Who is Zohran Mamdani? A look at the frontrunner in the NYC Democratic mayoral primary
Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is claiming victory after taking a commanding lead in the Democratic primary election for mayor of New York City.
The first, unofficial results were released when polls closed on Election Day. In the first round of voting with 92% of the vote counted, Mamdani had 43.5%, ahead of Andrew Cuomo, who had 36.4%.
Since no candidate exceeded 50% in the vote, however, it is headed into ranked choice voting elimination rounds.
The winner won't be formally declared until all votes - including mail-in and others - are counted and certified.
"Tonight, we made history," Mamdani said. "In the words of Nelson Mandela, it always seems impossible until it is done. My friends, we have done it. I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City."
Mamdani, 33, has had meteoric rise during the mayoral race. The Democratic socialist assemblyman started out relatively unknown and went on to lead in the first round of votes and claim victory over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had been the frontrunner in most polls prior to Election Day, even though those polls had become increasingly close.
It's possible Mamdani may face Cuomo again in the Nov. 4 general election, since the former governor announced he plans to run as an independent. On Tuesday night, Cuomo said he would weigh his options.
Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams is also running for reelection as an independent and avoided the primaries. All three may be on the ballot against Republican nominee and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.
The race has national implications, as well. Mamdani's success in one of the first elections since Donald Trump returned to office may signify to the party what type of candidate Democratic voters are hungry for.
Who is Zohran Mamdani?
Mamdani took office in the 36th Assembly District in 2021, representing the Queens neighborhoods Astoria, Astoria Heights and Ditmars-Steinway.
According to his state assembly bio, he previously worked helping low-income New Yorkers fight off eviction.
He was born in Uganda before moving to New York City with his family when he was seven years old, his bio says. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College, and became a naturalized American citizen in 2018.
"Zohran is proud to be the first South Asian man to serve in the NYS Assembly as well as the first Ugandan and only the third Muslim to ever be a member of the body," his bio reads. "For too long, communities such as these have been left out of our state's politics and priorities. Zohran will seek to amplify the voices of the preferably unheard across both the district and the state for as long as he remains in office."
Mamdani campaigns for rent freeze and free buses
The Democratic socialist built a campaign based on lowering the cost of living for working class New Yorkers.
"Eight months after launching this campaign, with a vision of a city every New Yorker could afford, we have won," Mamdani said. "We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford. A city where they can do more than just struggle."
Among his proposals are a rent freeze for the city's rent stabilized units as well as free bus service and city-owned grocery stores. He also wants to build 200,000 affordable housing units.
He told CBS News New York's political reporter Marcia Kramer that he plans to fund all of this, in part, by raising taxes on corporations and top earners by a flat 2%.
"Where it is appropriate, yes, taxes on the wealthiest, taxes on the most profitable corporations, absolutely. And I think that's one thing that has stood our campaign out from others is that I am very honest, and open, and clear about what will be required to pay for this agenda," Mamdani said in the March interview, going on to say, "I have seen us find money for all sorts of things, I have seen us find a billion dollars to pay for a Buffalo Bills stadium. But now when it comes to making sure that working class New Yorkers can catch a break, we're being told it's unrealistic. It's just a matter of political will."
Mamdani received key endorsements from fellow progressive politicians, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and from state Sen. John Liu, who represents part of Queens.
He told Kramer he believed in a grassroots effort to get younger voters energized, which appears to have paid off.
Another strategy he used in the primary election was teaming up with fellow candidates, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and former state Assemblyman Michael Blake, in ranked choice voting endorsements. They came together and discouraged voters from ranking Cuomo.
Mamdani's views on Israel draw scrutiny
Cuomo, who campaigned on his experience, repeatedly criticized Mamdani for his lack of leadership.
Mamdani's position on Israel also became a flashpoint in the race. As Kramer reported, he calls the war in Gaza a genocide and, while he says he supports Israel's right to exist, he will not say it should exist as a Jewish state.
Mamdani became emotional during the campaign as he talked about what it's like to be Muslim running for mayor and facing pushback for his support for Palestinian nationalism.
"I get messages that say things like, 'the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.' I get threats on my life and on the people that I love and I try not to talk about it," he said.
He was accused of making comments on a podcast that some Jewish groups said equated the Holocaust with intifada, which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as "uprising, rebellion," and is derived from Arabic, where it literally means "the act of shaking off"
Mamdani had said the word "intifada" was used "by the Holocaust museum when translating the Warsaw ghetto uprising."
"What I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights," Mamdani said.
The U.S. Holocaust Museum called those comments "outrageous."
"Exploiting the museum and the Warsaw ghetto uprising to sanitize 'globalize the intifada' is outrageous," the Museum said in a statement.
