Some point out that his social media clips have gone viral. Some people say it’s because of my dimples. However, Mamdani ran a disciplined campaign and won in all five districts.
NEW YORK – Some point to his social media clips going viral. Some cite an Obama-esque profile that gives young voters something to believe in, but it may just be a dimple.
Zoran Mamdani shocked the political and business world by winning the Nov. 4 New York mayoral election as a democratic socialist, but many wondered how it happened.
In interviews with allies, strategists and observers, Mr. Mamdani, a 34-year-old state representative from Queens, ran a disciplined campaign in all five wards, flanked by an unusually large army of volunteers for a municipal election.
His winning message offered easy-to-understand ideas for reducing the cost of living in a notoriously expensive city, and his universal activism helped win over skeptical voters.
It’s a dramatic change from the moderate Mayor Eric Adams, who was elected just four years ago, and a flashback to Adams’ progressive predecessor, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who pushed to tackle economic inequality.
“New York is used to the pendulum swinging,” Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham University and co-host of the political podcast “FAQ NYC,” told USA TODAY.
“Now is the time to be bold,” Greer said. “It’s time to try something new, because obviously what we’ve been doing isn’t working, right?”
Affordable “Relentless” Campaign
Heading into June’s Democratic primary, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a member of a storied Democratic dynasty, was the outrageous favorite to replace Mr. Adams, whose tenure was mired in corruption scandals.
But just as Mr. de Blasio did 12 years ago, Mr. Mamdani drew attention, especially from young people and people online, by identifying the deepening crisis of affordability as the city’s most pressing problem and pledging to address it.
Gothamist reports that housing and child care costs are rising, contributing to inflation in the New York metropolitan area being higher than the national average. According to the United Way of New York City, since 2000, boroughs’ costs have increased by 131 percent, but their revenues have increased by only 71 percent.
State Rep. Rodnese Bichot-Hermelin, a Brooklyn Democrat who supported Mr. Cuomo in the primary, said Mr. Mamdani is a “relentless” and “principled” campaigner on cost of living issues.
“Mr. Zoran won with an unapologetic working-class agenda,” said Gustavo Gordillo, co-chairman of the Democratic Socialist Party of New York City, which counts Mr. Mamdani as a member. “He showed that by choosing sides between the billionaire class and the working class, you can form a broad coalition of working-class voters.”
The reality is more complicated. In the primary, Mr. Mamdani won in many upper-middle-class and gentrifying areas, while Mr. Cuomo won in working-class black, Latino and white areas. Mamdani, the first Muslim and first South Asian mayor of New York, fared better among these communities.
But as a Democratic candidate, Mamdani won most low- and middle-income districts on Nov. 4, according to an analysis by The New York Times and the nonprofit news organization The City. He performed well at most income levels.
In the general election, Mr. Mamdani also won over some traditional Democratic bases, including the black and Latino districts where he defeated Mr. Cuomo in a stunning upset in the June primary.
appear in the city
From the beginning, Mamdani seemed to be everywhere and posting about it.
“He wasn’t being careful,” said Tripp Yang, a Democratic strategist. “He continued to do things that made him better.”
After Trump’s victory in 2024, Mamdani interviewed New Yorkers in the Bronx and Queens who voted for the president because of food prices and said he was running for mayor. During the primary campaign, he walked throughout Manhattan. He appeared at a Wu-Tang Clan concert at Madison Square Garden in July.
This continued until the general election. On the Thursday night before Election Day, he accosted a taxi driver at LaGuardia Airport, and later they ate biryani together in Jackson Heights, Queens. Hours later, camp spokesman Hamad Najam said his camp toured 210 of the city’s approximately 300 mosques for communal Juma prayers. He later showed up at a Brooklyn club with a bloody nose next to Kid Mero, a comedian from the Bronx who had been rooting for Mamdani at a New York Knicks game.
By contrast, Mr. Cuomo sat courtside with Mayor Adams at the Knicks’ season opener. Despite stepping down in 2021 amid a sexual harassment scandal, Cuomo made a brief appearance at the event as if he were still in the governor’s mansion. He often arrived by car, sometimes parking illegally in cities where many people did not have driver’s licenses.
Early grassroots organizing
Mamdani was a relative unknown when he began his campaign to lead the country’s largest city. The third-term state representative polled just 1% of the votes in his crowded district.
Jagpreet Singh, political director of DRUM Beats, a group that brings together South Asian and Indo-Caribbean New Yorkers, said his work began shortly after he announced his candidacy in October 2024. Ms. Mamdani has roots in South Asian and Muslim communities, including her work with the nonprofit Chaya Community Development Corporation in Queens, where she was an anti-foreclosure counselor and Ms. Singh worked on tenant rights.
