Since its capture by the British from the Dutch, New York City has had 110 mayors - from Thomas Willett to Eric Adams. As a result of this week's election, New York's 111th mayor will be Zohran Mamdani, an (until recently) almost unknown, 34-year old Queens State Assemblyman - a Ugandan-born, Manhattan-raised, son of professor Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Nira Nairs, the city's first South Asian mayor, its first Muslim mayor, and the first immigrant mayor since Abe Beame, over 50 years ago.
He is also young. (He was only 28 when he first burst onto the political scene, winning an upset State Assembly contest in Astoria.) That itself is huge, in a Democratic Party the leadership of which seems strangely allergic to empowering its younger constituencies and activist members. To what extent this signifies serious generational change in the party remains to be seen, of course, but it clearly sends a signal. So does the turnout. More than two million voters turned out to vote. It has been decades (since 1969) since so many New Yorkers voted in a mayoral election. Mamdani won just over 50% of the vote with just over 1 million votes.
More important than his age is Mamdani's populism. There is a widespread recognition (except perhaps among some of the aging leaders of the party) that late-stage capitalism has created a cost-of-living crisis in this country and that, in the specific case of New York City the "greed is good" exploitation of this once affordable, once working-class city - so dramatically narrated by, among others, Jonathan Mahler's Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990) - has precipitated an immediate need for a new politics based on affordability. (The majority of New Yorkers are renters. The median monthly rent is over $3,000, while childcare costs average around $26,000 - a 43% increase between 2019 and 2024.) Unsurprisingly, Mamdani has put together a winning coalition of New Yorkers who want to make this city their home - for themselves and for their families - but who are acutely conscious of the struggle the present way of operating this city has caused them. For all Mamdani's youth and populist redistributive politics, this election stands in the long tradition of New York efforts to reclaim this city for all its citizens. This trend may have been reinforced by the victory of three ballot propositions that are aimed at further facilitating an increase in affordable housing.
More often than not, in this overwhelmingly Democratic city, the winner of the Democratic primary almost automatically wins the general election. This year, however, saw several leading Democrats decline to endorse the duly elected nominee of their party. (What that behavior might mean for the future of New York Democratic party politics remains to be seen.) The former Democratic Governor, Andrew Cuomo, who had resigned in disgrace after allegations (which he denies) of sexual harassment, lost decisively in the June primary but ran in the general election anyway as an Independent - well funded by some of the city's wealthy entitled elites. What better illustration of the issues at stake in this election and its epic character as a potential change election!
Mamdani probably benefitted from the flawed candidates he ran against. In addition to Cuomo, there was Eric Adams, the incumbent Democratic mayor who had run four years ago on a law-and-order platform, but who has been mired in accusations of corruption (which he denies) and an ambiguous association with President Trump. There was also Curtis Sliwa, famously the founder of the "Guardian Angels," a colorful character from the 1980s, on the Republican line. Adams eventually withdrew from the race and then endorsed Cuomo. This somewhat flawed set of opponents has certainly served Mamdani well, because, despite his personal charisma and energetic social-media campaign, also had vulnerabilities of his own.
Mamdani rose to prominence as a member of the Democratic Socialists, an idiosyncratic group associated with some off-the-charts cultural positions. But Mamdani won the Democratic party primary and has run as the Democratic party candidate - not the Democratic Socialist party candidate. He has laser-focused his campaign not on DSA woke fantasies but on affordability and related issues which concern actual New Yorkers. In European terms, he would qualify as a Social Democrat - a well established political identity and one completely compatible with liberal democracy. In American terms (given our bizarre historical allergy to Social Democracy) he might be better termed a "populist" with a strong traditionally progressive commitment to good and effective government that actually meets the needs of its citizens. In any case, he most certainly is not a "communist," as some ignorantly and maliciously have sought to label him. (What exactly is a "communist" anyway in 2025 - decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union?) As for his "socialism," when asked by the NY Times to name one issue he has changed his mind about, he identified "the role of the private market in housing construction."
Counterbalancing his real vulnerabilities has been Mamdani's personal charisma and likeability. Mamdani made his mark initially by going around the city, talking to; voters, asking people questions, and listening to them. In our current context of widespread alienation, a candidate who listens gets noticed. Indeed, it would seem that the more voters have been exposed to his effective campaign and his charismatic personality and the more they have heard him (as opposed to his hysterical opponents), the more many of them have come to like him. That probably reflects the fact that in this political era voters have come increasingly to value authenticity. Mamdani is one of those politicians (like Bernie Sanders) of whom one feels that he is saying what he believes, not first rehearsing his every word with focus groups and pollsters. Democratic socialism may not be the future of the Democratic party, but personal and political authenticity and a focus on issues that matter most to voters may well matter more in defining the future of the party.
Mamdani's principal challenger, Andrew Cuomo, is the scion of a storied Queen political dynasty, which now may join the Kennedy, Bush, and Clinton dynasties as mere memories from the past. However, hovering over this election has been another long-time New York presence from Queens - the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, who at the last moment endorsed Cuomo (whom he called "a bad Democrat"). For some - maybe many - New Yorkers, a vote for Mamdani was likely also another way to vote against Trump. Combined with the even bigger Democratic wins in Virginia and New Jersey and the victory of Proposition 50 in California, voters may well have been sending a message.
To quote another Cuomo, campaigns are poetry, governing is prose. To implement the aspirational poetry of Mamdani's campaign in the prose of urban public policy will pose many challenges. Other mayors have begun with great flourishes of enthusiasm (Lindsay, Koch, DeBlassio, even Adams) only to be stymied by the structural complexity of the city and its inertial politics. Historically, one of the major obstacle to mayoral success in New York has been the state government in Albany. Perhaps Trump's overwhelming unpopularity with New Yorkers may help bring NYC and Albany together for a change.
Photo: Shuran Huang for The New York Times.
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