By Michael Koziol
Washington: New Yorkers have emphatically elected Zohran Mamdani, a left-wing Muslim immigrant who vows to increase taxes on corporations and the top 1 per cent to fund popular services, as their next mayor.
The state assemblyman, 34, will become the youngest mayor of New York for a century, the first Muslim and only the second democratic socialist to run the largest and most important city in the United States, and the global centre of capitalism.
In a defiant victory speech, Mamdani said it was the dawn of a “new age” for New York and “together, we will usher in a generation of change”.
He also took direct aim at President Donald Trump, who branded the Democrat candidate a communist and threatened to withhold federal funding from a Mamdani-led New York.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” Mamdani told a raucous crowd of supporters in Brooklyn just before midnight. “If there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.
“This is not only how we stop Trump, it is how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”
Zohran Mamdani gives his victory speech.Credit: Bloomberg
The Associated Press called the race for Mamdani at 9.34pm local time (1.34pm Wednesday AEDT), just half an hour after polls closed.
Running as the endorsed Democratic candidate, Mamdani defeated former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, also a Democrat, who ran as an independent after losing the party primary to Mamdani in June.
With an estimated 90 per cent of the vote counted, Mamdani was ahead with an absolute majority of 50.4 per cent to Cuomo’s 41.6 per cent.
Mamdani was above 50 per cent in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx (where Cuomo won the primary), and ahead of Cuomo in Queens. Cuomo won the smaller, reliably conservative borough of Staten Island.
Zohran Mamdani supporters react to the election result at an event on election night.Credit: Bloomberg
The win, though expected based on opinion polls, has set up a mighty battle between Mamdani and Trump, who instructed his followers to vote for Cuomo rather than the Republican Curtis Sliwa, who was not a viable candidate and polled under 10 per cent.
The Democrats were also celebrating major victories in elections held elsewhere in the US on Tuesday, with moderate candidates Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill claiming victory as the governors of Virginia and New Jersey respectively.
In a post on his Truth Social page, Trump blamed the fact that he wasn’t on the ballot himself, and the ongoing US federal government shutdown, for the Republicans’ losses, citing unnamed pollsters.
New York congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, said the results should send a message to the Trump administration and Republicans that they needed to do better on cost-of-living.
“The American people are saying, ‘You have failed us’,” Jeffries said on CNN. “Affordability was on the ballot today and Democrats have won all across the country.”
Mamdani campaigned chiefly on addressing New York’s affordability problems, particularly for working-class New Yorkers. He plans to build social housing, freeze rents on rent-stabilised apartments, make buses free and introduce universal free childcare for all children under five.
Mamdani pledged to pay for his promises by levying a 2 per cent city income tax on anyone earning more than $US1 million a year ($1.5 million), raising a predicted $US4 billion a year, and increasing the top corporate tax rate from 7.5 per cent to 11.5 per cent – the same as neighbouring New Jersey.
His critics drew attention to his past support for the “defund the police” movement, and queried his commitment to keeping the city safe. They had also pointed to his remarks about Israel and refusal to condemn the phrase “globalise the intifada”.
Mamdani walked back from those positions in the campaign, and said he intended to retain the city’s tough-on-crime police commissioner, Jessica Tisch.
But in his victory speech, he appealed to his left-wing base with a rallying call for diversity, progress and resistance against oligarchy and authoritarianism.
“I am young … I am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist, and most damning of all, I refuse to apologise for any of this,” Mamdani said to cheers at his election party in Brooklyn.
“New York will remain a city of immigrants, built by immigrants, powered by immigrants – and as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”
New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo concedes defeat.Credit: Bloomberg
Delivering his concession speech, Cuomo cautioned his supporters to stop their enthusiastic booing when he congratulated Mamdani on the win. In pointed remarks, he said New York had no tolerance for discrimination and would not abide any behaviour that fanned the flames of antisemitism.
“This campaign was necessary to make that point – a caution flare that we are heading down a dangerous, dangerous road,” Cuomo said. “We made that point, and they heard us, and we will hold them to it.”
Former New York senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton praised Mamdani for his “inspiring campaign” and said the high voter turnout was a win for democracy.
Former president Barack Obama said the night’s results were a reminder for Democrats that “when we come together around strong, forward-looking leaders who care about the issues that matter, we can win”.
Also marking a decisive win on a ballot measure to redraw the electoral map of California in a way that is advantageous to Democrats, Californian Governor Gavin Newsom said the Democratic Party was “in its ascendancy”.
“We stood tall and we stood firm in response to Donald Trump’s recklessness, and tonight, after poking the bear, this bear roared with an unprecedented turnout in a special election with an extraordinary result,” he said.
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