inexperienced hand.  

But Mamdani has positioned himself as a man who understands and cares about solving the economic hardships many in New York face and says his relative political inexperience means he has not been mired in corruption or influenced by the rich. 

He also claims that, as a progressive, Muslim immigrant ‘who actually fights for the things I believe in’, he is a Republican’s worst nightmare.  

Upbringing, background and family

Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to Indian parents and became an American citizen in 2018, shortly after graduating from university. 

He lived briefly with his family in Cape Town, South Africa, before moving to New York City when he was seven. 

Mamdani’s mother, Mira Nair, is an award-winning filmmaker whose credits include Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake and Mississippi Masala. 

His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is an anthropology professor at Columbia University. 

Mamdani attended the Bronx High School of Science, where he co-founded the public school’s first cricket team, according to his legislative biography. 

He graduated in 2014 from Bowdoin College in Maine, where he earned a degree in Africana studies and co-founded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. 

After university, he worked as a foreclosure prevention counsellor in Queens, helping residents avoid eviction. He credits this job with inspiring him to run for public office.

Mamdani also had a notable side hustle in the local hip-hop scene, rapping under the moniker Young Cardamom and later Mr Cardamom. 

During his first run for state lawmaker, Mamdani gave a nod to his brief foray into music, describing himself as a ‘B-list rapper’. 

‘Nani’, a song he made in 2019 to honour his grandmother, even found new life – and a vastly wider audience – as his mayoral campaign gained momentum. 

His critics, meanwhile, have seized on lyrics from ‘Salaam’, his 2017 ode to being Muslim in New York, to argue his views are too extreme for New Yorkers.

Earlier this year, Mamdani married Rama Duwaji, a Syrian American artist, after meeting her on dating app Hinge.

Duwaji is ethnically Syrian but was born and raised in Texas. She is a notable artist who primarily produces black and white artworks that explore cultural themes in the Arab world.

‘Using drawn portraiture and movement, Rama examines the nuances of sisterhood and communal experiences,’ her professional website reads. 

Like her husband, she is a staunch advocate for Palestinian statehood and has accused Israel of committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza – claims Israel refutes. 

Speaking to outlet YUNG earlier this year as her husband launched his mayoral campaign, Duwaji said: ‘I’m not going to lie, things are dark right now in NYC. I worry for my friends and family, and things feel completely out of my hands.

‘With so many people being pushed out and silenced by fear, all I can do is use my voice to speak out about what’s happening in the US and Palestine and Syria as much as I can.’

Move into politics, values

Mamdani cut his teeth in local politics working on campaigns for Democratic candidates in Queens and Brooklyn. 

He was first elected to the New York Assembly in 2020, knocking off a longtime Democratic incumbent for a Queens district covering Astoria and surrounding neighbourhoods. He has handily won re-election twice. 

The Democratic Socialist’s most notable legislative accomplishment has been pushing through a pilot programme that made a handful of city buses free for a year. 

He has also proposed legislation banning non-profits from ‘engaging in unauthorised support of Israeli settlement activity’.

Mamdani’s opponents, particularly Cuomo, have dismissed him as woefully unprepared for managing the complexities of running America’s largest city.

But Mamdani has framed his relative inexperience as a potential asset, saying in a mayoral debate he’s ‘proud’ he doesn’t have Cuomo’s ‘experience of corruption, scandal and disgrace’.

Mamdani’s policy focus centres around addressing the cost of living and wealth inequality, stemming from his experiences working in Queen’s as a foreclosure avoidance counsellor.

He says he wants to raise taxes on the top one per cent of New York earners and make a number of city services free, including childcare and buses.

To fund his vision, he hopes to procure $10 billion in new revenue through higher taxes on businesses and the wealthiest individuals.

He also has plans to invest $70 billion in publicly subsidised housing and to open up public land for housing development.

Mamdani’s site says: ‘We need significantly more affordable housing. But for decades, the City has relied almost entirely on changes to the zoning code to invite and shape private development.

But other policies have invited harsh criticism, particularly from right-wing commentators, such as calls to defund the NYPD and the desire to spend $65 million in taxpayer funds for a transgender ‘gender-affirming care’ facility if elected.

$57 million would be handed out to public hospitals, community clinics, federal health centres and nonprofits, $8 million would expand services.

His campaign site says his administration would form its own Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs.

During his campaign, the Democratic candidate rolled back earlier vows to defund the police, saying instead that he would ‘work with the police because I believe the police have a critical role to play in creating public safety’.

Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian stance has sparked outrage amongst the Jewish communities, which make up a large portion of the city and constitute the largest population of Jewish people outside of Israel.

Mamdani has defended his use of the term ‘genocide’ to describe Israeli military actions in Gaza, while also saying that he would ‘protect Jewish New Yorkers’ from anti-Semitism.

Mayoral campaign 

Mamdani has used buzzy campaign videos – many with winking references to Bollywood and his Indian heritage – to help make inroads with voters outside his slice of Queens. 

He also made a point of connecting with the voters in what his supporters said was a ‘joyous’ ground game – a move that separated him from Cuomo who rarely put out a public schedule, chafed at questions from reporters and skipped most candidate forums.

On New Year’s Day, Mamdani took part in the annual polar plunge into the chilly waters off Coney Island in a full dress suit to break down his plan to ‘freeze’ rents. 

As the race was entering the final stretch, Mamdani walked the length of Manhattan, documenting the roughly 13-mile (21-kilometre) trip by posting photos and videos of his interactions along the way.

In TikTok videos, he’s even appealed to voters of colour by speaking in Spanish, Bangla and other languages.

Mamdani has offered a more optimistic vision, in contrast to candidates like Cuomo, who have largely focused on crime and law-and-order issues despite being beset by their own scandals. 

His campaign has been packed with big promises aimed at lowering the cost of living for everyday New Yorkers – from free childcare, free buses, a rent freeze for people living in rent-regulated apartments, and new affordable housing – much of it by raising taxes on the wealthy. 

The big promises have, unsurprisingly, endeared him to the Democratic Party’s liberal wing.

Mamdani secured endorsements from two of the country’s foremost progressives: US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

But Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinian causes was a point of tension in the mayor’s race, as Cuomo and other opponents sought to label his defiant criticism of Israel as antisemitic. 

The Shia Muslim has called Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a ‘genocide’ and said the country should exist as ‘a state with equal rights’, rather than a ‘Jewish state’. 

That message has resonated among pro-Palestinian residents, including the city’s roughly 800,000 adherents of Islam – the largest Muslim community in the country.

During an interview on CBS’s The Late Show on the eve of the election, host Stephen Colbert asked Mamdani if he believed the state of Israel had the right to exist. 

He responded: ‘Yes, like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist – and a responsibility also to uphold international law.’

Mamdani’s refusal to condemn calls to ‘globalise the intifada’ on a podcast – a common chant at pro-Palestinian protests – drew recriminations from Jewish groups who accused him of supporting a call to kill the Jews. 

In his victory speech on Tuesday, he pledged to work closely with those who don’t share his views on controversial issues. 

‘While I will not abandon my beliefs or my commitments, grounded in a demand for equality, for humanity, for all those who walk this earth, 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 said.