"Antisemitism is such a real issue in the city, and it has been hard to see it weaponized by candidates," Mamdani said.
If he wins the general election in November, he would be the first Muslim to be mayor of the city.
and contributed to this report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Senate GOP tax bill includes largest cut to U.S. safety net in decades
The Senate Republican tax bill speeding to passage includes the biggest reduction of funding for the federal safety net since at least the 1990s, targeting more than $1 trillion in social spending. Although the legislation is still estimated to cost more than $3 trillion over the next decade, the Senate GOP tax bill partially pays for its large price tag by slashing spending on Medicaid and food stamps, which congressional Republicans maintain are rife with fraud. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The tax bill centers on making permanent large tax cuts for individual taxpayers, extending the cuts that Republicans first enacted under President Donald Trump's first term. The bill includes an increase to the standard deduction claimed by most taxpayers, rate reductions for most U.S. households, and a partial version of Trump's plan to end taxes on tipped wages, among many other provisions. But it offsets these expensive tax cuts in part through what several experts said may prove to be the most dramatic reductions in safety net spending in modern U.S. history. While last-minute changes to the bill text makes precise estimates impossible, the legislation appears on track to cut Medicaid by about 18 percent and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by roughly 20 percent, according to estimates based on projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Previously, the biggest recent cut to food stamps was a roughly 14 percent cut approved by Congress during President Bill Clinton's administration in the 1990s, according to Bobby Kogan, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a center-left think tank. (Food stamp benefits also sharply increased, and then fell, after the expiration of covid benefits.) The biggest prior cut to Medicaid was during President Ronald Reagan's term in the 1980s, when Congress and the White House approved a roughly 5 percent reduction to the federal health insurance program that primarily benefits low-income households during his first two years in office, Kogan said. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the Senate tax bill will lead to roughly 12 million fewer people receiving Medicaid and more than 2 million fewer people receiving food stamps. 'This is not only the biggest ever - it's by a mile the biggest ever,' Kogan said. 'You can very safely say this is the biggest cut to programs for low-income Americans ever.' The legislation achieves these steep reductions by imposing a slew of new requirements and restrictions on low-income Americans who rely on government assistance, although it includes some revisions sought by nonpartisan experts as well. On Medicaid, the bill institutes new federal work reporting requirements for the first time in the program's history - forcing millions of people to regularly prove they are working at least 80 hours a month to keep their health insurance. The bill provides exemptions for certain groups of people, including those who are pregnant, some caretakers and those with disabilities. But it also imposes burdensome paperwork requirements that experts say states are ill-equipped to take on, and they warn that both those who are meeting the requirements and who qualify for exemptions could lose coverage because they will struggle to submit proper documentation. The bill also mandates that people just above the federal poverty line begin paying out of pocket for Medicaid services, such as some doctor's visits or lab tests. States would be allowed to charge these enrollees up to 5 percent of their income in cost-sharing - a fee that could amount to hundreds of dollars annually. While Democratic-led states might opt for modest co-pays, Republican-led states could impose substantially higher fees, potentially pricing out many low-income residents, experts said. Although it's unclear if this measure will survive final passage, the legislation has also sought to crack down on loopholes that raise what the federal government is reimbursing hospitals for Medicaid services, said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group. The changes to Medicaid could also force already struggling rural hospitals to close or significantly pare back their services, hospital groups have said. Between a rise in uncompensated care and smaller federal reimbursements through states because of changes to what is called the provider tax, hospitals are expected to take a significant hit. 'No question - this is definitely the biggest cut. It's the biggest rollback in federal support for health care ever,' said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF. On food stamps, the bill rolls back decades of long-standing policy by tightening work requirements. Parents of children have generally been exempt from work rules, but under the new proposal, single mothers of teenagers as young as 14 would be required to work or lose benefits. The bill also raises the upper age for able-bodied adults without dependents who are subject to work requirements from 49 to 64, sweeping in millions of older Americans previously shielded from the rules. Additionally, it would make it harder for states to waive work requirements during times of high unemployment, effectively limiting assistance unless a generationally severe recession hits. The legislation also changes how poverty and household budgets are calculated for the purposes of food stamp eligibility, potentially reducing benefits for millions. Under President Joe Biden, internet access was recognized as a basic necessity for modern life and factored into cost-of-living calculations that help determine eligibility and benefit levels. The new bill reverses that. Conservatives and Republicans have defended these changes as necessary to arrest the rising cost of safety net programs. Robert Rector, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said U.S. food stamps are rife with fraud, saying the federal government's spending on welfare programs has risen from about $1 trillion per year before the covid pandemic to $1.69 trillion now. Rector said stricter limits in particular made sense for the food stamps program. 