Zohran Mamdani, Trump’s “worst nightmare”, may really be a gift to him

FOUR DAYS before New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist assemblyman who represents part of Queens, walked the length of Manhattan, 13 miles (21km) from Inwood Hill Park to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. “New Yorkers deserve a mayor that they can see, they can hear, they can even yell at,” he said. It was reminiscent of Ed Koch, a charismatic mayor in the 1970s and 1980s. Koch would often ask his constituents: “How’m I doin’?” He was greeted by cheers or jeers, depending on the year and the neighbourhood. By that standard, Mr Mamdani, who beat the Democratic establishment to win the primary on June 24th, already looks mayoral.

Just a few months ago few people outside the district he represents in the state legislature had heard of him. He polled less than 1% when he entered the race in October. Yet he defeated Andrew Cuomo, New York’s former governor, who was once one of the biggest names in American politics. Mr Mamdani’s unexpected victory delighted progressives and, for different reasons, Republicans.

It is in part a rejection of Mr Cuomo, who resigned because of allegations of sexual harassment and of undercounting the number of New Yorkers who died in care homes during the covid-19 pandemic (he denies wrongdoing). But it also represents something bigger: it is a rejection of Democratic centrism and politics as usual. Democratic-primary voters tend to be more left-wing than the party’s average voter. They were not impressed by the endorsement that Mr Cuomo received from Bill Clinton, a former president, and turned off by one from Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge-fund manager.

Mr Mamdani is an immigrant, which may have helped in a city where 40% of the residents are foreign-born. He was born in Kampala, Uganda. After early years in post-apartheid South Africa his family settled in America when he was seven. He became an American citizen in 2018. He grew up in the shadow of Columbia University, where his father, Mahmood Mamdani, a Ugandan-born expert on colonialism, taught. Mr Mamdani told the New York Times that he had a privileged upbringing. But he also understands what it means to be stateless: his father was expelled from Uganda for several years because of his Indian ethnicity. His mother, Mira Nair, is an Indian Oscar-nominated film-maker known for stories about identity and diaspora. Both of Mr Mamdani’s parents have been outspoken critics of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Mr Mamdani has also criticised Israel’s policies. As a student at Bowdoin College, a small liberal-arts school, he co-founded a pro-Palestine group. More recently, he failed to condemn the phrase “globalise the intifada”, which many Jewish people consider to be a call for violence against them. He said on a podcast that the phrase is not a call for violence, but an expression of the desire for Palestinian “equality and human rights”. Baloney, say many Jewish New Yorkers.

Before he entered politics, Mr Mamdani dipped his toe into hip-hop, as a rapper by the name of “Mr Cardamom”. He was not successful. He was also a foreclosure-prevention counsellor, helping people from minority backgrounds in Queens stay in their homes. He entered politics in 2020, when he became the first South Asian elected to the New York State assembly; since then only three of his bills have become law. He recently married an artist.

Unabashedly left-wing, Mr Mamdani belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America, an activist group that believes “working people” should run things “to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few”. His campaign theme was affordability. Mr Mamdani wants to make buses free, to freeze rent, to open city-run supermarkets in “food deserts” and to hit the rich with higher taxes. This scares the living daylights out of many well-heeled New Yorkers.

Left-wing he may be, but likeably so. “I actually don’t think Mr. Mamdani’s success is primarily about his ideology. It’s about his talent as a new media-savvy politician,” says Jesse Arm of the Manhattan Institute, a think-tank. “He’s run a really smart messaging campaign.” His social-media posts were positive and down-to-earth, whereas Mr Cuomo’s campaign events were rare and orchestrated. Some 46,000 people campaigned for Mr Mamdani. He attracted young voters and moderate ones. He rewrote the city’s political map, winning many of the districts that Donald Trump won in the 2024 presidential election. Areas that seem unpromising for a candidate of his ilk, like Hillside in Queens and Tottenville on Staten Island, voted for him.

Mr Mamdani calls himself “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare—as a progressive, Muslim immigrant.” He’s the sort of refreshing politician that Democrats have been looking for as an answer to the Visigothic vim of the MAGA movement. But Republicans may be as delighted by his victory as progressives are. Elise Stefanik, who represents part of upstate New York in Congress, told CNN that Mr Mamdani is “the single most effective foil for Republicans nationally”. After the primary Mr Trump posted on social media that Mr Mamdani is “a 100% Communist Lunatic”.

His Republican rival in the mayoral election in November will be Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, who patrolled the subways in red berets starting in the crime-ridden 1970s, and an unsuccessful mayoral candidate in 2021. Perhaps a bigger obstacle to Mr Mamdani’s mayoralty is Eric Adams, the incumbent. The Department of Justice indicted him for corruption (then dropped the case on Mr Trump’s orders) and he lost the Democratic Party’s nomination. He plans to run as an independent. Mr Cuomo is staying in the race, too, at least for now, as an independent.

If Mr Mamdani is elected, he would be the first Muslim mayor in New York City’s history. He would also be the youngest, and the first immigrant in decades. More important, he will be the first political star of the left to emerge during Mr Trump’s second presidency. What is not yet clear is whether Democrats of his kind will lead the party out of the wilderness or deeper into it. ■