Zohran Mamdani is on observe to be the Democratic Occasion’s candidate for New York City Mayor after he pulled off an upset in Tuesday’s primary, prompting front-runner Andrew Cuomo to concede defeat.
Mamdani, 33, a Democratic socialist and state assemblyman, was powered to victory due to a grassroots marketing campaign throughout the 5 boroughs and the influential endorsements of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as New Yorkers expressed a transparent desire for an alternative choice to President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Uganda-born son of a Columbia College professor and a celebrated Indian movie director obtained 43.5 p.c of first-place votes within the metropolis’s ranked-choice voting system to Cuomo’s 36.3 p.c, based on early outcomes from the New York Metropolis Board of Elections.
Ought to he finally lead the Democratic ticket, Mamdani is prone to face Republican Curtis Sliwa, scandal-dogged incumbent Eric Adams, who’s working as an impartial, and presumably Cuomo once more, who has indicated that he, too, might run as an impartial as a Plan B.
Right here’s a have a look at the place the shock winner stands on key coverage areas.
Donald Trump
Mamdani’s positioning on the left was all the time prone to put him at odds with the president, who was born and raised in New York however now pours scorn on his hometown. Positive sufficient, the youthful man has cheerfully pronounced himself “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.”
Their seemingly animosity will take heart stage if Mamdani finally succeeds Adams in Metropolis Corridor, given the workplace’s outsized affect on the nationwide stage.
“Ought to he prevail, Mamdani immediately turns into the ringleader of The Resistance,” Philip Elliott of Time has argued. “Because the elected chief of the nation’s largest metropolis – with a price range of $115 billion and 300,000 workers – he would command a platform that has few friends.”
Israel
On Election Eve, Mamdani appeared on CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and was grilled about his history of pro-Palestinian activism and mentioned of Israel: “Sure, like all nations, I consider it has a proper to exist – and a duty additionally to uphold worldwide legislation.”
Pressed on whether or not New York’s Jewish inhabitants might rely on him to guard them with antisemitic assaults on the rise in the USA, the candidate answered emphatically: “Antisemitism just isn’t merely one thing that we must always speak about. It’s one thing we’ve got to sort out.”
He pledged an 800 p.c improve in funding for anti-hate crime funding and sought to clarify that he opposed a few of “the Israeli authorities’s insurance policies” in Gaza, not the Jewish individuals.
He has, nonetheless, been attacked by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for his endorsement of the protest slogan “Globalize the Intifada.”
ICE raids
A latest ballot by Marist indicated Mamdani has picked up important help from New York’s Hispanic and Latino group at a time when Trump’s Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers have ramped up raids on blue cities, suggesting they see him as the correct man to face as much as the president’s aggressive mass deportation push.
Attacking Cuomo in a recent interview with The Bulwark, the candidate mentioned: “A disgraced former governor who describes undocumented immigrants as ‘illegals’ just isn’t what we want as a metropolis beneath assault by an authoritarian.
“He’s not the chief we have to struggle towards this administration. Finally, you need somebody who can tackle bullies, not who appears similar to him.”
He referred to as ICE “fascist” after it arrested fellow mayoral candidate Brad Lander final week, commenting: “If that is what ICE is keen to do to a comptroller of town of New York, think about what they’re keen to do to immigrants whose names you don’t even know.”
Tax, housing and lease
Mamdani’s marketing campaign has primarily been centered round insurance policies for making New York Metropolis extra reasonably priced, calling for larger taxes for the Massive Apple’s wealthier residents, a rent-freeze for greater than two million impoverished metropolis dwellers, extra everlasting reasonably priced housing, free bus rides and baby care and even government-run grocery shops to forestall price of residing crises erupting.
Olivia Reingold of The Free Press has argued that it was exactly these “pie-in-the-sky policies” that Cuomo underestimated, to his price.
“We see that this affordability disaster is pushing New Yorkers out, which is very true for immigrant New Yorkers,” Mamdani instructed The Bulwark. “Social justice with out financial justice is like clapping with one hand.”
