In the small hours of Wednesday morning, a 33-year-old man of South Asian descent walked out into a crowded bar in Long Island City to announce that he had achieved the unimaginable. Zohran Mamdani had just been elected Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York — a jaw-dropping achievement for a politician who most voters in America’s most populous city had barely heard of a few months ago.
“In the words of Nelson Mandela, it always seems impossible until it is done,” he told ecstatic supporters. “My friends, we have done it.”
A self-declared democratic socialist whom President Trump has branded a “100% Communist Lunatic”, Mamdani had beaten the man who polls suggested would sail to the nomination — Andrew Cuomo, scion of a political dynasty and governor of New York state from 2011-21.
“This is the biggest upset in American political history since Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary,” says Trip Yang, a New York-based political strategist. “No one saw this coming.”
Others, such as Ross Barkan, a columnist at New York magazine, were less surprised. He’s known Mamdani since 2017, when he hired him to run his campaign for a seat in the New York State senate: from the start, Barkan says, he was impressed by his “charisma and verve”.
“I’m not shocked because I knew Zohran was incredibly talented . . . and I saw that the moment I met him,” he adds. “Did I know he’d be on the trajectory to be mayor of New York City by the time he was 34 years old? No! No one could have foreseen that. But I knew he had great potential.”
Mamdani may be popular on the left — but elsewhere he’s a hate figure. Republicans have branded him a dangerous radical, while some Jewish leaders worry about his strident criticism of Israel, which he’s accused of “genocide” in Gaza. Law and order types note he once called for the police to be defunded. Wall Street financiers say his populist policies will trigger a stampede of capital out of New York.
“New York City under Mamdani is about to become much more dangerous and economically unviable,” said billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman on X, as he offered to finance a centrist challenger. “Socialism has no place in the economic capital of our country.”
But among leftwing Democrats, he has inspired nothing short of adulation. His megawatt smile, viral TikToks, and laser-like focus on a key theme — New York’s affordability crisis — have ensured him a legion of fans. Young voters have lapped up his policy prescriptions — a freeze on rents and a tax hike on the wealthy to finance free buses, universal child care and city-owned grocery stores.
“My commitment is about delivering a city that is not only affordable to each and every New Yorker, but is one that each and every New Yorker feels proud of living in,” he told the Financial Times in an interview this month.
Experts say Mamdani has become a vehicle for discontent with a liberal establishment that has turned its back on workers and the squeezed middle class. “He has managed to capitalise on the huge hunger for generational change in the Democratic party post-Biden and the anger with the old guard,” says one Democratic strategist.
But politics tells only half the story, according to Ali Najmi, a lawyer who has known Mamdani for 10 years and now serves as his chief counsel. In his telling, the candidate’s trump cards are his warm, engaging personality, his “emotional intelligence” and “authenticity”. “Even if you disagree with him, you’re still going to like him,” he says.
Zohran Kwame Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1991 to Mira Nair, the celebrated Indian-American filmmaker, and Mahmood Mamdani, a Ugandan-Asian academic, and moved to New York City at the age of seven.
According to Barkan, his parents instilled in him a keen awareness of inequality and injustice. “He grew up in privilege . . . but unlike a lot of people with that kind of background, he’s always been concerned about those less fortunate than himself,” Barkan says.
One of his first jobs out of college was working as a housing counsellor, “helping low-income homeowners of colour across Queens fight off eviction”, according to his official biography. He also dabbled in hip-hop, though by his own admission he was never more than a “B-list rapper”.
In the mid-2010s he started to get involved in political campaigns, impressing colleagues with his strong work ethic. “He exudes that New York hustle,” says Najmi. “I don’t think there’s anyone in politics who can outwork him.”
Barkan found this out to his cost. During his run for the Senate, he would often slip back to campaign HQ to rest after spending the morning hours canvassing. But “Zohran would not let me sit down,” he recalls. “I would get at most a few minutes.”
In 2020 Mamdani himself was elected to the New York State Assembly, representing the 36th district in the borough of Queens. He was re-elected twice, in 2022 and 2024. But few could have predicted how his career would take off the following year.
If he wins in the general election in November, he would become the first Muslim mayor of America’s most populous city, and its youngest in more than 100 years. But he’s no shoo-in. He’ll have to beat Cuomo, who is expected to run as an independent, as is Eric Adams, the incumbent.
Meanwhile, Ackman has vowed to do his best to stop him. Allies like Najmi brush off that challenge. “There’s not enough money to stop Zohran,” he says.
Additional reporting by James Fontanella-Khan
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