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How Zohran Mamdani Brought New Voters to the Polls
Mr. Mamdani, the likely winner of the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, drew tens of thousands of new voters to the polls. Here’s how.Upstart challengers in political races often begin with the goal of drawing new or disillusioned voters to their cause. They build excitement, often on social media, but inevitably fall short.Zohran Mamdani proved different.He hit the ground running in the mayor’s race, talking to disaffected New Yorkers in Queens and the Bronx who voted for President Trump. He repeatedly visited mosques to hear the concerns of Muslims, hoping to provide a reason for the uninvolved to register to vote.He won over progressives with a populist message of making the city more affordable, in part by asking corporations and the wealthy to pay more, and he spread his vision through viral social media videos. He accumulated an army of volunteers and small donors, helping his campaign knock on more than one million doors.The polls were slow to capture his momentum, but he was building something the city had not really seen before: a winning citywide campaign for mayor, built from nothing in a matter of months.Mr. Mamdani, the likely Democratic primary winner, still faces what is expected to be another bruising general election in November with a broader electorate. His ability to sustain his momentum will be tested, especially with business leaders already plotting how to undermine him.He will need to further the success he found in immigrant neighborhoods like Kensington in Brooklyn, which is known as Little Bangladesh, and in the enclaves of young professionals, like Long Island City in Queens.New registrations were much higher in 2025Cumulative new registrations beginning 100 days before the registration deadline
Sources: New York City Board of Elections; L2By The New York TimesAge distribution of voters in New York City mayoral electionsIncludes 2025 mail ballots processed through Thursday morning
Sources: New York City Board of Elections; L2By 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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As Mamdani Rises, Anti-Muslim Attacks Roll In From the Right
Republican members of Congress and Trump administration officials have targeted Zohran Mamdani, who would be New York City’s first Muslim mayor.Even before Zohran Mamdani claimed victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, he had become a target of racist attacks from the far right. Those attacks have only intensified in the wake of his commanding performance on Tuesday, with Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures accusing him of promoting Islamic law, supporting terrorism and posing a threat to the safety of New Yorkers, especially Jews.There has been nothing subtle about it: Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, called Mr. Mamdani’s apparent win “the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration.” Representative Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee, accused Mr. Mamdani of supporting terrorists and asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to strip him of his citizenship and deport him.Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, shared a photo of Mr. Mamdani preparing for an Eid service while dressed in a kurta, writing, “we sadly have forgotten” the Sept. 11 attacks, which occurred when Mr. Mamdani was 9 years old and living in Manhattan. And Charlie Kirk, the head of Turning Point USA, a leading group for conservative youth, sought to connect him to those attacks even more directly.“24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11,” he wrote. “Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.”The attacks on Mr. Mamdani, who would be the first Muslim mayor of New York City if elected, deal in well-worn Islamophobic and anti-immigrant tropes. To some, they carry echoes of the “birther” conspiracy theory Donald J. Trump stoked for years before he was elected president, when he falsely claimed that President Barack Obama was Muslim and born in Kenya.Mr. Obama is Christian and was born in Hawaii; Mr. Mamdani is Muslim and was born to Indian parents in Uganda. But like the “birther” attacks, the vitriolic barbs being aimed at Mr. Mamdani seek to paint him as a shadowy, dangerous figure who bears no resemblance to the candidate himself.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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Young Muslim Voters in NYC Loved Zohran Mamdani. Their Parents Listened.
