Mamdani S Movement Organizers Supporters Celebrate Stunning Victory

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 27, 2025, 2:09 PM

mamdani s movement organizers supporters celebrate stunning victory

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Democracy Now! Amy Goodman We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution. Democracy Now! spoke with supporters celebrating Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York City mayoral race Tuesday night.

Volunteers with the Democratic Socialists and other campaign organizers at the Brooklyn Paramount victory party described the night as “surreal” and vowed to fight back against President Trump’s agenda. Sumaya Awad, a NYC-DSA member, describes Zohran as a politician “that doesn’t put the platform and the mission at the expense of anyone.” “When people’s needs aren’t being met, they need an alternative, and so far, only the far right was providing an alternative in the form of authoritarianism, in the form of fascism, in the form... “What this campaign and our movement was able to do was offer a left alternative.” This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re continuing our coverage of Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in the New York mayoral race over former Governor Andrew Cuomo. On Tuesday night, Democracy Now! was at Mamdani’s victory party at the historic Brooklyn Paramount. More than a thousand people packed in.

We spoke to just a few of his supporters. SUMAYA AWAD: My name is Sumaya Awad, and I’m a member of New York City DSA. And I am — to say I’m excited and ecstatic and relieved is an understatement. I mean, we have fought so hard for this, right before the primary, and then now, in the last couple of months and last couple weeks and today. I’ve been canvassing since 9 a.m. And I feel exhausted, but it’s the best kind of exhausted, because it’s exhaustion from something that I believe in with every fiber of my body and that I know that the majority of...

And we haven’t felt that — I haven’t felt that in my lifetime. AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what it is you believe in. Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2025. Donate today Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations When Democrat Zohran Mamdani was declared the next mayor of New York City just after 9:30 p.m.

Tuesday — nearly half an hour after the polls closed — supporters at watch parties across the city erupted in cheers. Mamdani’s win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa makes him New York City’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor. At 34, the Queens lawmaker will also be the youngest person to lead the city in more than 100 years. The largely Latino crowd at a party hosted by the nonprofit Make the Road in Corona, Queens, broke out in chants of “Sí, se pudo!” which translates to “Yes, we did!” Zohran Mamdani takes selfies with supporters after speaking at his primary election party.

Heather Khalifa/AP Last night, with Zohran Mamdani on the verge of an extraordinary political upset in the New York City Democratic primary for mayor, the mood outside the candidate’s watch party in Queens was one of... Few had expected such a swift and decisive victory for the young socialist state assemblymember over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who by around 10:30 p.m. had already called Mamdani to concede. The city was in the midst of a historic heat wave—temperatures earlier that day had topped 100 degrees and did not relent much into the night.

Because the campaign was turning away supporters—and press—that had not made the list, a cheerful crowd began to form outside the rooftop bar in Long Island City where Mamdani was scheduled to speak. Most were young, and some had come out in their DIY Mamdani merch. A local group of cyclists, seeing that early results favored Mamdani, had diverted their weekly ride to the bar. One member, who gave his name as Joe, told me that Mamdani had spoken at a memorial event for a cyclist who had been killed in a hit-and-run leaving one of the group’s rides. “He’s a man of the people,” Joe said. “I want someone who’s gonna walk the streets of Manhattan rather than assault the people of Manhattan.”

A little after 11 p.m., fellow mayoral candidate and New York City comptroller Brad Lander—who had co-endorsed Mamdani in the last weeks of the race—emerged from a car to welcoming cheers and made his... A livestream of the speeches had been set up outside of the bar, where spectators were spilling into the street. Many supporters had hoped against hope that Mamdani would prevail, and their surprise was evident, particularly at a moment of Democratic malaise. Varsha Suresh, who is one of Mamdani’s constituents in Queens, had made her way to the party to bask in the results. “It’s incredible to come here and just feed off of this energy in this time where it’s so difficult to even think of something positive in the United States—that New York can lead the... Declaring that he is leading a “movement that won the battle over the soul of the Democratic Party,” Zohran Mamdani used a raucous rally with over 3,000 supporters in Manhattan’s Washington Heights on Monday...

The Democratic nominee and proud democratic socialist, who almost overnight after his surprise primary win in June became a national superstar, has a wide lead in the polls. And though many who rallied for him on Monday to kick off the final stretch into November stressed to the crowd that they can’t take the election for granted, the candidate used his own... “Over the last nine months, we have watched the man with the most power in the world expend enormous energy targeting those with the least,” Mamdani said. “Our movement is a movement where we know exactly who and what we are fighting for. We are not afraid of our own ideas. For too long we have tried not to lose.

Now it is time that we win.” Mamdani connected what he is trying to force out of the Democratic Party to a tradition of forcing bigger change out of other moments that seemed hopeless to the organizers. “The same questions asked of us were asked of organized labor, were asked the civil rights movement, were asked of any who had the nerve to demand a future they could not yet see. Could they not wait? Could they see that they were asking too much?” Mamdani said. “They knew that we do not get to determine the scale of the crisis that we face.

Mamdani S Movement Organizers Supporters Celebrate Stunning Victory

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