Zohran Mamdani's New York - Poster of the Week
- politicalgraphics
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Zohran Mamdani’s New York
Offset, 2025
Tim O’Brien; The Nation
New York, NY
31593
Tuesday night, Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, made history when he won the New York City mayoral race–receiving over one million votes, a count unseen since the 1960s. Once sworn in as mayor, Mamdani will be the first Muslim and first South Asian to hold the position for the city of New York. He won the race without the endorsement of prominent Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and without the financial support of billionaires like those who funded his opponents’ campaigns.
Mamdani’s mayoral race was supported by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace Action, NYC Democratic Socialists of America, Planned Parenthood, and labor unions like IATSE, Teamsters, and SEIU. His campaign was also supported by progressive politicians including Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But these endorsements alone are not what propelled his name or face to the forefront of candidacy. The more than 100,000 volunteers working for his campaign were composed of teachers, tenants, and everyday working class people who reached out to other New Yorkers often ignored by past mayoral candidates. In the week just before election day, Mamdani met with voters in East Asian grocery stores in Long Island City, practiced Tai Chi with senior citizens on the Lower East Side, and spoke with overnight taxi drivers outside of the LaGuardia airport in Queens.
Mamdani has also had to overcome targeted racist and Islamophobic ads from the other mayoral candidates. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent when he lost the Democratic primary to Mamdani, attacked him in an racist AI-generated ad, alluding that Mamdani’s supporters are “criminals.” For Our City, a super PAC which also supported Cuomo, published an ad that depicted Mamdani in front of the Twin Towers falling on 9/11. Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor, said that Mamdani supported a “global jihad” during the New York Mayoral debate in late October.
Zohran Mamdani’s platform for the next mayor of New York City challenges the status quo. New York is too expensive and Mamdani has vowed to work to make life easier for his constituents through rent freezes, improving public safety, making public buses and childcare free, taxing corporations and the 1%, increasing protections for the LGBTQIA+ community, increasing access to healthcare, raising the minimum wage, and expanding protections for delivery drivers.
Mamdani began his victory speech on Tuesday night with a quote from Eugene V. Debs, an influential socialist and impassioned fighter for workers rights: “I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.” The newly elected mayor’s speech conveyed that the era of the rich and powerful in New York City has come to an end. He also called out President Trump who has relentlessly attacked Mamdani, called any Jewish person who supports Mamdani “stupid” and gave a last-minute endorsement for Cuomo. At the end of his speech, Mamdani defended the immigrant communities of New York with the assertion that “to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”
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