Many Muslim Americans in New York City were impressed by Mr. Mamdani’s campaign and thrilled at being able to see themselves reflected in a mayoral candidate.It was late in the afternoon on Tuesday, and Bilquees Akhtar was still at work as an assistant to the principal of EPIC High School North in Richmond Hill, Queens. Suddenly her phone exploded with text messages and DMs on Instagram and TikTok from her five adult children. Each of them had already cast a vote for Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary.“MOM, WHY ARE YOU STILL AT WORK?” Ms. Akhtar’s 24-year-old son, Humza Mehfuz, wrote to her. “YOU HAVE TO VOTE!”While Ms. Akhtar had previously supported Mr. Mamdani’s main opponent, Andrew M. Cuomo, when he ran for governor and, years before that, had voted for his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, she told her children to calm down. After their relentless campaign of showing her TikTok videos of Mr. Mamdani — “This kid is brilliant,” she had to admit, “and so friendly!” — she had made her decision.“All of Cuomo’s ads tried to make Mamdani look like a terrorist,” said Ms. Akhtar, 56. “But he’s a New Yorker like me.”Bilquees Akhtar lives in Richmond Hill, a neighborhood in Queens that went heavily for Zohran Mamdani.Donavon Smallwood for The New York TimesBy Wednesday, Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens, had won 43 percent of votes counted, all but clinching perhaps the greatest political upset in New York City politics in a generation. (The final tally is not expected to be completed until next week, but Mr. Cuomo conceded the race on Tuesday night.) If Mr. Mamdani were to win the general election this fall, he would be the first Muslim mayor in the history of New York, and also the first mayor of South Asian descent.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 Success Is Especially Meaningful for Muslim New Yorkers
Mr. Mamdani would be the first Muslim mayor of New York City, and his faith played a role in expanding the diverse coalition that propelled his campaign.Zohran Mamdani’s stunning performance in the Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday amounted to a watershed moment for Muslim New Yorkers, who could see one of their own lead City Hall for the first time should he succeed in the general election in November.New York City is home to roughly one million Muslims; they made up 12 percent of the electorate in the 2021 mayoral election. Mr. Mamdani wove his faith into his campaign from its earliest days, hitting the trail while fasting for Ramadan and taking his message of affordability to mosques and Muslim community centers throughout the city.His triumph over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who led in most polls throughout the race, was driven by the diverse coalition of voters he built that included young people, people of color, and first-time and infrequent voters. Muslim voters played a large role in growing that base.The cooperation among Democrats from different backgrounds was especially heartening for some, who saw his background as an example of a new generation of leadership.“A Muslim son of immigrants might become mayor of NYC in part because he cross-endorsed and supported a Jewish candidate and Black candidate, and vice versa,” Wajahat Ali, a liberal commentator, wrote on social media, referring to Mr. Mamdani’s cross-endorsements with Brad Lander and Michael Blake. “It’s a beautiful American story for the rest of us.”Mr. Mamdani also used his faith to push back against allegations of antisemitism prompted by his outspoken criticism of Israel and support for Palestinians in Gaza. In the final days of the campaign, he tearfully recounted death threats he and his family had received, explaining the fear and anxiety caused by such threats on the grounds of a person’s religion.Mr. Mamdani also alluded to those criticisms in his speech declaring victory early Wednesday.“There are millions of New Yorkers who have strong feelings about what happens overseas. I am one of them,” he said, adding that he would “not abandon my beliefs or my commitments” to fighting for human rights.Mr. Lander, who is Jewish, sought to project unity between the two faiths at his election night watch party, saying, “We are not going to let anyone divide Muslim New Yorkers and Jewish New Yorkers.”Prominent Muslim leaders also weighed in on his success. Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, wrote in Arabic on X that Mr. Mamdani’s win on Tuesday was “a victory for Palestine and justice” and called for protection for him and his family.Tim Balk More
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Boulder Attack Suspect Appeared to Live a Low-Key Life in Colorado Springs
The suspect came to the U.S. in 2022 and lived with his family in a suburban neighborhood. He was a ride share driver, and his daughter was embraced by her school community.Mohamed Sabry Soliman told the police that he had tried to disguise himself as a gardener on Sunday afternoon when he headed toward a group that was walking in downtown Boulder, Colo., to remember the hostages being held in Gaza, the authorities said.Mr. Soliman, a 45-year-old born in Egypt, carried flowers he had bought from a Home Depot store, according to a Boulder police detective. He wore an orange vest. And he had strapped on a backpack sprayer, the kind that gardeners often use to apply fertilizer or pesticide.But the sprayer was full of gasoline.The fiery weekend terror attack that the authorities say Mr. Soliman soon carried out — in a plot he said he had hatched himself — injured 12 people, who were burned by two homemade Molotov cocktails that the authorities say he threw into the crowd. Mr. Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” during the attacks, the authorities said, and later told the police he “wanted them all to die” because he believed the demonstrators were “Zionists” supporting the occupation of Palestine.Before Sunday, Mr. Soliman appeared to have lived a prosaic life in Colorado Springs, where he drove for a ride share service and was raising five children with his wife in a worn stucco apartment amid the dry, windy suburban stretch east of town. He told the police he had assembled his dangerous arsenal of explosives from everyday household goods.But the assault resonated far beyond Boulder. It came roughly two weeks after another supporter of the Palestinian cause killed two Israeli embassy workers in Washington, D.C., sending fresh waves of fear through Jewish communities around the world whose members were left wondering if anywhere was safe for them as Israel’s war in Gaza grinded on.Mr. Soliman was arrested minutes after the attack and was being held on a $10 million bond. Police officers found him on a patch of grass near the Boulder courthouse, shirtless and screaming at the crowd, holding two Molotov cocktails. At least 14 other Molotov cocktails were found near him in a black plastic container.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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Vandalism of Muslim Prayer Room at N.Y.U. Is Investigated as Hate Crime
