New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani Enters Crowded 2025 NYC Mayoral Race
- The 33-year-old, who is a member of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, is currently the youngest and most left-leaning candidate to challenge Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted last month on federal corruption charges.
New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has announced his bid for the 2025 New York mayoral race. The 33-year-old Uganda-born, New York City-raised politician is the son for acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair and Indian-born Ugandan academic, author, and political commentator Mahmood Mamdani. A member of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, he is currently the youngest and most left-leaning candidate to challenge Mayor Eric Adams, who was indicted last month on federal corruption charges. If elected, he would be the first Muslim mayor of New York.
In a video announcing his mayoral bid, Mamdani notes how “working class people are being pushed out of there city they built.” Telling New Yorkers that “life in this city doesn’t need to be this hard,” he blamed politicians like Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo who “want it to be this way.” He accuses them of only caring about their donors, and about themselves. “They don’t care about you — the working class who keep this city running.” He also mentions several proposals to help working-class New Yorkers, including making all buses “fast and free,” making “childcare viable to all New Yorkers at no cost,” and “freeing rent for every rent-stabilized tenant.”
The New York Times notes that Mamdani’s “firm leftward stance puts him in contrast to Mayor Adams, a centrist.” He is also “to the left of the four other declared candidates in the race, all of whom are considered progressive Democrats,” The Times notes —NYC comptroller Brad Lander, former city comptroller Scott Stringer, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie from Brooklyn, and state Sen. Jessica Ramos from Queens.
Mamdani was elected in 2020 as part of a progressive wave of victories in state races and became the first South Asian American and third Muslim American to serve in the Assembly. He represents neighborhoods in Queens, including Astoria and Ditmars-Steinway, considered some of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the world. When he ran his campaign, he opted, or a campaign slogan that deliberately captured the immigrant desi experience: “Roti and Roses,” a riff on the classic democratic socialist chant, “Bread and Roses,” Vogue India said in a profile on him at the time. “He advocated tirelessly for housing as a guaranteed right, channeling his experience as a foreclosure-prevention counselor,” the magazine said.
In his two terms, Mamdani has “fought for working-class New Yorkers in and outside the Legislature,” according to his website. He has participated in hunger strikes alongside taxi workers “to win transformative debt relief, organizing Astorians against ConEdison rate hikes, and winning legislation to fund increased subway service and a free bus pilot in NYC,” the website added.
Mamdani, who has called on Adams to resign, told The Daily News that his decision is in part motivated by the fact that the mayor is under federal indictment. “It’s definitely one factor, but the Adams mayoralty has been failing New Yorkers for much longer than since he got indicted,” he said.
Speaking to The New York Times, Mamdani admitted that Adams had “failed” New Yorkers. He contrasted himself from the current administration. Noting that he would “focus his campaign on addressing the city’s affordability crisis,” he mentioned that even thought “City Hall is engulfed in corruption,” most people are talking about “the outrageous cost of living.” New Yorkers “are being crushed by rent and child care. Working people are getting pushed out of the city they built,” he added.
Mamdani told The Times that he was “proud to be a socialist” and that while his “campaign would focus on a local “economic agenda,” he would also speak to the “tremendous anger and alienation” that many voters feel over “our tax dollars going to fund a genocide in Palestine.” He cofounded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Bowdoin College and has fought to make it a local issue. “I think Palestine has often been a glaring contradiction in our politics for many, many years,” he said to The Guardian. “I could not understand why we would draw a line at universal beliefs when it came to Palestinians, why we thought that everyone deserved safety, everyone deserved justice, everyone deserve freedom, except for a certain class of people.”
Last year, Mamdani introduced legislation, called the ‘Not on Our Dime’ Act, “to curtail financial support for Israeli settlements,” The New York Times reported. “The bill, which received support from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, did not pass,” the report added.
Despite entering the race this week, Mamdani has already beaten out mayoral race opponents Lander and Ramos for some progressive movement endorsements, Politico reported. New York Communities for Change, DRUM Beats and CAAAV Voice announced their joint endorsement on Oct. 23, the day he launched his mayoral campaign. The publication call it “an early sign that Mamdani, as the furthest left mayoral contender, could draw away enthusiasm from other progressive contenders.” He also raised $139,015.74 from 1,402 donors in the first 24 hours, he said in a post on X.
The Times also points out that Mamdani, who formed a campaign committee on Oct. 21, “will have to move quickly to raise money for the race and to introduce himself to New Yorkers beyond his district, which overlaps with parts of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s district and is sometimes jokingly called ‘the People’s Republic of Astoria.’”
Mamdani was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, moving to New York City with his family at the age of 7. A graduate of the NYC Public School System, he attended the Bronx High School of Science and received a Bachelor’s Degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College. A few years later in 2018, he became naturalized as an American citizen.
Part of Mamdani’s childhood was spent on movie sets, and he curated and produced the soundtrack for his mother’s 2016 movie, “Queen of Katwe..” Under his rap alter ego “Young Cardamom,” he contributed a rap to one of the songs featured in the film. He also released music honoring his grandmother and the greasy splendor of Ugandan-style chapati.
After initially pursuing the arts, Mamdani “began getting involved in progressive politics,” according to a City&State profile. He joined the Muslim Democratic Club of New York and began volunteering for electoral campaigns. The first campaign he volunteered for was election attorney Ali Najmi’s unsuccessful race for a New York City Council seat in 2015.
In The Times interview he admitted that “strangely enough,” his music career had prepared him well for politics. “Once you’ve tried to sell your mixtape to people who are just trying to get on the bus to go home, you’re well prepared to get rejected when you’re trying to get New Yorkers to sign your petition to get on the ballot at 6 a.m. at the subway station.”
In the meantime, Mamdani continued working on campaigns. In 2017, he was part of the New York City Council campaign of Khader El-Yateem, an Arab Lutheran pastor from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, who was running as a socialist. The in 2019, he worked on public defender Tiffany Cabбn’s campaign for Queens district attorney.
Mamdani also worked as a foreclosure prevention housing counselor, helping low-income homeowners of color across Queens fight off eviction and stay in their homes. “It was this job that led him to run for office, along with his organizing that led to him becoming politically active in the first place,” according to his official New York State Senate profile.
In high school, Mamdani co-founded his school’s first ever cricket team, which would go on to participate in the Public School Athletic League’s inaugural cricket season. “This act, though not ostensibly a political one, taught him how coming together with a few like-minded individuals can transform rhetoric into reality,” the profile said. He went on to co-found his college’s first Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and later organize across the country with different progressive organizations seeking to win national elections as well as expand healthcare coverage.
After brief stints in the arts, he eventually returned to organizing and later to politics, listening to his instinct of leading and helping the underprivileged.