Mamdani’s Victory in the General Election for Mayor of New York City: What it Means.
by John M Repp
Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City. He won the November 4th, 2025 general election in a three-way race defeating former New York Governor Mario Cuomo who ran as an independent and Republican Curis Sliwa. In the primary election held on June 24, 2025, Zohran Mamdani won the race for the Democratic nomination with 56.4% of the vote. That race was a major upset that has given progressives the idea that running on a progressive platform, with specific, concrete planks can lead to victory. NYC has ranked choice voting and some public financing of elections.
Mamdani is a 33 year-old state lawmaker, who is a Muslim critical of the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza and the West Bank. He is a two-term member of the New York legislature. He belongs to the Democratic Socialist Party, but he ran in the primary as a Democrat, facing nine other candidates. Six months before the election, Mamdani had a 1% rating in the polls.
He offered to the citizens of NYC some very concrete goals: making buses free and fast, freezing the rent, making universal childcare free, opening city-run grocery stores in food deserts, building 200,000 affordable housing units, a $30 an hour minimum wage, and taxing the corporations and the wealthy to pay for these things.
His advisors believe that clear concrete goals should be advanced. He was outspent by several other candidates in the primary and dismissed by the major NYC newspapers like The New York Times. But he had, at the end of the race, over a million Instagram followers. Maybe even more important, in the general election, he had over 100 thousand unpaid volunteers going door-to-door and calling people for the general election. That is an impressive number of volunteers. This is the way most election campaigns were run before the electronic media and advertising took over. His primary canvassers started their door-to-door work in December, six months before the election. Many of his canvassers were democratic socialists from DSA.
Mamdani was out in the streets often during the primary and the general elections. The Friday before the primary, he walked the full length of Manhattan. Cuomo was hardly visible. In March, Mamdani got into a scrap with New York State Troopers, as he was trying to confront Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, about the current president’s immigrant policy. After the news of that incident became known, Mamdani raised $250,000 in one day. Then, he announced in Brooklyn Heights on camera: “Please stop sending me money.” How often have you heard that from a political candidate?
In the final television debate, Cuomo continually mispronounced Mamdani’s name; then Mamdani spelled it out for him and said: “You should learn how to say it.” His criticism of Israel was thought to make his election impossible in NYC, a city with the largest concentration of Jewish voters outside of Israel. But Mamdani stuck to it. At one point during the primary campaign, Mamdani broke down in tears; after telling of the growing stream of death threats he had received because of his Muslim faith.
The general election was held on November 4, 2025, with a record early turnout in NYC. If Zohran Mamdani can govern as he campaigned, he will prove that the people really have the power to shape their own future. There will be daycare centers to support our young families. Buses fast and free. A 1% tax on wealth to pay for it all. New grocery stores with healthy food for low prices. Affordability is the issue that Trump used to get elected, and now Trump has so fumbled the ball, that the Democrats won all over the country in the 2025 elections.
Across the continent, Katie Wilson won a close race for mayor of Seattle against the incumbent Bruce Harrell. She is also a “democratic socialist”. Wilson also wants the wealthy to pay more taxes. So, we can say the election of November 4, 2025 is showing that the people want more economic justice. Progressive women also won the races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey.