{"id":29430,"date":"2025-11-05T11:40:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/29430\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T11:40:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:40:17","slug":"inside-zohran-mamdanis-brooklyn-victory-party-newsweek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/29430\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Brooklyn\u00a0Victory\u00a0Party\u00a0 – Newsweek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just after 11 p.m.\u00a0under the\u00a0ornamental\u00a0ceiling of the newly refurbished Paramount Theater in downtown Brooklyn, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani walked onto\u00a0a blue-curtained\u00a0stage before hundreds of cheering supporters with a smile of victory across his face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Less than a half\u00a0hour after\u00a0the 34-year-old assemblyman\u2019s supporters had filed into the ballroom as polls closed across the city, their candidate was already being declared the winner.\u00a0In the end, it wasn’t particularly close.<\/p>\n

Many in the room\u00a0considered it\u00a0inevitable\u00a0they\u2019d\u00a0be celebrating Mamdani\u2019s victory on November\u00a04 ever\u00a0since\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0won a surprise victory in the Democratic primary in June in this heavily-Democratic city. However, from staff to journalists and volunteers, few expected\u00a0he would emerge\u00a0victorious so fast on Tuesday night. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mamdani will become New York City\u2019s 111th\u00a0mayor when he is sworn in on New Year’s Day. In doing so, he becomes the city\u2019s youngest mayor in a century and only its second Democratic Socialist,\u00a0after\u00a0David Dinkins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York, tonight you\u2019ve delivered a mandate for change, a mandate for a new kind of politics, a mandate for a city we can afford, and a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that,” Mamdani said in a fiery and defiant victory speech to a roaring crowd of his supporters.<\/p>\n

Polling under 1 percent a year ago with virtually zero name recognition, Mamdani\u2019s improbable and improbably fast rise saw him defeat former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo in the city\u2019s primary through a campaign that relied heavily on social media<\/a> and grassroots outreach efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The energy Mamdani inspired could be felt in the Paramount as people of all races\u00a0and\u00a0genders\u00a0across the age spectrum danced in the room to upbeat rap and pop music.\u00a0Most were decked out in Mamdani\u2019s signature blue and orange-branded campaign attire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Others wore\u00a0keffiyehs, a symbol of\u00a0Palestinian resistance, nodding to an issue\u00a0that inspired many of Mamdani\u2019s supporters and was in turn weaponized by his critics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani, whose past included vocal activism on behalf of Palestinian issues that included comments many New York Jews found offensive, will be New York\u2019s first Muslim mayor. His\u00a0religion became a focal of the race as\u00a0opponents\u00a0sought\u00a0to blunt his momentum, with Mamdani accusing Cuomo of making\u00a0\u201cracist, baseless\u201d attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ever the fighter, Cuomo\u00a0refused to drop out of the\u00a0mayoral\u00a0race\u00a0after losing the primary,\u00a0electing to run as a third party candidate\u00a0in the hopes of rallying support from voters who saw Mamdani as too untested and too far left to govern effectively. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. Though Cuomo got a boost when incumbent Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race amid dismal levels of support, he was unable to push perennial Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa out of the race. Sliwa and Cuomo split the anti-Mamdani vote.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump had taken a particular interest in the race to\u00a0determine\u00a0the chief executive of his hometown. He labeled Mamdani a\u00a0communist and urged voters\u00a0to oppose him, going\u00a0so far as\u00a0to say\u00a0on Monday that\u00a0New Yorkers \u201cmust vote for\u201d\u202fCuomo, his longtime adversary. The president has\u00a0indicated\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0cut federal funding to the city if Mamdani wins. <\/p>\n

Newsweek\u00a0spoke to attendees at Mamdani’s victory party who\u00a0said\u00a0Trump\u2019s late endorsement confirmed what they knew all along \u2014 that Cuomo was the candidate of the right while Mamdani was\u00a0true\u00a0representative of the Democratic Party.\u00a0Many\u00a0promptly booed\u00a0Cuomo\u00a0when he appeared on screen to deliver his concession speech, waving him goodbye.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish Andrew Cuomo the best in private life, but let tonight be the last time I utter his name,” Mamdani said. <\/p>\n

It was a far cry from the victory speeches delivered earlier in the evening in New Jersey and Virginia, where the Democratic gubernatorial victors made a point of thanking their Republican opponents for their public service.<\/p>\n

As Mamdani transitions from candidate to the more difficult job of overseeing a $2 trillion economy, he will now face the challenges of managing the many outsized personalities in America\u2019s largest city \u2014 all under the watchful eye of its most famous resident who now occupies the White House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just after 11 p.m.\u00a0under the\u00a0ornamental\u00a0ceiling of the newly refurbished Paramount Theater in downtown Brooklyn, New York City Mayor-elect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[80,98,100,99,153,9,24,63,4510,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-29430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-andrew-cuomo","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-us-politics","17":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29430","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=29430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}