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    Mamdani Won Over N.Y.C. Democratic Voters. Can He Charm Washington?

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    National Democrats are grappling with how much to embrace Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a leftist who has become the party’s standard-bearer in America’s largest city.The head of the local Democratic Party in Queens, where Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani got his political start, has never met him. The party’s longtime state chairman had not spoken to him until the day after a stunning primary night that stamped him as a rising Democratic star.And among the party’s strategists, officials and elected leaders in Washington, he’s almost entirely unknown.Now, as the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Mr. Mamdani, 33, is on a crash course to change that. He is unleashing a full-scale charm offensive of private meetings, phone calls and public promises aimed at wooing top party leaders, donors and activists.On Monday, he met with Jewish elected officials in New York City. The next day, he took pointed questions about his views on Israel and tax policy from a group of 150 business leaders in the city.A day later, he headed to Capitol Hill to offer campaign advice to dozens of Democratic members of Congress at a breakfast hosted by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York before returning to Manhattan for a private meeting with younger technology executives. And on Friday, he met with Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader and a fellow New Yorker who has yet to endorse his bid.Already, some establishment Democrats have been grappling with Mr. Mamdani’s sudden standing as their party’s standard-bearer in America’s most populous city. And they want to quickly get the measure of a man who has spent much of his political life far outside of their big tent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mamdani Meets Jeffries in Brooklyn as He Seeks to Expand His Coalition

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      No endorsement emerged from the meeting between Zohran Mamdani and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, but both said the gathering had been productive.In the weeks since Zohran Mamdani decisively won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, many elected officials and prominent unions have become converts, embracing his viral messaging about making the city more affordable.But some leaders, like Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, have been more cautious, praising Mr. Mamdani but still needing some persuasion. On Friday, Mr. Mamdani began making inroads on his persuasion tour, meeting for an hour with Mr. Jeffries in his Brooklyn congressional district in East New York in an effort to get to know him better.There was no endorsement announcement after the meeting, but both leaders spoke positively afterward.The meeting was “constructive, candid and community-centered, with a particular focus on affordability,” said Justin Chermol, a spokesman for Mr. Jeffries.The men discussed public safety, antisemitism, gentrification and efforts by Democrats to take back control of the House next year, and they “agreed to reconvene shortly” with other leaders, including other members of the New York City congressional delegation, Mr. Chermol said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mamdani, Be a Convener, Not a Commentator

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      Dear New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani:I have been watching you tortuously try to explain to pro-Israel New Yorkers that your readiness to defend the phrase “globalize the intifada” was not antisemitic or meant to favor the elimination of the Jewish state.You have said that it’s not a phrase you use but have not condemned its use by others, insisting that it means different things to different people. Going even further on Tuesday, in a meeting with New York business leaders, you reportedly said you would “discourage” use of the phrase.It seems to me that you have gotten yourself tied up in knots on this issue, pulled between your supporters and your critics. May I offer two pieces of advice that have guided me over four decades of navigating this conflict:First, if you are discussing a mantra — like “globalize the intifada” — that takes 15 minutes to explain why it doesn’t mean what it obviously means, I’d suggest that you distance yourself further from that mantra.May I offer an alternative? “Two states for two people.” It works really well with drums — “Two states, for two people.”While that solution may be a long shot, it has the virtue of being the only viable, just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — one that many Americans still support, and one, if this Gaza war ever ends, I believe many Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs and Muslims and Jews in New York City will as well. There is no other viable alternative. There is no one-state solution; there is no three-state solution. The only alternative to “two states for two people” is, in my opinion, no states for two people — just a grinding forever war between two people living intertwined with each other.Second, the world does not need the mayor of New York City to be another commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The world is awash with commentators on this issue. We don’t need any more. We need leaders ready to be conveners of those looking for the only just solution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mamdani Says He Will ‘Discourage’ the Term ‘Globalize the Intifada’

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      Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee in the race for mayor of New York City, moved to distance himself from comments that sparked outrage during the primary.Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, told an influential group of business leaders on Tuesday that he would not use the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been seen as a call to violence against Jews, and would “discourage” others from doing so, according to three people familiar with his comments.The phrase has been a rallying cry among opponents of the war in Gaza, and Mr. Mamdani, an ardent critic of Israel’s military operations, had refused to condemn its use during the Democratic primary race that he won in June.His comments came in a closed-door meeting with roughly 150 business executives at the offices of Tishman Speyer in Rockefeller Center. It was hosted by the Partnership for New York City, a consortium of members representing banks, law firms and corporations.Mr. Mamdani told the group that while many people used the term to express solidarity with Palestinians, some New Yorkers viewed it as a reference to violence against Israel, according to one of the people who were familiar with his comments.Just two weeks ago, shortly after his primary victory, Mr. Mamdani said in an interview on “Meet the Press” that the term was “not language that I use” but that “I don’t believe that the role of the mayor is to police speech.”Mr. Mamdani’s shifting language comes as his campaign moves from his stunning victory in the June primary to the general election in November, when he faces a fractured field of competitors including Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who are running as independents, and the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Is Fast Alienating the Democratic Base

