Mamdani, Zohran

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      How Brad Lander Helped Push Zohran Mamdani Toward Victory

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      In New York’s mayoral primary, Andrew Cuomo was no match for the energy of progressive rivals who saw a virtue in unity.The night before Tuesday’s Democratic primary in New York City, Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander appeared on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” bringing their progressive bromance to a national viewership. Ostensibly running against each other to be New York’s next mayor, their alliance showcased what parliamentary-style coalition politics could look like in the age of so much vitriol and polarization.Not long before early voting began, the candidates cross-endorsed each other in the name of an ideological victory and the defeat of the better-known, better-funded front-runner. “We both agree that corrupt, abusive Andrew Cuomo should not be allowed anywhere near City Hall,” Mr. Lander, the city’s comptroller, said on the show, as the studio audience cheered. And now it looks as if he won’t.Against the predictions of nearly all polling, Mr. Mamdani is on track for a decisive win — even before the tallying of several rounds of ranked-choice voting, assumed to be the only route to defeating an opponent with such an imposing advantage. Mr. Mamdani leads in the first round of counting by 7 percentage points, a margin significant enough that Mr. Cuomo quickly conceded on Tuesday night.The result could reasonably lead to the assumption that a still-novel method of ballot casting in New York had little to do with the outcome. But in fact, ranked-choice voting, now in place in at least 60 jurisdictions around the country, shaped the competition from the beginning.It rewards a campaign style that played to Mr. Mamdani’s strengths: ever-present, on-the-street, nonstop voter engagement. Mr. Mamdani was doing everything — even jumping into the freezing cold ocean to call attention to his proposal for a rent freeze — and his many thousands of campaign volunteers were everywhere.All of this stood in sharp contrast to Mr. Cuomo’s I’ve-got-this-locked-up strategy, one that relied heavily on big-money TV advertising, little noticed by voters under 70, and the conviction that there was no one well-known or formidable or experienced enough to beat 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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      Eric Adams Meets With Business Leaders Desperate to Stop Mamdani’s Rise

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      Daniel Loeb, the hedge fund manager, and some other New York City business leaders are aghast at Zohran Mamdani’s success in the Democratic mayoral primary and are considering backing Mr. Adams in the general election.In a conference room in Manhattan on Wednesday night, Mayor Eric Adams and Daniel S. Loeb, the hedge fund manager, met with other business leaders and political brokers to discuss how to stop the rise of Zohran Mamdani and possibly bolster Mr. Adams’s re-election campaign.The business leaders were impressed that Mr. Adams was already staging a public fight against Mr. Mamdani, several people familiar with the meeting said. Earlier in the day, during an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Mr. Adams called Mr. Mamdani a “snake-oil salesman.”Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist state assemblyman from Queens, on Tuesday shocked the New York political establishment by outperforming Andrew M. Cuomo, the former New York governor, in the Democratic primary for mayor. Mr. Cuomo is now considering whether to run as an independent in the general election, or end his campaign altogether.Should Mr. Cuomo withdraw, Mr. Mamdani is poised to face off against Mr. Adams, who is running as an independent; Curtis Sliwa, the Republican founder of the Guardian Angels; and Jim Walden, a lawyer also running as an independent.The prospect of Mr. Mamdani’s campaigning as the Democratic standard-bearer in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by six to one has sent shivers down the spines of many New York business leaders, who recoil at his plans for expansive new government programs funded with tax increases on corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers. Some have quickly begun to throw their support behind the incumbent mayor, despite the scandals that have tarnished his tenure.Andrew Epstein, a spokesman for Mr. Mamdani, said the businessmen at the meeting were simply scared of “our plan to tax them a little bit more to fund an agenda to lower the cost of living and improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers.”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’s Winning Style

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      In all the post-mortems that have appeared since Zohran Mamdani upset the political apple cart to potentially, if unofficially, clinch the Democratic nomination for New York mayor, one particular aspect of his appeal has been largely overlooked: not how Mr. Mamdani conducted his campaign but how he looked while conducting it.Put another way: Mr. Mamdani didn’t just record himself for his various social media platforms running into the freezing Atlantic on New Year’s Day to publicize his pledge to freeze rents; he recorded himself running into the freezing ocean not in a wet suit or a bathing suit, but in a suit and tie.Sure, it was funnier that way. But it was also tactical. For a 33-year-old progressive and democratic socialist trying to be the city’s first Muslim mayor, whose opponents are painting him as a “100 percent Communist lunatic” and a “radical leftie” (that from President Trump on Truth Social), not to mention trying to other him because of his racial and religious identity, dressing like an establishment guy offers a counterargument of its own.Leaving a Passover rally in April.Andres Kudacki for The New York TimesOn election night.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesAs Mr. Mamdani walks the tightrope between embodying change, generational and otherwise, and reassuring those who may be leery of such change, his clothes have played a not insignificant role. His mouth may be saying one thing, but very often his outfit is saying another.This is a man, after all, who appeared in Vogue India as long ago as 2020, when he won his seat in the State Assembly, and whose mother is the film director Mira Nair. He has long understood that costume is one way to convey character.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 Mamdani Won, Block by Block

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      <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [!–> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–>At a raucous rally in Manhattan last week, amid a sea of yellow bandannas, “Freeze the Rent” signs and “A City We Can Afford” banners, Mr. Mamdani took the stage to a groundswell of applause. He […] More

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      Mamdani Triumphed Without a Majority of Black Voters. Where Does That Leave Them?

