{"id":25564,"date":"2025-11-02T01:24:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T01:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/25564\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T01:24:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T01:24:26","slug":"how-zohran-mamdani-used-the-nyc-marathon-to-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/25564\/","title":{"rendered":"How Zohran Mamdani Used the NYC Marathon to Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 24, Zohran Mamdani took an important step in his quest to become New York City\u2019s next mayor, upsetting longtime politician Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary election. But Mamdani is not only running for office\u2014he\u2019s a runner<\/a>. Literally. <\/p>\n

And running, in fact, has played a significant role in his campaign. <\/p>\n

Mamdani, 34, has run the New York City Marathon<\/a> twice, in 2022 and 2024. Both times, he wore a shirt that said, \u201cEric Adams Raised My Rent!\u201d The slogan is a reference to the incumbent mayor of America\u2019s largest city, who is running for reelection but faces low support among constituents. Adams has approved rent hikes<\/a> for rent-stabilized apartments multiple times during his tenure. <\/p>\n

Leading up to the 2022 marathon, Mamdani said he had \u201cnever been a runner\u201d but he\u2019d trained for months. On race day, which was unseasonably warm that year, Mamdani ran 6:04:52<\/a> (13:55 per mile pace). <\/p>\n

The conditions didn\u2019t seem to damper his excitement, though. The New York State Assembly member wrote<\/a> after the race: \u201cRan the marathon, did a little political education, and fell in love with my friends, family, and city all over again \u2026 One of the best days of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years later, Mamdani tackled the distance once more; this time as a mayoral candidate. Again, the front of his shirt read, \u201cEric Adams Raised My Rent!\u201d but this time, on the back, it said: \u201cZohran Will Freeze It.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani improved on his personal best\u2014the 2024 race was cooler than 2022\u2014finishing in 5:38:10<\/a> for an average mile time of 12:54, and conducting a mid-race interview with Playbook<\/a>, where he said he was \u201ccurrently outpacing every mayoral candidate in this race.\u201d Pun intended.<\/p>\n

At both marathons, Mamdani was sporting a pair of black Asics, which appear to be the Gel -Kayano<\/a>, a stability shoe.
<\/p>\n

Mamdani also ran the 2022 Gaza 5K in New York in a time of 34:54, although the results page<\/a> mentions that the \u201cactual distance\u201d was 3.327 miles.<\/p>\n

His campaign did not immediately respond to Runner\u2019s World\u2019s request for comment on his running history.<\/p>\n

For the general election, Mamdani, a self-identified democratic socialist, is facing Curtis Sliwa, who ran unopposed in the Republican primary, and Cuomo, who stayed in the race as an independent despite losing decisively in the Democratic primary. The election will occur on Tuesday, November 4\u2014two days after the New York City Marathon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not unheard of for mainstream<\/a> politicians to run marathons. <\/p>\n

George W. Bush ran 3:44:52 at the 1993 Houston Marathon. Al Gore has a 4:58:25 to his name from the Marine Corps Marathon in 1997 when he was vice president. And although he hasn\u2019t gone 26.2, former vice presidential candidate and Minnesota governor Tim Walz has a love of running. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s how I decompress and prepare for big events,\u201d he said<\/a> to Runner\u2019s World last July.
<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Theo Kahler is the news editor at Runner\u2019s World. He\u2019s a former all-conference collegiate runner at Winthrop University, and he received his master\u2019s degree in liberal arts studies from Wake Forest University, where he was a member of one of the top distance-running teams in the NCAA. Kahler has reported on the ground at major events such as the Paris Olympics, U.S. Olympic Trials, New York City Marathon, and Boston Marathon. He\u2019s run 14:20 in the 5K, 1:05:36 in the half marathon, and enjoys spotting tracks from the sky on airplanes. (Look for colorful ovals around football fields.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On June 24, Zohran Mamdani took an important step in his quest to become New York City\u2019s next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1220,9,12,56,63,65,64],"class_list":["post-25564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-core","tag-new-york","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}