Muslim lawmaker Zohran Mamdani has been elected as the 111th mayor of New York, the first person of South Asian descent and the first person born in Africa to lead the largest city in the United States.
The 34-year-old mayoral candidate and assemblyman from Queens emerged victorious in the race on Tuesday to lead New York after polls closed in a heated contest that grabbed the world’s attention.
Mamdani outperformed his chief opponent — former governor Andrew Cuomo — with at least 50 percent of support after 85 percent of the votes had been counted.
"We are on the brink of making history in our city. On the brink of saying goodbye to a politics of the past. A politics that tells you what it can't do, and really what it means to say is what it won't do, and to usher in a new era," Mamdani told reporters earlier in the day.
"We do not get to choose the scale of the crisis we face. We simply get to choose the manner in which we respond," he added.
The Democratic lawmaker promised rent control and free bus travel - a platform funded by a proposed increase in taxes on the wealthiest residents of New York City.
According to data, Mamdani's stance on Israel and Palestine helped him seal the primary win, despite smears of antisemitism for his views on the war, which is now widely bashed as genocide.
Cuomo did not mince words on Tuesday as he cast his ballot, calling it a “civil war in the Democratic Party that has been brewing for a while.”
“You have an extreme radical left that is run by the socialists that is challenging, quote unquote, moderate Democrats,” said Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in June to Mamdani. “And that contest is what you’re seeing here.”
Hours later he conceded defeat, telling supporters at his own election watch party “tonight was their night.”
Mamdani is an immigrant from his birthplace of Uganda, where his Indian-origin father was raised. His mother is Indian.
On January 1, 2026, he will be sworn in to run the largest and most diverse city in the United States with a population of 8.5 million.
According to the City Board of Elections, of the 4.7 million registered voters there, more than two million people voted in this election. This is the first time this has happened since 1969, and far surpasses the numbers from the 2001 election, which was held just weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The New York Times reported that more than 735,000 New Yorkers cast early ballots ahead of Tuesday, making that the highest early in-person turnout ever in a non-presidential election year.
Only 1.15 million voters cast ballots in the last race in 2021.
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