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      Black city leaders are worried their influence is waning at a moment when the rising costs that Zohran Mamdani put at the center of his campaign are pushing Black New Yorkers out of the city.For years, the conventional wisdom in New York among strategists and candidates alike has been that in any Democratic primary, the road to victory runs through Black communities.Then came Zohran Mamdani.In the race that culminated on Tuesday, Mr. Mamdani forged a new multiracial political coalition to become the likely Democratic nominee for mayor and topple Andrew M. Cuomo, the former governor, who had far more name recognition, financial firepower — and political baggage.And Mr. Mamdani did so even as he lost many of New York City’s most solidly Black neighborhoods. A New York Times analysis of the results shows that Mr. Cuomo dominated in precincts where at least 70 percent of residents are Black, more than doubling Mr. Mamdani’s support, 59 percent to 26 percent.The result is a break not just from the parochial politics of New York — Black voters helped deliver the mayoralty to both Eric Adams and his predecessor, Bill de Blasio — but from the nation as a whole. Black voters have served as the Democratic Party’s most important voting bloc this century, elevating Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the party’s last three presidential nominees, oftentimes sanding down the most exuberant instincts of the left.Most famously, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina rescued Mr. Biden’s flagging 2020 effort by rallying Black voters before his state’s primary in a bid to thwart Senator Bernie Sanders, though Mr. Clyburn’s backing did not appear to help Mr. Cuomo in this race’s closing stretch.In a city whose politics have been defined by race-based math, Mr. Mamdani’s success as a democratic socialist upended these traditional calculations and birthed a new and unconventional coalition. It also highlighted tensions between older and more moderate Black voters and the party’s most strident progressive wing, typically anchored by wealthier white voters.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 Mamdani Earthquake

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      Zohran Mamdani’s stunning showing in the Democratic primary for mayor has reshaped the local political landscape.Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll analyze Zohran Mamdani’s upset in the Democratic primary and whether his progressive message will resonate beyond New York.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesThe results are not official. Not yet. Under the city’s ranked-choice voting system, the Board of Elections still has to do elimination-round tabulations. But Zohran Mamdani’s all-but-certain upset reshaped the political landscape locally and perhaps nationally.How did he do it? Mamdani, a democratic socialist, ran up large vote tallies in gentrifying neighborhoods. But he also did well in brownstone-lined blocks of Brooklyn, on diverse blocks in Upper Manhattan and in neighborhoods with substantial South Asian populations in Queens. His apparent defeat of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had led in many polls since he entered the race in March, showed why it’s hard to poll before a primary.The aftermath? Cuomo told The New York Times shortly after his concession speech that he was still considering whether to run in November as an independent. He told WCBS-TV on Wednesday that before making a decision, he would take a hard look and see “what President Trump is going to do. Who knows how he would choose to get involved.”The national implications of a local election“It’s a national election, not just a New York City election,” the Democratic strategist James Carville 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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      As Donors Work Against Mamdani, Top Democrats Stop Short of Backing Him

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      After Zohran Mamdani’s performance in the New York City mayoral primary, Republicans and suburban Democrats attacked him, and party leaders seemed to be hedging their bets.The day after Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani rocked the nation’s largest city by becoming the presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee, New York’s political leaders declined to formally endorse him, and some donors to former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo considered coalescing behind Mayor Eric Adams.In an interview, Scott Rechler, one of the city’s biggest landlords, said that in a general election race between Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, and Mr. Adams, he would put his support and potentially his financial resources behind the scandal-tarred incumbent.Mr. Rechler, who donated $250,000 to a super PAC supporting Mr. Cuomo, expressed hope that the former governor and Mr. Adams, who is running in the general election as an independent, would not split the centrist vote.“You want to have leadership that speaks to what New York is,” Mr. Rechler said. “It’s the capital of capitalism.”Mr. Cuomo, who for months led in Democratic primary polls, continued on Wednesday to leave open the possibility that he would run in November on a third-party line. Polls and conventional political wisdom suggest that such a move would only enhance Mr. Mamdani’s chances, at the expense of Mr. Adams.Bill Ackman, a hedge fund billionaire and supporter of President Trump who donated $500,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s super PAC, said on social media that he also “may ultimately support and endorse” Mr. Adams.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 Reflects on His NYC Mayoral Run So Far in Post-Primary Interview

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      The foundation for Zohran Mamdani’s upstart bid to become a democratic socialist mayor of New York City began, oddly, with his borrowing a campaign strategy from President Trump.In November, Mr. Mamdani set out for parts of the city that had supported Mr. Trump to find out why. The answer was affordability. Mr. Trump had promised to deliver it, and for many New Yorkers, that was enough.Mr. Mamdani said he learned a lesson. He committed to a promise to make the city more affordable, adopting a campaign vow that he said Mr. Trump has shown no interest in keeping.“Both Donald Trump and our campaign can see the disillusionment in politics, the inability for so many to celebrate crumbs that cannot feed themselves and their families,” Mr. Mamdani said in an interview on Wednesday after he became the likely winner of the Democratic primary.“The difference is that Trump seeks to exploit this sentiment with no actual desire to address it,” he added.In Mr. Mamdani’s meteoric rise from unknown state lawmaker to potential mayor, he managed to maintain his message discipline on affordability. Make buses free, freeze the rent, offer free universal child care.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