Photo by Bingjiefu He on Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
In October 2024, a relatively unknown New York assemblyman launched his candidacy to become mayor of the nation’s largest city. His slogan “Zohran for NYC” felt like a breath of fresh air in a party, and city, whose previous mayor centered his agenda on securitization and public safety, while his administration, and Eric Adams himself, came under investigation for corruption. Mamdani’s message is simple: he put citizens and their daily struggles back at the center of politics. Understanding the soaring cost of living, he offers a hopeful promise: in this city, “we can afford to dream.” In a catchy video introducing his campaign to the public and celebrating the working-class New Yorkers who keep the city running, Zohran set the tone for a campaign that felt unusually joyful, personal, and at the same time, rooted in the community.
Who is Zohran?
On November 4, 2025, over one million people voted to elect Zohran Mamdani as their mayor. At just 34, he became the youngest mayor in the city´s history, bringing a vibrant and charismatic energy that many see as promising.
Born in 1991 to Ugandan-Indian parents (the father is a renowned post-colonial scholar and the mother is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker), Mamdani grew up between Uganda and India, in a culturally and intellectually rich family, before moving to New York at age seven, when his father accepted a professorship at Columbia University. Mamdani graduated with a Bachelor´s degree in African studies from a College in Maine, where he first became politically active in the Palestinian movement. His early adulthood included a short hip-hop career, during which he performed as Mr. Cardamom, before he began working as a housing counselor in Queens. In 2020, he successfully ran for the New York State Assembly. Four years later, Mamdani announced his run for mayor. What followed was a year of ambitious promises, catchy social campaigns, and a solid program shaped by his socialist background.
In June, his victory in the Democratic primary over former governor Andrew Cuomo signalled a shift within the party toward the young socialist figure that seemed capable of resonating with people and attracting new voters. In the general election, the turnout surpassed two million ballots, which is the highest number since 1969.
Naturally, the race attracted national attention. Just a day before the election, President Trump urged voters to support the Independent, and former Democratic, candidate Cuomo, “Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him and hope he does a fantastic job”. He then warned about the incapability of Mamdani to run a city and expressed his reluctance to send federal funding if Mamdani were elected. “Because if you have a communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there.”
Nevertheless, Mamdani did win. In his victory speech, he celebrated becoming mayor of “a city of immigrants, built by immigrants, powered by immigrants”. As a Muslim immigrant himself, his election marked a significant moment for New York’s political identity. Throughout the campaign, he stood out as a sincere and ambitious man, close to the citizens, and determined to make his city a place where people, and not only millionaires, want to live in. His image is clear: flying economy, taking the bus, visiting bodegas, sharing kebabs with Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and organizing a citywide scavenger hunt so that people could discover the city´s history and connect.
The heart of the campaign was precisely this: to run a city, you must love it, but you cannot do it alone. Everyone needs to feel that they belong to a community, a place where they can stay, live, work, and afford to build a life.
But how did he do it?
The Campaign
Before delving into the content of Mamdani´s proposal, it is worth focusing on the visual identity that he constructed. Designed by a Philadelphia studio, the aesthetic embraced electric, warm yellow-orange, and deep red, evoking taxis and bodegas of the real NYC. This communication stood in contrast with the polished, restrained look of typical political branding. Mamdani wanted to build an identity that could resonate and evoke familiarity with the people. The lettering, as well as the choice to campaign using only his first name, further emphasized this feeling. His colourful and bold graphic seems to take inspiration from a fellow Member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and her successful campaign to run for Congress back in 2018. Highly driven by a wave of social media content, Mamdani´s campaign felt alive, confident, and rooted in the city that it wants to represent, and not only the person running for office.
The Program
At the heart of his campaign lies a clear and straightforward program. Living in New York has become too expensive. Therefore, his primary focus is affordability: Mamdani goes back to what citizens most need to live in a city, that is, affordable housing, affordable groceries, affordable transportation, and affordable childcare, if they want to raise a family.
His housing plan included a rent freeze for rent-stabilized tenants and the construction of 200,000 new rent-stabilized units over the next decade. He plans to establish city-run grocery stores in the five districts aimed at combating food insecurity and price instability. For transportation, he wants to expand a pilot program he had championed in the Assembly by making all city buses free and enhancing the service by creating additional priority lanes for buses. He also promised one of the most ambitious childcare initiatives in the country: free childcare for every child from six weeks to five years old, so that working families can raise their children in NYC without financial strain. To fund these programs, Mamdani proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 11.5 percent, which would raise $5 billion annually. Additionally, implementing a flat 2 percent tax on income above $1 million, projects to raise another $4 billion.
Connecting with People
One of Mamdani´s greatest strengths throughout the campaign was his ability to connect with people. From the beginning, he reached out to people who supported Donald Trump in the national election and listened to their needs and concerns.
After winning the June primary election, Mamdani managed to bring votes from those communities that previously supported his opponent, Cuomo. Data shows that after June, he expanded his support, especially in Black neighbourhoods, where more than 75,000 volunteers knocked on doors to get to know people and convince Cuomo´s base to support the socialist candidate. He also focused on lower-income neighbourhoods, where he gained 10 points in the general election, compared to the primary.
For a quite inexperienced candidate, building trust was essential. Mamdani knew that his candidacy had to feel like a good bet. He kept showing up and positioning himself not as a distant political figure but as a fellow New Yorker who cared about people. Talking with people, connecting with people, is the power of good governance. New Yorkers placed their confidence in a socialist candidate who broke from the party´s elite and grounded his campaign in the daily realities of ordinary people. As he prepares to begin his term on the 1st of January, the challenge now is to keep that energy and deliver on the vision that brought him to office.