Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Zohair Mamdani, the insurgent Democratic Socialist, won New York City’s mayoral race, capitalising on the liberal metropolis’ antipathy to President Donald Trump and economic angst. Preliminary results showed Mamdani, the Democratic Party candidate, winning about 50 per cent of the 2 million votes cast, to 41 per cent polled by former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the party’s nomination to him in the June primaries.
Mamdani will be the city’s first mayor of Indian descent and the third non-White in the city’s history. The inexperienced 34-year-old’s victory on a socialist platform poses a strategic conundrum for Democrats reeling from the defeat in last year’s presidential election. His radicalism may play in a liberal city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one, but it could be a turnoff in constituencies where they would have to rely on moderates.
Democratic Party’s Senate Leader Chuck Schumer and former President Barack Obama withheld their endorsements, while some spoke out against him. Mamdani will confront President Donald Trump, who came out vehemently against him on the eve of the polls, threatening to cut funds for the city if he is elected.
Trump endorsed Cuomo over the Republican Party candidate Curtis Sliwa, the founder of an anti-crime vigilante group, who polled a paltry 7 per cent. Reacting to the election victories of Mamdani and other Democrats, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT’, according to Pollsters.” Mamdani is the son of a Shia Muslim Ugandan academic, Mahmood Mamdani, whose ancestry is Indian, and movie director Mira Nair, who is from a Hindu family in India.
