Zohran Mamdani Clinches Democratic Nomination for NYC Mayor

The Washington Post

16:53 JST, July 2, 2025

NEW YORK – New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York, the Associated Press reported Tuesday, a critical step toward becoming the first Muslim American to run America’s largest city.

His win, one week after voters cast ballots and he forced former New York governor Andrew M. Cuomo to concede the primary, has shocked the political establishment. But it is not a guarantee that he will become mayor. He faces a quickly mobilizing opposition ahead of the November election, which could include a rematch with Cuomo; a faceoff with the city’s current mayor, Eric Adams; or both.

In the final ranked-choice voting calculation, Mamdani won 56 percent of the vote to 44 percent for Cuomo. The newly adopted system allows voters to rank as many as five candidates on their ballots. Mamdani was ahead when first choices were counted last week, but he did not yet have a majority.

The 33-year-old candidate, a democratic socialist who is backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), overtook Cuomo’s famed Democratic political dynasty backed by prominent figures from the party’s old guard. Cuomo had sought a political resurrection less than four years after leaving the governorship in disgrace amid allegations of sexual harassment.

But in the week since Mamdani’s upset, powerful donors, lobbyists and political consultants in both the Democratic and Republican parties scrambled to amass a unified opposition to his candidacy – based largely on his support for liberal economic policies and avowed anti-Zionism.

Cuomo promised he would run in the general election as an independent even if he lost. But his well-funded campaign, which benefited from the biggest super PAC in the city’s history, was knocked on its heels by Mamdani’s youth-powered volunteer army and voters’ reservations about Cuomo’s past. Cuomo is reaching out directly to donors and other groups to gauge their support in the general election, according to three people who have fielded those calls and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

So far, those donors have been mainly unenthusiastic about his candidacy, according to a dozen political operatives and donors active in city politics, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about private conversations.

Mamdani’s campaign, in a statement released after Tuesday’s results were announced, said he had received the most votes in a Democratic mayoral primary in 36 years and is “excited to expand this coalition even further as we defeat Eric Adams and win a city government that puts working people first.”

Mamdani prevailed in the primary election by focusing on the affordability crisis faced by many New York residents. He pledged to ease the cost of living by providing free child care, freezing rent among the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, opening a collection of city-run grocery stores to provide lower-cost produce and staples, and making city buses free. In a city with the largest population of billionaires in the world, he has proposed to fund his ideas by raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy. And in his effort to become the first Muslim mayor of New York, which has the largest population of Jews outside of Israel, he has run unapologetically as a critic of Israel, saying he would arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to the city.

Many Democratic voters said those ideas energized them, but they have drawn an array of opponents.

Members of his own party in his own state attacked him. Republicans have demonized him with Islamophobic and racist attacks – while also highlighting his progressivism. Many political donors in New York have scrambled to find a way to combat him.

In addition to Cuomo’s potential independent candidacy, Mamdani will also face Adams, a registered Democrat, who elected not to run in the crowded primary and instead is running as an independent in November.

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican primary candidate, could be the fourth candidate on the ballot.

Donors and Republican officials launched a national effort to persuade Sliwa to step aside and endorse Adams. Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump administration official and far-right podcast host, appeared on former congressman Matt Gaetz’s show on One America News last week and described the effort to get Sliwa to step down so that anti-Mamdani forces could coalesce around a single candidate.

Adams also met with donors and floated the idea that Sliwa, a longtime fixture in New York and the former leader of anti-crime organization Guardian Angels, could accept a job in the Trump administration as an incentive to leave the race.

But Sliwa loudly resisted those calls. “The only job I’m focused on is earning your support to be the next Mayor of #NYC,” he wrote on X last week.

Adams won the race for mayor in 2021 as a Democrat but has been increasingly distanced from his party following his indictment on corruption charges in September. Those charges were dropped in April, 2½ months after Adams visited President Donald Trump at one of his Florida golf courses.

Both Adams and Cuomo are unpopular with voters and face an uphill battle to overcome their respective scandals. And both represent a style of campaigning – with institutional endorsements and big-money donations – that is fundamentally different from the small-dollar campaign that propelled Mamdani to victory in the primary.

“The outpouring of support that has come to Mayor Adams has been overwhelming and humbling, and we believe that energy is going to translate as an election for Mayor Adams as the leader of New York City,” said Frank Carone, Adams’s former chief of staff and a key member of his reelection campaign.

Cuomo’s campaign said Mamdani’s large showing from voters under 30 was hard to predict. Cuomo did not commit to campaigning in the general election but reiterated that he was “continuing conversations with people from all across the city while determining next steps.”

Hedge fund managers Dan Loeb and Bill Ackman have both thrown their support behind Adams, as have a variety of the city’s business and industry groups.

Jewish groups such as the New York Solidarity Network, a pro-Israel membership organization that represents center-left Jewish New Yorkers concerned about growing antisemitism, have held discussions about backing either Cuomo or Adams, according to three people familiar with the various calls and conversations such groups have had. Many are waiting to put their money toward a candidate in the fall until they can see how the race plays out in the coming weeks and months, these people said.