Will Indian-origin candidate Zohran Mamdani be next New York mayor?

Zohran Mamdani, Candidate, NYC Mayoral Election. (File Image)

New York voters will decide the outcome of a generational and ideological divide that will reverberate across the country when they elect the next mayor to lead the nation’s largest city on Tuesday. Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary earlier this year, will face former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running against independent and perennial Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, who is trying to cause a major upset. Mamdani’s victory would give the city its first Muslim mayor and youngest leader in generations, catapulting the democratic socialist to political stardom and making his brand of economic populism one of the most visible political positions in America.

If Cuomo comes out on top, he would have made a remarkable political comeback four years after resigning as governor amid sexual harassment allegations. For Sliwa, creator of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group and one of New York’s longtime tabloid news anchors, the win would put a Republican at the helm of the nation’s largest city at a time when many New Yorkers are looking for a leader who can keep President Donald Trump at bay. The race made Mamdani a national figure and drew the ire of Trump and other Republicans who sought to portray her as the face of a new, more radical Democratic Party.

(Zohran Mamdani with her film director mother Meera Nair.)

Trump also threatened to take over the city if Mamdani won and arrest and deport the State Assembly member, who was born in Uganda but is a U.S. citizen. Trump reluctantly backed Cuomo on the eve of the election, saying Mamdani would bring “disaster” to the city and encouraging Sliwa supporters to vote for the former governor instead. A rematch with fundamental differences Mamdani, a 34-year-old state lawmaker, defeated Cuomo once in the Democratic primary and spurred progressives to a surprise victory over the once-powerful former governor with a campaign focused on lowering the cost of living in one of the nation’s most expensive cities.

Cuomo is counting on support from moderates and Republicans to win this time. And he hopes incumbent Mayor Eric Adams’ late withdrawal from the race and eventual endorsement will give him a boost among overlapping bases of centrists, Black voters and ultra-Orthodox Jews. He also had the support of billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who donated $1.5 million to a super PAC supporting Cuomo in the final days of the contest.

Mamdani has garnered national attention and support from prominent progressives, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He promised to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and use the money to make city buses free and provide free, universal child care. He also promised to freeze the rents of people living in approximately 1 million rent-regulated apartments. At the same time, Mamdani’s past criticisms of the city’s police force and the Israeli government’s military actions in Gaza (which he has called genocide) have discouraged some centrists, who see him as a potential obstacle in the party’s efforts to broaden its national appeal.

(Donald Trump supports Andrew Cuomo.)

Some Jewish leaders also took advantage of his refusal to support Israel as a Jewish state, calling him a danger to Jews. While Mamdani has distanced herself from some of her past rhetoric, some top New York Democrats remain concerned and have either been slow to support her or outright disavow them. Tuesday’s general elections are held in a traditional manner, meaning the candidate with the most votes wins. The city’s party primaries were determined using ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Sliwa’s path to victory is narrow in this Democratic-majority city; It hinges on his ability to secure GOP votes with his tough-on-crime message and New York attitude while rallying moderates who don’t want to elevate Mamdani or return Cuomo to power.

Sliwa, 71, ignored pressure from his own party to suspend his campaign and create a head-to-head race between Cuomo and Mamdani. Trump dismissed Sliwa as “not exactly prime time.” In the final weeks of the race, Cuomo appealed to Sliwa’s supporters, arguing that votes for Republicans were votes for Mamdani. Cuomo maintains his record but is haunted by his past. Trump and other Republicans eagerly painted a dire picture of New York under Mamdani’s potential leadership. Cuomo, 67, carried a similar message.

By operating on an independent party line, he positioned himself as an experienced administrator capable of running the city’s vast bureaucracy, a contrast to Mamdani’s relative inexperience. Cuomo’s experience as governor is perhaps his greatest weakness. He resigned in 2021 following a report from the attorney general’s office that concluded Cuomo had sexually harassed at least 11 women. Some of the women complained about unwanted touching, flirting, kissing and suggestive comments. One of the deputies filed a report with police accusing him of touching her breast, but the district attorney declined to file charges. Cuomo initially apologized for some of his behavior and said he did not comply with what is considered appropriate behavior in the workplace. But in recent months he has been bold; He called his accusers liars and blamed his political rivals for his downfall.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from Reuters.)