What to know about Zohran Mamdani and what he wants to do as New York City mayor

Now it’s official: The largest city in the United States has its first Muslim and first South Asian mayor.

Since Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani first entered the New York City mayoral race, the 34-year-old state assemblyman from Queens has risen from near-total obscurity to the national spotlight.

His bold, left-wing platform has energized progressives, shaken the Democratic Party and drawn sharp criticism from President Donald Trump and other Republicans.

Speaking to fans after winning the competition, Mamdani said, “We spoke with a clear voice today: hope is alive.”

Unlike his more established rivals, Mamdani’s fresh perspective, youth and new left platform excited voters eager for a fresher politician, and he eventually won.

Mamdani said the week he was elected: “Let City Hall be the light that our city and nation desperately need, with our compassion, faith and clarity.”

Born in Uganda to parents of Indian origin, Mamdani moved to New York with her family at the age of seven. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and later earned a degree in African Studies from Bowdoin College, where he co-founded the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Having complex identities such as Indian, African and American, he faced accusations of game identity politics when he described his race as both “Asian” and “Black or African-American” in his application to Columbia University in 2009.

He responded to the accusations by saying he was trying to capture “the totality of my history” within the “restricted” boxes of the form.

The millennial progressive leaned on her roots in a diverse city during her campaign.

He also made his Muslim faith a visible part of his campaign. He regularly visited mosques and released a campaign video in Urdu about the city’s cost of living crisis.

“As Muslims, we know that standing before the people also means sacrificing the security we can sometimes find in the shadows,” he told a rally.

Mamdani and her husband, Rama Duwaji, a 27-year-old Syrian artist living in Brooklyn, met on the dating app Hinge.

His mother, Mira Nair, is a famous film director and his father, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, teaches at Columbia. Both parents are graduates of Harvard University.

Before entering politics, she worked as a housing counselor and helped low-income homeowners fight evictions in Queens.

Like his opponents, Mamdani’s mayoral campaign focused heavily on making the city safer and more affordable.

However, he resorted to more radical methods to achieve these goals; Some of these will be uncharted territory for New York City.

American University communications professor Jane Hall says one of the things that made Mamdani so successful during her campaign was that young voters perceived her as authentic on social media.

“You don’t have to be young to be able to do this, but I think you need to be seen as original and speaking in a fashionable way about things that people care about and making people want to be in the majority,” Prof Hall said.

Mamdani’s critics argued that he did not have enough experience to effectively lead the largest city in the United States.

Trump has tried to portray her as a radical and has repeatedly called her a communist, but Mamdani has often rejected the label. The president also threatened to withhold federal funds from the Mamdani administration.

After declaring victory in the mayoral race, Mamdani addressed the president directly: “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn up the volume. You’re going to have to go through all of us to reach any of us.”

Trump immediately posted on social media: “…AND THAT’S HOW IT BEGINS!”

Andres Bernal, a former policy adviser to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, says Democrats can learn from Mamdani’s ability to connect with people.

“Today’s Republicans are shaping public discourse and trying to shape political consciousness in this country,” Bernal said. “Democrats, on the other hand, assume that people have fixed beliefs, and they look at the polls and say, okay, how do we match what we say with what we think people believe?” they say.

High housing prices are one of the most common complaints residents have about living in the city that never sleeps.

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan in November 2025 was $4,778 (£3,666), up nearly 20% from three years ago, according to apartment listing site RentHop. According to RentHop, the average rent for a 1-bedroom in Brooklyn is $3,625, up about 5%.

One of the biggest talking points in Mamdani’s housing plan is a four-year rent freeze on the city’s one million rent-fixed apartments.

“This is a city where one in four people live in poverty, where 500,000 children go to bed hungry every night,” Mamdani told the BBC over the summer. “And the end result is a city that is in danger of losing what makes it so special.”

But researchers at Maverick Real Estate Partners suggest a four-year rent freeze would be “catastrophic” for many building owners, permanently reducing their net operating income.

Mamdani ran a campaign to make the most expensive city in the United States affordable for its residents beyond housing.

One of his newer ideas is to create a network. municipal grocery stores Expanding to six city-owned stores in New York’s five boroughs. Shopping at such stores will be cheaper for customers.

But critics argued that Mamdani’s proposal ignored the complex logistical realities of the food supply chain.

He wants to do it too public buses are free — the current fare for most passengers is $2.90 — and plans to make them faster. Mamdani estimates his plan would cost the city $630 million a year, while the MTA chairman told the website Gothamist that it would be closer to $1 billion.

Also on Mamdani’s agenda is reducing prices child care costHe touched upon the experiences of his friends who said they left the city due to high costs.

To help pay for her plans, Mamdani wants to increase the fee corporate tax rate It rose to 11.5%, matching the high end of New Jersey’s range. The corporate tax rate in New York City is currently as high as 7.25%.

He also wants to add a flat 2 percent tax on New Yorkers making more than $1 million a year. The campaign said these raises would raise $9 billion, but how that amount would be raised remains a question mark. New York state governor Kathy Hochul also said she would not support the new mayor’s plan to increase taxes on the wealthy.

Mamdani wants to improve the welfare of the city minimum wage – currently $16.50 per hour – up to $30 per hour by 2030.

But critics argued that this would put many low-skilled workers out of work and force them out of the city.

Quality of life is another major concern for New Yorkers: Just 34% rate the city as excellent or good in 2025, down from 51% in 2017, according to a survey by the Citizens Budget Commission.

A key element of Mamdani’s platform is creating a community safety department that would expand mental health services in the city, including creating a system for mental health workers to respond to concerning 911 calls instead of police.

Mamdani’s Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, criticized the plan, saying it was unrealistic and unsafe for social workers to intervene in potentially violent situations.

Mamdani’s strong support for the Palestinians and harsh criticism of Israel go further than much of the Democratic establishment.

As an assemblyman, he introduced a bill that would end the tax-exempt status of New York charities with ties to Israeli settlements that violate international human rights law.

He said that he believed that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, that it was an apartheid state, and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested. Israel vehemently denies accusations of genocide and apartheid.

In interviews, Mamdani was repeatedly pressed by the press to indicate whether he supported Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. In response, he said: “I am not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship based on religion or any other basis. I think equality in the way we have it in this country should be enshrined in every country in the world.” Israel says all religions have equal rights before the law.

Mamdani also said there is no place for anti-Semitism in New York, adding that he would increase funding to combat hate crimes if elected.

Additional reporting by Nada Tawfik and Rachel Hagan