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      To grasp the significance of Zohran Mamdani’s shocking victory in last month’s Democratic primary for mayor of New York, it’s worth recalling another upset, which took place 11 years ago and some 300 miles to the south, in a Republican congressional primary near Richmond, Va. In 2014 Dave Brat, a little-known economics professor at Randolph-Macon College, challenged Eric Cantor, who was then the House majority leader. Mr. Brat was outspent by a margin of more than 10 to one. Despite that, he won by 11 percentage points, thus becoming the first primary challenger to oust a House majority leader in American history.Ideologically, Mr. Brat and Mr. Mamdani have little in common. But they won their primaries for similar reasons: Each exploited the chasm between his party’s grass roots and its elites. In 2014 many Republican voters loathed the G.O.P. establishment. Today, many Democrats feel a similar fury toward the politicians who claim to represent them. In 2014 Mr. Brat used one issue in particular to illustrate that divide: immigration. Democratic alienation today is more nebulous. No single topic seems to loom as large as immigration did among Republicans a decade ago. Still, Mr. Mamdani’s victory illustrates the huge gulf between many ordinary Democrats and the Democratic establishment on one subject in particular: Israel.Mr. Mamdani focused his message on making New York City affordable. The campaign of the race’s presumed front-runner, Andrew Cuomo, in addition to attacking Mr. Mamdani as inexperienced and soft on crime, focused intensely on his opponent’s unapologetic commitment to Palestinian rights. That commitment was one reason that many political commentators and operatives assumed Mr. Mamdani, a young state assemblyman, could not win. They didn’t appreciate how broadly public opinion on this issue has changed.The shift has been national. In 2013, according to Gallup, Democrats sympathized with Israel over the Palestinians by a margin of 36 percentage points. Those numbers have now flipped, after more than a decade of nearly uninterrupted right-wing rule by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the rise to power of crude bigots like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, and Israel’s mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: This February, Gallup found that Democrats sympathize with Palestinians over Israel by a margin of 38 percentage points. According to a February survey by The Economist and YouGov, 46 percent of Democrats want the United States to reduce military aid to the Jewish state. Only 6 percent want to increase it, and 24 percent want it to remain at the level it is.These opinions aren’t restricted to young progressives. Older Democrats’ views have swung even more sharply than young ones against Israel in recent years. Between 2022 and 2025, according to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Democrats age 50 and over with an unfavorable view of the Jewish state jumped a remarkable 23 percentage points. This shift has largely erased the party’s generation gap on the subject.Only one in three Democrats now views Israel favorably, according to Gallup. That makes Israel significantly less popular than Cuba, and only slightly more popular than China. Despite this, the party’s most powerful figures — from the minority leaders Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries to many of the Democrats likely to run for president in 2028 — oppose conditioning U.S. military support on Israel’s willingness to uphold human rights. This places them in clear conflict with their party’s base.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Zohran Mamdani Won by Listening. Democrats Should Try It.

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      In the doldrums of last November, depressed and paralyzed by Donald Trump’s victory, I stumbled upon a video in my social media feed of an affable young man in a suit and tie, microphone in hand, interviewing voters in immigrant-heavy areas in Queens and the Bronx.“Did you get a chance to vote on Tuesday?” he asks. And then, “Who did you vote for?”Some didn’t vote at all. But many voted for Trump.What struck me about the video was the young man’s open-ended curiosity. Through it all, he simply listened to the responses to his questions, his friendly face inquisitive.Toward the end of the video he finally makes his pitch to a voter: “You know, we have a mayor’s race coming up next year, and if there was a candidate talking about freezing the rent, making buses free, making universal child care a reality — are those things that you’d support?”“Absolutely,” the man replies.New York Democrats did indeed embrace that message, vaulting that young man, Zohran Mamdani, who was as unknown to most New Yorkers as he was to me, to the top of the heap last month in the very crowded Democratic mayoral primary field. Like many people, I was resigned to an Andrew Cuomo romp, despite his odious past and his lazy campaign. Instead, we got an electrifying rout by a young, charismatic democratic socialist. When the final tally under ranked-choice voting was announced on Tuesday, Mamdani had won 56 percent of the vote, a 12-point margin on Cuomo, the heavy favorite.In the dizzying days since that stunning upset, there has been a great deal of hand-wringing about its meaning. Unsurprisingly, Republicans have had a racist freakout, portraying Mamdani, a Muslim who was born in Uganda to Indian-origin parents, as a dangerous jihadist who will impose Shariah law and invite the slaughter of Jewish New Yorkers. Without a trace of irony, they have also pilloried him as a godless Communist who will destroy the financial capital of the United States by seizing the means of production. Trump mused about arresting him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Zohran Mamdani Stunned New York and Won the Primary for Mayor

