Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, vote at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High School Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Queens, New York. Barry Williams/ New York Daily News/TNS
Full transparency–I had very real doubts about whether or not Zohran Mamdani (D) would be able to pull off the 2025 New York City mayoral election against Andrew Cuomo (I) and Curtis Sliwa (R), and honestly, completely expected a Cuomo win out of it.
Though it did happen once in 1989 with the election of New York Mayor David Dinkins, the idea of a self-proclaimed, quote-unquote “democratic socialist” winning in the largest city in the United States of America against a moderate Democrat in this MAGA-infiltrated political climate was an outcome I certainly desired as an outsider looking in, but was quite skeptical that it could actually come to fruition.
Apparently, and thankfully, I was wrong, as the AP race call concludes that just over 50% of voters casted theirs for Mamdani. Maybe New Yorkers are tired of the old white men we’ve all seen in office far past what should have been their retirement ages, or that they’re genuinely starting to see through the evils of capitalism and the propaganda surrounding the trigger word “socialism.”
Either way, the man won, and I am thrilled for New Yorkers. Although I am a lifelong Chicagoan and have never even done so much as been to New York, I, like many others across the nation, tuned into this election season like a hawk.
This mayoral race was something I’ve never seen before–a mayoral race, isolated only to one city, fueling public discourse across social media from individuals across the nation and even the world, all with an opinion on this race.
No mayoral race, to my limited recollection, has ever acquired this much public attention. The closest thing I can liken it to, that I can remember, is Ron DeSantis’ 2018 gubernatorial win in Florida, which, even then, was not a mayoral race like the Mamdani-Cuomo-Sliwa race.
My interest with the election was initially due to the frequent mention of it on The Majority Report with Sam Seder, hosted daily Monday-Friday by Sam Seder and Emma Vigeland in Brooklyn, a show I have recently become a big fan of over the past year.
Seder and Vigeland, along with their other co-hosts and guest speakers, during the mayoral election season, often voiced their support and approval for Mamdani and his policies, such as his dedication to affordability in New York City and his advocacy for small businesses.
I have seen this phenomenon of people in the United States, but nowhere even near New York, having strong opinions about Mamdani and his policies being talked about online, particularly in the cases where those opinions are negative, something TikTok user @cassiewillson, a New York City resident according to her bio, pokes fun at in a video, narrating a caricature for it of a woman from Scottsdale in the Phoenix, Arizona area who believes Mamdani will “ruin New York City.”
The racism and fear-mongering during this election season and following Mamdani’s win has been upsetting to see, to say the very least. I’ve seen stereotypes about Muslims and South Asians used against him relentlessly, with a right-wing X page, @WallStreetApes, bringing up a speech Charlie Kirk gave apparently two days before his Sept. 10 assassination warning that “the spiritual battle is coming to the West, and the enemies are woke-ism or Marxism combining with Islamism to go after what we call the American way of life,” which Wall Street Apes idiotically asserts is essentially prophecy to Mamdani’s win.
Despite all the nastiness, though, Mamdani managed to pull through and still win, and on Jan. 1, will become the 111th mayor of New York City. Though I am halfway across the continental country from NYC, it is refreshing to see a young man whose views and plan of action align with that of the interests of the everyday person.