Against all odds, Zohran Mamdani he became mayor of New York. Against all odds, of course, because – come on – a Muslim mayor had never been seen before. And what’s more, socialist too, stuff that would make Trump’s skin crawl. But – we all know – the Big Apple is not America, it is not MAGA at all costs. He will succeed Mamdani to change the cards on the table in these States at the mercy of a decidedly authoritarian conservative?
Last night, Zohran Mamdani wrote a piece of history in any case: at 34 years old (he is the youngest in over a century) and with over 50% of the votes, he was elected the 111th mayor of the most contradictory metropolis in the world, that piece of stars and stripes and thousands of other flags where the rich are really rich and the poor are really poor. Without any rhetoric.
If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave him birth. We respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the force they fear – he told CNN. If there is one way to terrorize a despot it is to dismantle the conditions that have allowed him to accumulate power.
Who is Zohran Mamdani?
Born in Uganda and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Mamdani moved to New York when he was 7 years old. He attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College. He is the son of Mahmood Mamdani, professor at Columbia University, and Mira Nair, an Indian director (his feature film Salaam Bombaywhich won the Camera d’Or and the Audience Award at Cannes in 1988 and earned an Oscar nomination, and Mississippi Masalaa love story between a young American and an African American. And which won three prizes at the international cinematographic art exhibition in Venice).
A mayor who will make history?
Mamdani’s term will formally begin on January 1, 2026. He inherits a deeply complex city that is home to 8.5 million citizens, a large bureaucracy, a municipal workforce of approximately 300,000 people and a city budget of $115 billion.
Mamdani will certainly go down in history as the first Muslim mayor of New York, the first South Asian to hold the office, and one of the youngest mayors elected in modern times. He recently married Rama Duwaji, a Syrian-born artist who was born in Texas and moved to New York City to complete a master’s degree in illustration.
His was a campaign that spoke to the many who no longer feel represented: young people, ethnic communities, the lower and middle class, united by the desire for a more dignified life in a city suffocated by unsustainable rents and failing public services.
Mamdani, a little-known member of the New York Assembly, has built a grassroots coalition step by step. His promises? Higher taxes for the rich, rent freezes, free buses, universal healthcare for children and a major overhaul of the role of the police. Words that, at the beginning, were met with indifference. Then fear. Finally anger.
When his progressive agenda, supported by impeccable social communication and unconventional charisma, began to gather real support, the powers that be in New York moved en masse. During the Democratic primaries last July alone, some of the wealthiest New Yorkers poured more than $20 million into negative advertising against him. All in vain: Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo, becoming – against all odds – the Democratic candidate for mayor.
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The establishment trembles
In Washington the news was not greeted with enthusiasm. The leader of the Democrats in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, gave his support only a few days before the vote, while Chuck Schumer, senator elected in New York, preferred silence.
However, the reaction of the republican and financial world was much louder: Joe Gebbia (Airbnb), Bill Ackman (hedge fund manager) and Ronald Lauder (World Jewish Congress) poured millions into anti-Mamdani commercials. And of course Donald Trump, with his usual verve, called him “terrible” and “unintelligent,” even going so far as to support Cuomo. A support that, paradoxically, has only strengthened Mamdani in a city that has turned its back on the former president for years.
The labels of “communist”, “Islamic” or “anti-Semitic” have multiplied in the conservative world, but they have not dented the trust of an electorate more interested in concrete issues – housing, work, services – than in ideological slogans.
Some Jewish groups, such as the Combat Antisemitism Movementthey do not forgive him for certain statements about Israel and promise to “remain vigilant”. Meanwhile, the New York Post celebrated his victory with a poisonous cover: a caricature in which Mamdani waves the hammer and sickle, with the title “The Red Apple”.
Today Mamdani finds himself running one of the most complex administrative machines in the world, with little direct experience under his belt – only work in the state assembly and a stint as a counselor for evicted families in the Bronx. It will take time to become familiar with the mechanisms and to face attacks that promise to be ferocious.
But for now, the present tastes like victory. “We are on the shining hill of New York“, he said in his speech in Brooklyn. And with him, all that part of the city that does not give up on the idea that New York is only for the rich.
Mamdani’s victory marks a triumph for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party at a time when national Democrats are divided over how to counter President Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump, I know you’re following, I have four words: ‘turn up the volume’.”