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      On a frigid night in January, Zohran Mamdani, a little-known state lawmaker running for mayor, climbed into a halal cart in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park for a plate of chicken and rice.With cameras rolling, the fresh-faced Democrat mainlined a takeout container as he explained in simple terms how the city’s arcane permitting process was squeezing vendors and driving “halalflation.”The 90-second video went viral, but it also offered a more direct sign of Mr. Mamdani’s growing reach. Mahmoud Mousa, the Egyptian-born vendor next to him onscreen, said that his Brooklyn neighbors, friends and family inundated him with questions about the 33-year-old candidate in a suit and tie.“Politicians never care about the problems we have,” he said in an interview last week. “But he is saying he is going to take care of how I live.”Five months later, the episode illustrates how Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, broke New York’s political mold and pulled off a seismic upset to claim the Democratic nomination for mayor over far more seasoned rivals, including former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.The victory sent shock waves through American politics, electrifying progressives, alarming some party leaders and handing Republicans fresh fodder to attack Democrats. It also set the stage for a pitched general election battle against Mayor Eric Adams, as Mr. Mamdani now confronts an antagonistic business class and many Jewish New Yorkers alarmed by his stark criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Parents Who Helped Shape Zohran Mamdani’s Politics

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      Zohran Mamdani’s parents, a filmmaker and a professor, gave him the foundation for his run for mayor of New York. But their own political views may open him up to attacks.When Zohran K. Mamdani took a commanding lead in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City on Tuesday, his parents were just as surprised as the party’s establishment. Both are accustomed to the spotlight — his mother as an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and his father as a Columbia University professor. Neither expected to be this close to the halls of power.Mr. Mamdani, 33, has credited his parents with providing him a “privileged upbringing” that included constant discussion of politics and global affairs. But at a moment of intense political fights over conflict in the Middle East, his parents’ critical views of Israel and his father’s academic work on settler colonialism and human rights could make them a target of attacks from the right.The concept of settler colonialism has become especially fraught during the war in Gaza, as some supporters of Palestinians have applied the term to Israel, which some critics say is unfair.“We hadn’t bargained for being parents of a prospective mayor,” Mahmood Mamdani, 79, the candidate’s father and a renowned professor of international affairs and anthropology, said in the couple’s Manhattan apartment the morning after the primary.Mira Nair, 67, Mr. Mamdani’s mother, directed “Salaam Bombay!,” “Mississippi Masala” and “Monsoon Wedding,” among other films. Over the past year, in between filmmaking, she has canvassed for her son and cooked biryani and chicken for him and his campaign staffers. Both parents emphasized that their son, a democratic socialist who could become the city’s first Muslim mayor, has not turned to them for political advice. But they may now find themselves drawn into the campaign nonetheless.Zohran Mamdani with Ms. Nair at his primary night celebration. Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who had been leading in the polls, conceded the race as Mr. Mamdani stretched his lead in returns on Tuesday night.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Look at Zohran Mamdani’s Stances on Key Issues

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      The state assemblyman ran a campaign tightly focused on issues related to affordability. Here is a look at where he stands on those issues and others.In a crowded Democratic primary for mayor of New York City that featured a former governor, seasoned candidates from past mayoral elections and an alumnus of the Obama White House, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani set himself apart early despite his lack of name recognition.He did it largely by connecting with younger voters, producing sleek, engaging campaign ads on social media and beating the drum about the need to make life in New York more affordable. This narrow focus on a single, salient issue drove Mr. Mamdani’s campaign, which his main rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, described as “highly impactful” as he conceded the race on Tuesday night.In his victory speech, Mr. Mamdani hammered home his message one last time, attributing his success to New Yorkers who had voted for “a city where they can do more than just struggle.”As Mr. Mamdani looks poised to secure the Democratic nomination and attention turns to the general election, here’s what to know about where he stands on key issues.Affordability“Every politician says New York is the greatest city on the globe,” Mr. Mamdani said in his first campaign ad, released eight months ago. “But what good is that if no one can afford to live here?”So began a campaign tightly focused on the cost-of-living crisis plaguing the city. His platform, detailed on his campaign website, was simple: “New York is too expensive. Zohran will lower costs and make life easier.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More