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Fox News
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
The revolution will be livestreamed: How Zohran Mamdani won the NYC primary online
Socialist 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani's primary victory shocked the Democratic Party establishment this June, as his campaign played into the hands of an evolving – and chronically online – New York City electorate. Scrolling through Mamdani's social media, his TikTok and Instagram pages resemble that of a New York City influencer. From the film-like filters and consistent fonts on his vertical videos to the cameos from celebrities, including model Emily Ratajkowski and comedian Bowen Yang, Mamdani's videos have amassed millions of views. However, if his social media strategy wasn't enough to attract voters' attention, the primary colors of his campaign graphics are likely to turn heads. Mamdani's cobalt blue, poster-like red and taxi-cab or MetroCard yellow are bright compared to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's muted red, white and blue color scheme. Mamdani's politics are a departure from the establishment Democratic Party, as the self-described Democratic socialist campaigned on taxing the 1% and creating government-run grocery stores, among other radical proposals. If Mamdani wins in November, he will not just become the first Muslim mayor, but the first millennial mayor of New York City. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress. She was 29 years old when she took office in 2019, in a blue wave that elected progressive "Squad" members during President Donald Trump's first midterm elections. Known by her supporters and detractors as AOC, the progressive Democrat was quick to seize on her millennial social media sixth sense. She has made plenty of headlines from her off-script Instagram lives and stories as her supporters and constituents chime in with questions for the Bronx and Queens representative. The social media strategy is one used by influencers, but in an ever-evolving media landscape, more politicians have seized on viral moments to send their message to the masses. Trump successfully used new media during the 2024 presidential election, appearing on long-form podcasts and creating viral TikTok videos. Ocasio-Cortez, along with her fellow Democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, endorsed Mamdani ahead of New York City's primary election. On primary day in New York City, Ocasio-Cortez hosted an Instagram Live conversation with Mamdani, who had a simple but effective message: "If I win, that rent's getting frozen. If Andrew Cuomo wins, the rent's going up." On the Friday before the election, Mamdani walked the entire length of Manhattan, shaking hands with ordinary New Yorkers and supporters alike. However, Mamdani didn't just walk through Manhattan, he documented the journey, bringing his followers along for the ride just like an influencer would. The walk, from Inwood to Battery Park, has become somewhat of a rite of passage for New York City influencers over the past few years, as walking clubs like City Girls Who Walk NYC, and "Hot Girl Walks" have gained popularity in the fitness space. Mamdani appeared on the popular "Subway Takes" podcast, sharing his campaign pitch to Kareem Rahma's 1 million followers. Additionally, he joined 25-year-old progressive Democrat star David Hogg for man-on-the-street-style interviews in Washington Square Park, the site of popular TikTok series like, "What's Poppin?" Hogg recently left the Democratic National Committee (DNC) after stirring up tension over his $20 million plan to primary older incumbent Democrats he said were "asleep at the wheel" through his outside political group, Leaders We Deserve. Mamdani also created his own viral moments on the campaign trail, riding side-by-side on CitiBikes with NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, whom Mamdani cross-endorsed on the ranked-choice ballot to secure his win over Cuomo and when he posted his subway-to-courthouse wedding photos covered by The Cut. While another such article by The Cut, "It Must Be Nice to Be a West Village Girl," by Brock Colyar, carefully articulated the changing landscape and demographic of New York City, Mamdani also met "outer borough voters," including older and immigrant New Yorkers, online. "One week ago today, we shocked the establishment and redrew the political map of New York City with a campaign relentlessly focused on the needs of working people," Mamdani said in a social media video, speaking directly to his followers and supporters alike. In the video, Mamdani explained how he won back voters "many had written off," including Trump voters and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams voters. Mamdani said he built a "coalition" campaign by speaking voters' languages, or at least trying to, to reflect the "mosaic" of New York City. Speaking in Hindi in another two-minute video with his signature filter, Mamdani even broke down ranked-choice voting ahead of the primary by pouring juice into cups with his and Cuomo's faces photoshopped on top, to show how consolidating his vote could land Mamdani a victory, and ranked-choice voting did just that.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mayor Adams tapping new campaign manager with history of inflammatory rhetoric: sources
Mayor Adams is expected to tap Eugene Noh, a longtime New York political consultant with a history of inflammatory rhetoric, as his reelection campaign manager, the Daily News has learned. Noh, who's also the husband of progressive and anti-Adams Queens Councilwoman Julie Won, is expected to be formally announced for the new position as early as this week, according to multiple sources. Noh declined to comment Tuesday. An Adams campaign rep didn't immediately return messages. The new gig for Noh comes as Adams faces long odds in November's general mayoral election, in which he's running as an independent after dropping out of the Democratic primary this spring amid fallout from his federal corruption indictment. The Democratic mayoral nominee in November's race is Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a socialist endorsed by Noh's wife and other progressives. Noh has worked for his wife's political operations as well as a number of other high-profile campaigns in New York, including former Staten Island Congressman Max Rose's failed 2022 reelection bid. While serving as Rose's campaign manager, Noh was caught on tape telling staffers to take extreme steps to turn out the vote for the congressman. That included Noh urging the staffers to 'take a lot of Adderall' or even 'smoke meth or do cocaine,' remarks that The News first reported in 2023, prompting Noh to offer an apology. On the tape, he was also heard encouraging staffers to pull fire alarms in apartment buildings with polling sites in order to get residents downstairs to vote. Additionally, The News reported in 2023 that Noh had over a decade earlier been kicked off Twitter for breaking the site's rules after, among other things, using the N-word. In addition to Mamdani, Adams is in November's election expected to face Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, independent Jim Walden and, potentially, Andrew Cuomo.
