Polls have closed in New York City, where a contentious race with the possibility of a socialist Muslim mayor garnered national attention and presented a test for the future of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani was leading former Gov. Andrew Cuomo by 8 percentage points, with 53 percent of the vote reported on Tuesday night, with Guardian Angels founder and perennial gadfly Curtis Sliwa in a distant third.<\/p>\n
The race has been unlike any other in recent memory in New York. Minutes before polls closed, the New York City Board of Elections announced<\/a> that 2 million people had cast ballots \u2014 the highest number since 1969.<\/p>\n Campaigning on a core platform of affordability, Mamdani went from little-known assembly member to household name as he criss-crossed the city, popping in at churches and nightclubs, supported by an army of volunteer canvassers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cuomo, who lost the primary to Mamdani in a stunning upset<\/a> in June, billed himself as the best man to stand up to Donald Trump \u2014 an argument that was complicated Monday when the president endorsed him, pledging to slash federal funding to the city if Mamdani were to win.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s endorsement was by then effectively a formality: The right had already coalesced around New York\u2019s former Democratic governor, with the president and other members of his party pushing Sliwa, the Republican candidate, to drop out and let Cuomo face Mamdani head-on. On social media, Trump warned<\/a>: \u201cA vote for Curtis Sliwa (who looks much better without the beret!) is a vote for Mamdani.\u201d<\/p>\n Most polls released in the past two weeks showed Mamdani enjoying a commanding lead over both of his opponents.<\/p>\n The Paramount Theater in Brooklyn, where Mamdani was set to address supporters, was mostly filled with press at 9 p.m. Reporters mobbed left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, whose support for Mamdani has been turned into a point of attack by Cuomo.<\/p>\n New York comptroller and former mayoral candidate Brad Lander, a key Mamdani ally since the primary, rebuked Trump for a tweet in which the president said that any Jew voting for Mamdani was \u201cstupid.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Andrew Cuomo earlier in the race tried to tell Jews how to vote I cursed at him in Yiddish, so I guess I\u2019ll do the same,\u201d Lander said. \u201cGay kaken ofn yam \u2014 Go shit in the ocean, Donald Trump!\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to making history as an avowed socialist, Mamdani \u2014 who is of Indian descent and was born in Uganda \u2014 would also be the city\u2019s first Muslim American mayor. For many Muslims in New York who lived through the Islamophobia, racism, and pervasive NYPD surveillance<\/a> of the post-9\/11 years<\/a>, Mamdani\u2019s success on the campaign trail has been deeply personal, urban historian Asad Dandia told The Intercept.<\/p>\n \u201cIt means a great deal to me as a Muslim New Yorker, but also as a native New Yorker who doesn\u2019t know how to live anywhere else,\u201d said Dandia, who was involved in a lawsuit over the NYPD\u2019s targeting of Muslim communities. \u201cTo see someone who looks like he could be my brother or my cousin, that\u2019s a powerful testament to the possibility of New York and to people\u2019s power.\u201d<\/p>\n In the June primary, South Asian voter turnout surged by 40 percent from the 2021 primary, thanks in part to a surge in new voters, according to the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Mamdani\u2019s identity as a Muslim and his committed support for Palestine <\/a>came into play in an ugly fashion too.\u00a0Cuomo\u2019s allies repeatedly attacked Mamdani with claims that he did not sufficiently denounce the Palestinian liberation protest cry \u201cglobalize the intifada<\/a>,\u201d which Cuomo translated, inaccurately, as \u201ckill all Jews.\u201d As the general election drew closer, Mamdani\u2019s opponents engaged in naked Islamophobia by calling him a \u201cjihadist\u201d and a \u201cterrorist sympathizer,\u201d while congressional Republicans mused about having his citizenship revoked.<\/p>\n Despite efforts to tar him as an extremist outsider, Mamdani proved immensely popular, both in polls and on the street, where videos show him routinely being stopped by enthusiastic passersby.<\/p>\n We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us. <\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Thank You For Joining! <\/p>\n \n Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. <\/p>\n Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept?\n <\/p>\n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s success was not limited to Muslim or South Asian communities, or to the so-called \u201cCommie Corridor\u201d of progressive, college-educated voters in north Brooklyn and Queens who have made up the primary basis of support for candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.<\/p>\n In the primary and in the months that followed, his campaign worked aggressively to build a coalition of support that cut across ethnic and class lines. According to a recent poll published by the Hispanic Federation<\/a>, 48 percent of Latino voters favored Mamdani \u2014 36 percent indicating \u201cstrong support\u201d \u2014 with just 24 percent of Latinos supporting Cuomo and 14 percent picking Sliwa.<\/p>\n
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