Zohran Mamdani: 5 Must-Know Facts About the Progressive Lawmaker Shaking Up New York

NEW YORK — Less than five weeks before Election Day, progressive firebrand Zohran Mamdani has tightened his grip on the New York City mayoral race, converting a summer of grassroots momentum into a widening polling advantage over former governor Andrew Cuomo. A new Marist survey taken after Mayor Eric Adams suspended his embattled reelection bid shows Mamdani holding 46 percent of likely voters, while Cuomo trails at 30 percent and Republican Curtis Sliwa lags with 18 percent. Mamdani’s rise has been fueled by a record haul of small-dollar donations—$15 million to Cuomo’s $9 million—and a cascade of late-season endorsements from Vice President Kamala Harris, Governor Kathy Hochul, and a coalition of major labor unions. The 33-year-old Uganda-born state assemblymember pitches himself as a “democratic socialist for an unaffordable city,” hammering themes of rent relief, free bus service, and higher taxes on billionaires—messages that have resonated with voters squeezed by spiraling housing costs. TRUMP’S ATTACKS BACKFIRE President Donald Trump, eager to block a socialist victory in the nation’s largest city, unleashed another social-media broadside this week, warning that Mamdani “won’t get a dime” of federal aid if elected. But analysts say such threats only burnish Mamdani’s outsider appeal in deep-blue New York, where Trump’s approval hovers below 20 percent. “Every time the president attacks, Mamdani’s donations spike,” notes Columbia University political scientist Basil Smikle. CUOMO COURTS BIG DONORS Cuomo, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary, is banking on a late influx of Wall Street and real-estate money alarmed by Mamdani’s tax plans. The super-PAC Fix the City, which poured millions into Cuomo’s primary run, says Adams’s exit has already triggered “an uptick in interest” among corporate donors. Yet strategists caution that the former governor’s comeback bid is hampered by lingering fallout from the 2021 harassment scandal that forced his resignation. IDENTITY AND INSPIRATION Born in Kampala to an Indian Muslim family and raised in Queens, Mamdani defies tidy ethnic labels—an attribute that, according to a recent Vanity Fair profile, has made him “the future face of an increasingly multiracial American left.” On the trail, he toggles seamlessly between English, Swahili, and Hindi, reminding voters that “New York speaks every language, and City Hall should too.” WHAT’S NEXT • Two televised debates: Oct. 8 and Oct. 22 • Early voting: Oct. 25–Nov. 2 • Election Day: Nov. 4 If Mamdani maintains his double-digit lead, New York could swear in its first Muslim, first millennial, and first openly socialist mayor in modern history—an outcome that would ripple far beyond the five boroughs. For now, the campaign’s closing argument is simple, Mamdani says: “This city tried corruption, it tried centrism. Let’s try putting ordinary people first.”