Who is Zohran Mamdani, the cricket-playing former rapper that just became New York’s next mayor?

New York: When he announced his run for mayor in October 2024, Zohran Mamdani was a state lawmaker unknown to most New York City residents.

Now the 34-year-old democratic socialist has had a stunning political ascent, declaring victory in the Democratic primary in June to now becoming mayor of New York in an emphatic victory confirmed by The Associated Press less than an hour after polls closed.

Mamdani and his challenger, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, 67, offered voters starkly different visions on taxes and policing in a race that has, at times, mirrored the divisions roiling the Democratic Party nationally.

The election also became a microcosm of New Yorkers’ views on ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, with Cuomo pledging support for Israel as Mamdani criticised the wars in Gaza and Iran.

Cuomo started as the favourite in the race, with his deep experience, name recognition, strong political connections and juggernaut fundraising apparatus.

But Mamdani gained momentum, running a sharp campaign laser-focused on the city’s high cost of living, and winning the backing of two of the country’s foremost progressives: congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders.

“The surge by Mamdani is something I’ve never seen before in New York City politics,” said J.C. Polanco, a political analyst at the University of Mount Saint Vincent, before the result was known.

So who is the man who has just been elected mayor of New York? Here’s a closer look at the one-time rapper, the city’s first Muslim and Indian-American mayor, and its youngest mayor in generations.

Mamdani’s family life

Zohran Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda in 1991, to Indian parents. He lived with his family briefly in Cape Town, South Africa, before moving to New York City when he was seven years old, and becoming an American citizen in 2018, shortly after graduating from college.

Mamdani’s mother, Mira Nair, is an award-winning filmmaker whose credits include Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake and Mississippi Masala. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is an anthropology professor at Columbia University.

Mamdani married Rama Duwaji, a Syrian-American artist, this year. The couple, who met on the dating app Hinge, live in the Astoria section of Queens.

Mamdani was once a fledgling rapper

Mamdani attended the Bronx High School of Science, where he co-founded the public school’s first cricket team, according to his legislative bio.

He graduated in 2014 from Bowdoin College in Maine, where he earned a degree in African studies and co-founded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.

After college, he worked as a foreclosure prevention counsellor in Queens, helping residents avoid eviction – a job that he says inspired him to run for public office.

Mamdani also had a notable side hustle in the local hip-hop scene, rapping under the moniker Young Cardamom, and later Mr Cardamom. During his first run for state lawmaker, Mamdani gave a nod to his brief foray into music, describing himself as a “B-list rapper”.

Nani, a song he made in 2019 to honour his grandmother, found new life – and a vastly wider audience – as his mayoral campaign gained momentum.

His critics, meanwhile, have seized on lyrics from Salaam – his 2017 ode to being Muslim in New York – arguing his views were too extreme for New Yorkers.

Early political career

Mamdani cut his teeth in local politics working on campaigns for Democratic candidates in Queens and Brooklyn.

He was elected to the New York Assembly in 2020, beating a long-time Democratic incumbent for a Queens district covering Astoria and surrounding neighbourhoods. He has handily won re-election twice.

Mamdani’s most notable legislative accomplishment has been pushing through a pilot program that made a handful of city buses free for a year. He’s also proposed legislation banning nonprofits from “engaging in unauthorised support of Israeli settlement activity”.

His opponents, particularly Cuomo, have dismissed him as woefully unprepared for managing the complexities of running America’s largest city.

But Mamdani has framed his relative inexperience as a potential asset, saying in a mayoral debate he’s “proud” he doesn’t have Cuomo’s “experience of corruption, scandal and disgrace”.

Viral campaign videos

Mamdani has used buzzy campaign videos – many with winking references to Bollywood and his Indian heritage – to help make inroads with voters outside his slice of Queens.

On New Year’s Day, he took part in the annual polar plunge into the chilly waters off Coney Island in a full dress suit to break down his plan to “freeze” rents.

As the primary race was entering the final stretch, Mamdani walked the length of Manhattan, documenting the roughly 21-kilometre trip by posting photos and videos of his interactions along the way.

In TikTok videos, he appealed to voters of colour by speaking in Spanish, Bengali and other languages.

Progressive promises

Mamdani offered New York a more optimistic vision that Cuomo, who largely focused on crime and law-and-order issues.

His campaign was packed with big promises aimed at lowering the cost of living for everyday New Yorkers, from free child care, free buses, a rent freeze for people living in rent-regulated apartments and new affordable housing – much of it by raising taxes on the wealthy.

The big promises have, unsurprisingly, endeared him to the Democratic Party’s liberal wing and attracted the ire of the White House, with Trump referring to him as a “communist lunatic”.

Pro-Palestinian views

Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinian causes was a point of tension in the mayor’s race as Cuomo and other opponents sought to label his defiant criticism of Israel as antisemitic.

The Shiite Muslim has called Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a “genocide” and said the country should exist as “a state with equal rights” rather than a “Jewish state”.

That message has resonated among pro-Palestinian residents, including the city’s roughly 800,000 adherents of Islam – the largest Muslim community in the country.

During an interview on CBS’s The Late Show on the eve of the election, host Stephen Colbert asked Mamdani if he believed the state of Israel had the right to exist.

He responded: “Yes, like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist – and a responsibility also to uphold international law.”

Mamdani’s refusal to condemn calls to “globalise the intifada” on a podcast – a common chant at pro-Palestinian protests and a reference to Palestinian uprisings against Israel – drew recriminations from Jewish groups and fellow candidates in the days leading up to the election.

In his victory speech on Tuesday, he pledged to work closely with those who don’t share his views on controversial issues.

“While I will not abandon my beliefs or my commitments, grounded in a demand for equality, for humanity, for all those who walk this earth, you have my word to reach further, to understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree, and to wrestle deeply with those disagreements,” he said.

AP, Bloomberg

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