{"id":48127,"date":"2025-11-22T01:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T01:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/48127\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T01:12:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T01:12:16","slug":"mahmood-mamdani-says-palestine-helped-motivate-son-zohrans-mayoral-run-elections-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/48127\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahmood Mamdani says Palestine helped motivate son Zohran\u2019s mayoral run | Elections News"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early November, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani<\/a> won the New York City mayoral election in a landslide, a victory that sent shockwaves across United States politics and galvanised the country\u2019s political left.<\/p>\n

It was a dramatic turnaround for a campaign that \u2013 less than a year earlier \u2013 had been polling at 1 percent support.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Among those who were most surprised was Zohran\u2019s own father, Mahmood Mamdani.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe surprised me and his mother,\u201d Mahmood told Al Jazeera Mushaber reporter Allaa Azzam in an interview this week. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t expect him to become mayor of New York City. We never thought about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mahmood, an anthropology professor and postcolonial scholar at Columbia University, framed his son\u2019s electoral success as evidence of a shifting political landscape.<\/p>\n

Zohran, for instance, campaigned heavily on questions of affordability and refused to back away from his criticisms of Israel\u2019s abuses against Palestinians<\/a>, long considered a taboo subject in US politics.<\/p>\n

He is the first Muslim person to become mayor of the country\u2019s largest city by population, as well as its first mayor of South Asian descent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were certain things that were near and dear to him,\u201d Mahmood explained. \u201cSocial justice was one of them. The rights of Palestinians was another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese two issues he has stuck by. He\u2019s not been willing to trade them, to compromise them, to minimise them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside the Mamdani family<\/p>\n

The son of Mahmood and Indian American director Mira Nair, Zohran first emerged as the frontrunner in the mayoral race in June, when his dark-horse campaign dominated the Democratic Party primary.<\/p>\n

He earned 56 percent of the final tally, besting former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.<\/p>\n

When Cuomo ran as an independent in the November 4 election, Zohran once again beat him by a wide margin, with more than 50 percent of the vote to Cuomo\u2019s 41 percent.<\/p>\n

Mahmood told Al Jazeera that, while his son\u2019s sudden political ascent came as a surprise, his resilience did not.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t surprise us, with his grit and determination,\u201d he said of the election. \u201cI don\u2019t think he joined the race thinking that he was going to win it. I think he joined the race wanting to make a point.\u201d<\/p>\n

He traced back some of Zohran\u2019s electoral finesse to his upbringing. Zohran, Mahmood explained, was not raised in a typical US nuclear family but instead shared his home with three generations of family members.<\/p>\n

Living with a diverse age range allowed Zohran to expand his understanding and build his people skills, according to Mahmood.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe grew up with love and patience. He learned to be very patient with people who are slower, people who were not necessarily what his generation was,\u201d Mahmood said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very different from the American kids around here who hardly ever see their grandparents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ZohranDemocratic candidate Zohran Mamdani stands with his wife Rama Duwaji, mother Mira Nair and father Mahmood Mamdani after winning the 2025 New York City mayoral race [Jeenah Moon\/Reuters]A \u2018mood of change\u2019<\/p>\n

Mahmood also credited his son\u2019s victory to a shifting political landscape, one where voters are fed up with the status quo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a mood of change. The young voted like they never voted before,\u201d Mahmood said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSections of the population which had been completely thrown into the sidelines \u2013 Muslims, recent immigrants whether Muslim or not \u2013 he gave them enormous confidence.\u200aThey came out and they voted. They mobilised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local media outlets in New York reported that turnout for November\u2019s mayoral race was the highest in more than 50 years. More than two million voters cast a ballot in the closely watched race.<\/p>\n

Mahmood cast his son\u2019s upcoming tenure as mayor as a test of whether that voter faith would be rewarded.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is marked by low levels of electoral participation, and they\u2019ve always claimed that this is because most people are satisfied with the system,\u201d Mahmood said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now the levels of political participation are increasing. And most people, it\u2019s not just that they are not satisfied, but they no longer believe \u2013 or they begin to believe that maybe the electoral system is a way to change things. Zohran\u2019s mayoral term will tell us whether it is or it is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahmood was frank that his son faces an uphill battle as mayor. He described politics as a sphere dominated by the influence of moneyed powers.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI am not sure he knows that world well,\u201d Mahmood said of his son. \u201cHe\u2019s a fast learner, and he will learn it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that significant resources were mobilised during the mayoral election to blunt Zohran\u2019s campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aHe\u2019s taking on powerful forces. He\u2019s being opposed by powerful forces. They failed during the campaign,\u201d Mahmood said. That defeat, he added, \u201cexposed the failure of money\u201d as a defining force in the race.<\/p>\n

\"ZohranNew York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in on January 1 [File: Seth Wenig\/AP Photo]A focus on Palestine<\/p>\n

Mahmood also addressed the role of Zohran\u2019s advocacy on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n

Though faced with criticism from his mayoral rivals, Mamdani has refused to retreat from his stance that Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza amount to genocide.<\/p>\n

That position, though widely affirmed by rights groups<\/a> and experts<\/a>, including at the United Nations<\/a>, is relatively rare in mainstream US politics, where opposition to Israel is a political third rail.<\/p>\n

Still, voters appear to be shifting on the question of US support for Israel.<\/p>\n

A March poll from the Pew Research Center found that the percentage of US respondents with an unfavourable view of Israel has increased from 42 percent in 2022 to 53 percent in 2025.<\/p>\n

While unfavourable views<\/a> were most pronounced among Democratic voters, they have also increased among conservatives, especially those under the age of 50.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s war on Gaza has killed at least 69,500 Palestinians since its start in October 2023, and there has been continued outrage over widespread Israeli violence<\/a> in the occupied West Bank as well.<\/p>\n

Mahmood said the undeniable human rights abuses are causing a shift in public perception \u2013 and not just in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real consequence of Gaza is not limited to Gaza. It is global,\u201d said Mahmood. \u201cGaza has brought us a new phase in world history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will never be a return to a period when the world believes that what Israel is doing is defending itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In early November, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election in a landslide, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[416,155,609,9959,5669,9,24,55,54,12,56,87,901,2272],"class_list":{"0":"post-48127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-elections","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-government","11":"tag-human-rights","12":"tag-israel-palestine-conflict","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-city-news","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-us-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48127","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=48127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}