Graffiti was etched onto walls of the room, at a university library, and prayer mats kept there had been soaked in urine.A prayer room used by Muslim students at New York University was struck by vandals who etched and drew graffiti on the walls and soaked Islamic prayer mats with urine, according to N.Y.U. officials and members of the university’s Muslim community.The soiled mats and other vandalism were discovered Thursday afternoon in a worship space inside Bobst Library, the university’s towering red building across from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.An image of male genitalia was drawn onto the wall of the room, along with the letters “AEPI,” the nickname of Alpha Epsilon Pi, a nationwide Jewish fraternity that was suspended from N.Y.U. in 2015 for hazing, according to a university directory of suspended fraternities and sororities.N.Y.U. said it had reported the vandalism to the police and would conduct its own investigation to find and punish the vandals. The university said those found to be responsible would be “subject to the most serious sanctions available through our disciplinary process.”“This desecration of a religious space is vile, reprehensible and utterly unacceptable,” the university said in a statement on Thursday. “It contravenes every principle of our community, and we condemn it.”Jonathan Pierce, a spokesman for Alpha Epsilon Pi’s national organization, said it “strongly condemns” the vandalism and would “fully cooperate with the administration’s investigation.”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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Arab American Voters in Dearborn, Michigan, Heard Trump’s Case
After supporting Joe Biden in 2020, the majority-Arab American city outside Detroit delivered an unlikely win for Donald Trump, who promised to bring peace to the Middle East.Ameen Almudhari was one of thousands of people in the majority-Arab community of Dearborn, Mich., who helped Joe Biden win the city and defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.Four years later, Mr. Almudhari had had enough.This week, he joined thousands of other Dearborn residents in voting for Mr. Trump, helping him score a stunning win in a place that seemed an unlikely source of support in the former president’s bid to return to the White House.Standing next to his 10-year-old son outside an elementary school on the north side of Dearborn on Tuesday evening, Mr. Almudhari, 33, explained his change of heart, part of a remarkable turnabout in Dearborn, which is just outside Detroit.He was, he said, fed up with Mr. Biden’s support of Israel and Ukraine and said the death and destruction being underwritten by the United States drove his decision to back Mr. Trump.“The first time we vote for Joe Biden, but what we see right now, he didn’t stop the genocide in Gaza,” said Mr. Almudhari, a Yemeni American, who faulted the president for spending American money to support the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. His son, Khaled, interrupted him with a smiling comment: “Trump will end the war!”Indeed, Mr. Trump has said as much, and the promise was among a host of reasons cited by voters in Dearborn for the wave of support from Arab and Muslim Americans for Mr. Trump.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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Trump, Who Once Proposed a Muslim Registry, Now Courts Their Votes
When he ran for president eight years ago, Donald J. Trump floated the idea of creating a national registry of Muslims and proposed banning immigration from Muslim countries. So it was striking to see him on Saturday at a rally in suburban Detroit celebrating endorsements from a handful of Muslim and Arab American leaders.It was a political turnaround that would have seemed unthinkable during Mr. Trump’s first campaign, when he frequently spouted anti-Muslim rhetoric. As president, Mr. Trump blocked travel from several predominantly Muslim countries, creating travel chaos. And at moments during this campaign, he has drawn on the anti-Muslim sentiments from earlier in his political career.But in a tight election, Mr. Trump and his campaign have been trying to win the support of Arab American and Muslim voters who may be disaffected with Democrats over President Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza and the party’s positions on social issues. Their support is seen as especially important in Michigan, a key battleground state with many Arab American and Muslim voters.At Saturday’s rally in Novi, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, Mr. Trump invited a group of people that his campaign said included a number of Muslim and Arab American leaders to the stage, where they endorsed him. (Mr. Trump claimed they were “highly respected leaders,” but his campaign has not provided any details about who most of them were, making it difficult to assess their prominence.)“We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace,” Belal Alzuhiry, an imam from the Detroit area, said in front of hundreds at Suburban Collection Showplace, an exhibition center. “We are supporting Donald Trump because he promised to end war in the Middle East and Ukraine.”Mr. Trump has not provided a plan by which he would end the war in Ukraine or the widening one in the Middle East, which began when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.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