'Welfare spending is out of control. Fraud is out of control,' Rector said. 'There's extensive massive fraud. There's massive fraud in food stamps in particular.' Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma) on Sunday argued on 'Meet the Press' that the legislation was only 'getting out the ones that should never be' on Medicaid and was focused on 'able-bodied' individuals. 'We don't pay people in this country to be lazy. We want to give them an opportunity, and when they're going through a hard time, we want to give them a helping hand,' Mullin said. 'That's what Medicaid was designed for, and it's unfortunately, it's been abused.' But Republicans may face political blowback if the changes to the safety net programs result in significant reductions in benefits. The cuts also fly in the face of prior promises made by party leaders: Vice President JD Vance has long been critical of cuts to Medicaid, and Trump has repeatedly promised not to reduce benefits in the program. Even as the bill moves toward passage, some congressional Republicans from rural states have also expressed concern about the political impacts of cuts to Medicaid. 'Let's watch and be careful that we don't cut into bone, don't hurt our rural hospitals,' Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia) said late last week. 'If we do that, it's going to be a bad day.' Others had hoped large spending cuts would at least be used to reduce the nation's $36 trillion federal debt. Goldwein, of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said it is a shame that Republicans are using funding from spending cuts only to partially mitigate the more than $3 trillion cost of their tax bill. 'What bothers me is there are really hard savings to find in here. But all the money is being used not for deficit reduction, not to fully pay for tax cuts, but to reduce the amount of money we're borrowing,' Goldwein said. 'We're going in the wrong direction.' - - - Yasmeen Abutaleb and Jacob Bogage contributed to this report. Related Content Lights! Camera! But not enough action in a fading, worried Hollywood. Facing entry-level job crunch, new grads question the value of a degree Dynamite outside a synagogue: Civil rights stories imperiled by federal cuts
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Iranian hackers 'may still conduct malicious cyber activity,' US agencies warn
Iranian-affiliated cyber actors and hacktivist groups "may still conduct malicious cyber activity," according to a joint bulletin from U.S. law enforcement agencies. "Based on the current geopolitical environment, Iranian-affiliated cyber actors may target U.S. devices and networks for near-term cyber operations," the bulletin from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), FBI, NSA and Defense Department says. "Defense Industrial Base (DIB) companies, particularly those possessing holdings or relationships with Israeli research and defense firms, are at increased risk. Hacktivists and Iranian-government-affiliated actors routinely target poorly secured U.S. networks and internet-connected devices for disruptive cyberattacks," according to the bulletin. MORE: With July 4 just days away, US law enforcement on high alert for Iran retaliation All of this comes after Israel and Iran "declared ceasefire and ongoing negotiations towards a permanent solution," according to the alert. "Over the past several months, Iranian-aligned hacktivists have increasingly conducted website defacements and leaks of sensitive information exfiltrated from victims," the alert says. "These hacktivists are likely to significantly increase distributed denial of service (DDoS) campaigns against U.S. and Israeli websites due to recent events." The alert says that it hasn't just been over the past few months that Iranian cyber actors have been active. The agencies point to numerous instances in 2023 and 2024 when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compromised Israeli-backed technology, and after the start of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, IRGC-backed actors carried out cyber attacks as a form of protest. MORE: Trump blurts out expletive as he lashes out at Israel and Iran over ceasefire "Activities like website defacements, leakage of sensitive information, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) campaigns against U.S. websites have been common attack methods in the past," the alert says. In a statement, the agencies say they haven't seen any malicious activity, but are issuing the warning for critical infrastructure organizations to be on alert. "We strongly urge organizations to review our joint fact sheet and implement recommended actions to strengthen our collective defense against this potential cyber activity," the statement says.
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The Dodgers told me not to sing the national anthem in Spanish. I knew in my heart that I had to.