Singh said the campaign started early on outside Hindu temples, mosques and weekly street and cultural events. By the time other candidates visited, Mamdani had already gathered support. His campaign inspired Muslim and South Asian New Yorkers to vote.
Mamdani not only focused on his identity as a Muslim born in Uganda to parents of Indian descent. He focused on his signature three-part platform of a rent freeze, free buses, and universal child care that people could easily recite or write down, lovingly or spitefully. (That he can freeze rents only for less than half of the city’s rent-stabilized apartments doesn’t seem to dampen supporters’ enthusiasm for market-rate rentals.)
“He had a clear and compelling message,” political analyst Ross Barkan, who managed Mamdani’s 2018 state Senate campaign, previously told USA TODAY. “People point to his social media and his natural charisma, which I think is all that matters, but it was an affordable message. It was very clear what position he was in from day one.”
The Tiktok and Instagram verticals have certainly helped Mamdani connect with young people, but they’ve also brought in Millennial and Gen Z voters in real life. The campaign advertised that 3 million doors were knocked on and 90,000 volunteers took part. They quickly raised money to qualify for the city’s matching funds program. Under this program, if a candidate reaches a certain fundraising threshold, public funds will be added to that amount. His campaign called on supporters to stop donating and donate their time.
Mamdani previously told USA TODAY, “Young voters are in many ways at the heart of this campaign, and we are in this moment.”
beat the establishment
On the night of Mamdani’s June 24 primary victory, Brooklyn Borough Councilman Bishot Hamelin endorsed Mamdani.
She said Mamdani “campaigned around regular issues that got people out, knocking on doors, making phone calls, volunteering and investing. So unlike other candidates, he didn’t have to be tied to millionaires and billionaires. It was all grassroots.”
Later, moderate Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is seeking re-election in 2026, endorsed Mamdani in September and attended a 10,000-person rally in Queens with Mamdani in October.
Some people were more reluctant, but Mamdani gradually convinced more people. He held meetings with business leaders to allay concerns of cautious moderates.
In 2020, he called for “#defundtheNYPD” and called the department “racist, anti-gay, and a grave threat to public safety.” Yang said he apologized to the public in October for preventing that line of attack from taking hold. When a Nevada man killed Officer Didarul Islam in a midtown Manhattan shooting in July, Mamdani flew home from a wedding in Uganda to comfort a grieving Muslim family in the Bronx.
He also vowed to keep current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch in charge of the NYPD. Tisch is a billionaire heiress whose father was a major donor to former Republican mayor Rudy Giuliani. He said police budgets would not be cut and staffing levels would be maintained.
After those signals, he gradually won support from prominent Democrats, including Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the first Dominican-American congressman to endorse Mr. Cuomo in the primary, and late support from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a powerful Brooklyn Democrat.
Mamdani worked with Bichot Hermelin and other black city leaders to meet with voters, making frequent church stops in the city’s working-class suburban boroughs.
Stay on top of messages and stay in touch with everyone
Mamdani is a longtime Palestinian rights activist who has called for a boycott of Israel and called the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank “apartheid.”
But Mamdani, who ran for city clerk, focused primarily on local issues. During one debate, candidates were asked where they would visit as mayor. Several people answered Israel. Mamdani said he would remain in town. When asked specifically why not Israel, he said he would visit places where there are Jewish New Yorkers.
Mamdani reached out to the city’s diverse Jewish community. He had difficult conversations with a Reform congregation in Brooklyn, met with Hasidic leaders and had four rabbis speak in support of his candidacy.
That contrasted with Mr. Cuomo, who also relied on his ties to the Jewish community but offered little support to Muslims.
Polls show Mamdani lost nearly two-thirds of Jewish voters to Cuomo, who had strong support among Orthodox voting blocs.
But Mr. Mamdani’s outreach to the Jewish community may still have some benefits, as he has had no trouble embracing progressive areas with large Jewish populations, such as Brooklyn’s Park Slope.
Comptroller Brad Lander, the city’s highest-ranking Jewish official who once represented Park Slope on the City Council, disagrees with Mamdani on several issues surrounding Israel, but was a key mutual supporter of Mamdani in the June primary and campaigned for her in the general election.
“New Yorkers love this city, but they can’t afford to stay here,” he said.
Now it’s up to Mamdani to fix it. Otherwise, the pendulum may swing again.
Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Contact us via email (emcuevas1@usatoday.com) or Signal (emcuevas.01).