Telegraph
08-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Under Zohran Mamdani, the Jewish exodus from New York is likely to accelerate
Zohran Mamdani may represent the future of New York, but only by destroying the secrets of its past success. The city, even under the quasi-socialist mayor Fiorello La Guardia, has from its Dutch days been a fundamentally capitalist enterprise. It is the search for success, often by less than respectable means, which led millions – including the ancestors of Donald Trump – to Gotham. Mamdani calls himself a democratic socialist. The party's platform seeks 'the abolition of capitalism' and the 'social ownership of all major industry and infrastructure'. It goes further than the conventional Leftism of New York, which was social democratic, but strongly patriotic and interested in a stronger economy. The old-fashioned New York Left fought for civil rights, but also for equal treatment and greater opportunity. It would no more talk about taxing 'whiter' areas, as Mamdani's campaign platform recently did, than embrace defunding the police, which he formerly espoused. To be sure, the exodus that will be most followed in the media will be that of the ultra-wealthy. Like London, New York, even as it has lost its middle orders, continues to attract the rich, at least part-time. Yet however much they love the opera, the fashion or Broadway, the ultra-wealthy cherish their riches even more. This process appears already to have started. Between 2018 and 2022 over hundred thousand taxpayers left for Florida, draining an estimated $14 billion from the city's coffers. Mamdani's election would be a boon for places like Palm Beach, Austin and Dallas, which is building a stock exchange to rival Wall Street. Eric Johnson, Dallas's mayor, has suggested that Mamdani's election could increase his own city's appeal among 'rattled' business people fearful of plans to tax them at much higher rates in New York. But the larger threat perhaps lies in the loss of the city's middle class. Pummelled by high taxes, a weak economy, street disorder and miserable education, the city's long-established minority groups – Italians, Irish, Jews, African Americans, Puerto Ricans – have been heading for the exits for years. This trend was joined by younger people, particularly of marriage age, and accelerated during the pandemic. Left behind are the most recent immigrants, largely from developing countries and many of them Muslim. But Mamdani's true base lies basically with affluent, young, childless, single professionals (a majority of adult Manhattanites have never been married). Their unifying principle is rent control and staying true, like Mamdani, to their college indoctrination. This new political nexus between recent migrants and hipsters – despite often vast cultural divides – should be familiar to residents of Paris, London or Toronto, and is also increasingly common in Los Angeles and Chicago. To trumpeters of the Left, like The Guardian, this could be the 'roadmap' that leads Democrats back to power. Mamdani is not only good for America, Salon suggests, but for 'the world'. He seems unlikely, however, to be good for New York City's Jewish community. When I was growing up, the city was home to roughly two million Jews, one in four New Yorkers. Today it is down to one million, just slightly above the almost 800,000 Muslims estimated to be in the city according to a 2016 study (the figure is likely to have risen since). Jews are still a part of the mosaic but a clearly shrinking one. They will surely feel ever more uncomfortable with a mayor who reacted to the October 7 pogrom by criticising the Israeli response and who has threatened to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he bothers to come to the largest diaspora city. Increasingly, Jews are finding better and safer homes elsewhere. Many have moved to the American South, long considered a difficult terrain for non-Christians. Florida's Jewish population, barely 100,000 in 1960, now stands at over 670,000. The Jewish community in Houston grew by approximately 50 per cent between 1986 and 2016. The Jewish population in Atlanta has also grown strongly to well over 100,000. In 1930, 60 per cent of American Jews lived in the Northeast to today's 40 per cent. The percentage of American Jews who live in the South has grown from 9 per cent in 1960 to 22 per cent today. This geographic sea change can be seen on college campus communities, as well. The first and third largest Jewish student populations in the United States today are the University of Florida and Central Florida University. According to a Brandeis study, southern schools tend to be less intolerant of Jews. There still remains a chance that Eric Adams, the scandal-plagued current Mayor of New York, might win as an independent. But New Yorkers need to realise that Mamdani and his brand of hipster socialism represents a rejection of the entrepreneurial, tolerant and profoundly American nature of the city.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Black New Yorkers slam Zohran Mamdani over race claims on his college application
Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and the Democratic Party's newly minted candidate for mayor of New York City, found himself in some hot water last week after The New York Times reported that he claimed to be both Asian and 'Black or African American' on his college application to Columbia University. Many Black New Yorkers are not happy about that, including incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is actually Black and is running for re-election as an independent. Adams said in a statement: 'The African American identity is not a check-box of convenience. It's a history, a struggle and a lived experience. For someone to exploit that for personal gain is deeply offensive.' The conservative New York Post had a field day with the news, and interviewed numerous Black New Yorkers who described Mamdani as a fraud and a liar. This matters because Mamdani is an exciting candidate for many progressive and far-left voters, whites, and the affluent; for Black voters and the working class, Mamdani is perhaps not quite so alluring. While he easily won the Democratic mayoral primary two weeks ago, rival Andrew Cuomo, the scandal-plagued former governor of the state, performed significantly better with African-Americans. As far as Mamdani's identity goes, he was born in Uganda, but he is of Indian descent. He is an therefore African, and he is now American, but the term African-American is usually understood to mean Black — and he is definitely not Black. However, when applying to Columbia University in 2009, Mamdani checked the boxes for 'Indian' and 'Black or African-American' when asked to give information about his race and ethnicity. Mamdani openly admits to doing so, and told The Times that he thought it was the best way — though admittedly an imperfect one — to explain his background. 'Even though these boxes are constraining, I wanted my college application to reflect who I was,' said Mamdani, noting that he wrote in in 'Ugandan' when asked to provide additional info. This matters, of course, because at the time he applied to Columbia, the university practiced race-conscious admissions, which is a politically correct way of saying that they actively discriminated against certain applicants on the basis of race and in favor of others: Hispanic people, Black people, Native Americans, and so on. Checking the 'Black or African-American' box would have earned Mamdani extra points toward admission, though as an aside, Mamdani's application was ultimately rejected. Conservatives are widely sharing this story on social media, claiming that it speaks to Mamdani's character that he was deceptive about his ethnicity in order to gain an advantage. Meanwhile many Democrats think it's a nothingburger. Former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a progressive Democrat, wrote on social media that Uganda is in Africa, so it's case closed. To any Democrats who are tempted to align themselves with de Blasio's thinking, I'd ask them to consider this thought experiment: Let's say that when awarding federal contracts, the government gave special consideration on the basis of race — and a non-Black man from South Africa, when applying for the contract, checked a box claiming to be 'Black or African American.' We can even give our made-up aspiring federal contractor a name: Elon Musk. Now, I suspect Democrats would not say this was a non-story, even though South Africa is indeed a country in Africa. All that said, I have a take that may surprise some of you: I actually don't particularly blame Mamdani for doing this at all. That's because ethnicity is extremely complicated. Race, on the other hand, is essentially an imaginary concept, obsessed over by exactly two kinds of people: old school racists, and the progressive elites who run college admissions departments. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at them — at the elite left-wing institutions that incentivize people to get creative when describing the color of their skin because false value is assigned to it. This is a practice that voters reject every time they are asked to weigh in on it, and one the Supreme Court has essentially banned as of 2023. Robbie Soave is co-host of The Hill's commentary show 'Rising' and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Former NY governor likens Mamdani's appeal to Trump's
Former New York Gov. David Paterson (D) on Sunday compared Zohran Mamdani's success as the city's Democratic mayoral candidate to the political rise of President Trump a decade prior. 'The support that Mamdani is receiving … the number of people he's registering, the number of people who go to his rallies … if I blinked my eyes 10 years ago, there was another person who was able to do that, and his name is Donald Trump, whose political ideology is the polar opposite of what Mamdani's might be,' Paterson told host John Catsimatidis during the radio show 'Cats Roundtable' on WABC 770 AM. 'It is demonstrating a new campaign style, where you speak as verbosely as possible … Donald Trump invented this,' he added. Mamdani beat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in the primary and has targeted disenfranchised voters, earning a large audience with progressive policies that include proposals for free rent, city-run grocery stores and costless childcare. The measures have been heavily criticized by Republicans and establishment Democrats alike, who've all said the plans fall out of the scope of the mayorship. 'You don't lead this city from a soapbox. You lead it with action, not rhetoric,' incumbent Mayor Eric Adams (D) said while kicking off his independent reelection bid. However, Mamdani, who currently serves as a New York assemblymember, said his policies are more than possible. 'Freezing the rent, that's not something that requires any fiscal output from the city. It's something that's determined by the Rent Guidelines board, composed of nine members. The mayor picks each of those members, they determine, each year whether rents rise or whether they stay the same,' Mamdani said during an appearance on CNN. 'A previous mayoral administration froze the rent three times. So, this has clear historical precedent,' he added. While on the show, the Democratic socialist also explained how he plans to activiste city owned an operated grocery stores. 'City-run grocery stores. I proposed a pilot program of one store in each borough. These are five stores in total. The total cost of this is $60 million. This is less than half the cost of what the city is already sent to spend on a subsidy program for corporate supermarkets that has no guarantee of cheaper prices or collective bargaining agreements or even acceptance,' Mamdani said. Paterson said the proposals are gaining traction early in the race and noted that Mamdani will be 'a difficult candidate to beat' in November. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
