Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York mayor caps an extraordinary rise for the left-leaning local lawmaker, who emerged from relative obscurity to mount a supercharged campaign for the US megacity’s top job.
Since his surprise victory in the Democratic primary in June, New Yorkers have grown accustomed to seeing his bearded, smiling face on television — and on badges proudly worn by his supporters.
The 34-year-old election winner was born in Uganda to a family of Indian origin and has lived in the United States since he was seven, becoming a naturalized American citizen in 2018.
He is the son of filmmaker Mira Nair (“Monsoon Wedding”, “Mississippi Masala”) and Mahmood Mamdani, a professor and respected Africa expert – prompting some of his detractors to call him a “nepo baby”.
Following a path blazed by other youths from elite liberal families, he attended the elite Bronx High School of Science followed by Bowdoin College in Maine, a university seen as a bastion of progressive thought.
Under the alias “Young Cardamom”, he ventured into the world of rap in 2015, influenced by the hip-hop group “Das Racist”, which had two members of Indian origin, who played with references and tropes from the subcontinent.
Mamdani’s attempt to break into the competitive world of professional music did not last, and the performer-turned-politician called himself a second-rate artist.
He became interested in politics when he learned that rapper Himanshu Suri, who went by the alias Heems, was endorsing a candidate for city council—and joined that campaign as an activist.
Mamdani went on to become a foreclosure prevention consultant, helping financially struggling homeowners avoid losing their homes.
He was elected in 2018 as a legislator from Queens, a melting pot of predominantly poor and migrant communities, representing the area in the New York State Assembly.
‘Dissatisfied voters’
The self-proclaimed socialist, who has been re-elected three times, put the goal of making the city affordable for anyone who is not wealthy, the majority of its roughly 8.5 million residents, at the heart of his campaign.
He has promised more rent control, free daycare and buses and city-run grocery stores.
Mamdani is also a long-time supporter of the Palestinian cause, although his views on Israel – which he has called an “apartheid regime” while labeling the war in Gaza a “genocide” – have angered some in the Jewish community.
In recent months he has made a point of denouncing anti-Semitism – as well as the Islamophobia he has suffered.
President Donald Trump, who calls Mamdani a “little communist,” denounced him as “a proven and self-proclaimed JEW-HATER” on Tuesday as New Yorkers headed to the polls.
Mamdani is something of a corporate “outsider,” according to Costas Panagopoulos, a professor of political science at Northeastern University.
“He has managed to rally the support of disaffected voters and others in New York City who are unhappy with the status quo and with a company they perceive as overlooking their needs and political preferences,” he said.
Mamdani, an avid football and cricket fan, recently married American illustrator Rama Duwaji and has put his experience of activism to work in a strategically coordinated collection and leafleting campaign, which he has paired with an extensive and often humorous use of social media.
“He’s really kind of a hybrid of a great 1970s campaign and a great 2025 campaign,” said Lincoln Mitchell, a professor at Columbia University.