Normally, the performance of the national anthem at a baseball game isn't major news. When the pop singer Nezza arrived at the Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles on June 14, she was excited to perform the song in front of the crowd, then grab a hot dog and a Michelada and chill in the stands to watch the game. What happened instead knocked the wind out of her — and later made headlines nationwide. Given the audience demographics at the game and the ICE raids that have rocked Los Angeles, Nezza (whose full name is Vanessa Hernández) planned to perform "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish to uplift the Latino community and honor the protests on "No Kings Day." She even practiced the version commissioned by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945 to ensure that her performance was respectful. But as fans later saw in a viral video, the team told her on the day of her performance that it had other plans. She'd need to perform the anthem in English. Devastated, Nezza was faced with a choice: follow orders or raise her voice. She chose the latter. In doing so, she hopes she has inspired others to stand up and speak out. In an interview with Yahoo's Laura Bradley, the singer shares why she made the decision she did — and why she doesn't consider it an act of rebellion but a gesture of love. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Until that day, I'd never been involved in anything political. I'd never broken a rule in my life. But when a Dodgers rep told me I'd be singing the national anthem in English, I couldn't breathe. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Immediately, I was clenching my teeth from crying. About a month prior, my manager had asked if I wanted to perform the anthem at the Dodgers game. I was already scheduled to sing for the A's, which felt really cool because they're one of my hometown teams. So I agreed to perform on June 14. At that time, I was unaware of what would lead up to that day in Los Angeles: ICE raids, protests and, eventually, the National Guard. Both of my parents are immigrants who are now U.S. citizens. Watching those videos we've seen of families being ripped apart is gut-wrenching. I can't imagine my parents getting ripped away from me. Where would I be today had they not come over here and had that struggle in the beginning? I'd planned to sing in Spanglish at the Dodgers game until my friend pointed out a few days before that I would be performing on "No Kings Day." Eighty percent of the people in the stands would be Latino. There was no way I could go out there and sing the anthem fully in English on that day of all days. So I stayed up all night for two days straight learning the whole version of 'El Pendón Estrellado,' the Spanish-language version of the national anthem that President Franklin D. Roosevelt commissioned in 1945. It wasn't meant to be disrespectful because the lyrics and the storyline are near the same, the melodies are the same. It was supposed to be an uplifting gesture for my community. I thought I was fully welcome to do this. In our emails leading up to my performance, no one with the Dodgers had told me I couldn't sing in Spanish. When I'd suggested I sing the national anthem in both languages, they only said I would have just 90 seconds — not enough time to sing two songs. No one previously ever said, 'We'd prefer you to do it in English.' It could have been such an easy, simple email. But obviously now, knowing everything I do, I know they were avoiding the topic. When they said I had to sing in English, I just honestly couldn't believe it. Everyone could see it in my face. It was pure shock. The only reason we captured that moment on video is because my boyfriend was filming my sound check, and he happened to still be standing there recording when the Dodgers rep walked in. When I told her I wasn't comfortable performing in English, she walked away to give us some private time to discuss. I bawled my eyes out. There was no way I was doing it in English. I asked my manager, 'Do I leave? Do I walk out?' He supported me to do whatever I needed to do to support my community. My boyfriend agreed, but he also told me something else: You're gonna regret it for the rest of your life if you don't do this today. He was right. So I sucked in the tears. When the rep came back about an hour before my performance, she made sure I sang the whole song in English. Then, I think I spent literally 45 minutes in the bathroom stall — shaking, freaking out, just trying to gain the confidence to do what I needed to do. Because again, none of this is me. It's not my personality at all. I hate getting into trouble. It's my worst fear. When I got onto the field and sang in Spanish, I didn't feel rebellious. I was singing from a place of heartbreak, from a place of oppression. I don't know how I got myself to do it, because I've never done anything like that in my life. I just felt this fire from being told no. But it was a different kind of no. It wasn't like your parents saying, 'No, you can't have a cookie.' This was about something deep and personal, not just to me, but to most of the crowd in the stands that day. What reality are we living in where kids are being ripped away from their parents? When some people watch the video I posted of my Dodgers experience on TikTok, they say, 'Oh, she's crying because she got banned.' (Nezza has said the Dodgers told her she was not welcome back at the stadium following her performance. The Dodgers have stated publicly that Nezza is not banned from the stadium.) That's not it. I'm crying because I'm imagining my parents being ripped away from me at such a young age. At the end of the day, I was fighting for my parents. Everything I have in life is because of them. When we had nothing — like, nothing — somehow they were pulling pennies for my dance classes. It was already hard enough to come over here with nothing, and getting papers was really hard. I want them not to worry about anything anymore. As much as I really, truly love being on a stage and songwriting and doing it all, it's for them. It's to give my mom her dream car, her dream house. Because they deserve it. They've worked so hard. As I was singing, I didn't know what the reaction was going to be because my in-ear monitors were in. I did not expect anything from this. Of course, my friends and family were there and calling and supportive, but so were celebrities like Kehlani, Becky G, George Lopez and [Los Angeles City] Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez. It was just as aggressive a response from the right side, but the love outweighed the hate. Morals are morals, and empathy is empathy. I have a lot of friends who are on the right side of the aisle politically, but they also realize that what's happening right now is wrong. Human beings are being caged up like animals, and that's not what God intended for us. I've loved seeing the people that I idolize stand up for what's right, and they're not getting backlash, and I hope that other artists feel like they can raise their voices too. A lot of families are undocumented, so I get the fear of not wanting to speak up. But I hope that younger generations really acknowledge that this country was built on immigrants, aka our parents. We've got to stand up right now. Looking at what I did and the outcome, I hope they see that the Latin community has our back, period. I know everyone who has had my back will also have their back.
