N Y C Mayor S Race This City Belongs To You Mamdani Says As He

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 11, 2025, 10:48 AM

n y c mayor s race this city belongs to you mamdani says as he

Updated on: November 5, 2025 / 6:53 AM EST / CBS New York Democrat Zohran Mamdani addressed his supporters Tuesday night after he was projected the winner of the 2025 New York City mayoral election. CBS News made the projection just after 9:30 p.m. with about 60% of the vote counted. With 91% of the vote counted as of 12:25 a.m. Wednesday, Mamdani had 50.4% of the vote, followed by former Gov.

Andrew Cuomo at 41.6%. Mamdani's campaign expected more than 2,000 people to gather for its Election Night watch party in Brooklyn. New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams were among those in the crowd. Mamdani's supporters could be heard cheering as news of his projected win broke. Mamdani opened his speech with a quote by American socialist Eugene Debs. This is read by an automated voice.

Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday, capping a stunning ascent for the 34-year-old state lawmaker, who was set to become the city’s most liberal mayor in... In a victory for the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani must now navigate the unending demands of America’s biggest city and deliver on ambitious — skeptics say unrealistic — campaign promises. With the victory, the democratic socialist will etch his place in history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage and the first born in Africa.

He will also become the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century when he takes office Jan. 1. “We have toppled a political dynasty,” Mamdani said at a victory party. “I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. But let tonight be the final time I utter his name. We turn the page on the politics that abandon the many, answers only to the few.”

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, right, and his wife, Rama Duwaji, react to supporters during an election night watch party, Tuesday in New York. Keren Carrión/NPR hide caption BROOKLYN, N.Y. - Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City, becoming the first Muslim and person of South Asian descent — as well as the youngest in over a century — to... "The future is in our hands," Mamdani declared to roaring applause Tuesday night at a victory celebration in Brooklyn. "My friends, tonight we have toppled a political dynasty."

The 34-year-old, Ugandan-born Democratic socialist defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an Independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday's election, according to a race call by the Associated Press. It's a remarkable ascent for Mamdani, who was a relatively unknown state assemblymember representing a district in Queens when he entered the crowded mayoral race last year. He went on to win June's Democratic primary by 12 percentage points, quickly becoming one of the country's most popular and polarizing politicians along the way. Zohran Mamdani declared victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday night, after former governor Andrew Cuomo conceded the race in a stunning upset. Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic socialist who galvanized voters with an energetic campaign centered on the cost of living, took a commanding position just hours after the polls closed, though the race's ultimate outcome will...

With victory all but assured, Mamdani told supporters on Tuesday night: "Tonight, we made history. In the words of Nelson Mandela, 'It always seems impossible until it is done.' My friends, we have done it. I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City." Newsweek has contacted the Mamdani and Cuomo campaigns for comment via email outside of regular working hours. Mamdani, a member of the state Assembly since 2021, has not officially been declared the winner since he has not received more than 50 percent of the vote. According to the New York City Department of Records and Information Services, Zohran Mamdani will not actually be the city’s hundred-and-eleventh mayor, as many people have assumed.

A historian named Paul Hortenstine recently came across references to a previously unrecorded mayoral term served in 1674, by one Matthias Nicolls. Consequently, on New Year’s Day, after Mamdani places his right hand on the Quran and is sworn in at City Hall, he will become our hundred-and-twelfth mayor—or possibly even our hundred-and-thirty-third, based on the... “The numbering of New York City ‘Mayors’ has been somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent,” a department official disclosed in a blog post this month. “There may even be other missing Mayors.” New York City has already had youthful mayors (John Purroy Mitchel, a.k.a. the Boy Mayor), ideological mayors (Bill de Blasio), celebrity mayors (Jimmy Walker, a.k.a.

Beau James), idealistic mayors (John Lindsay), hard-charging mayors (Fiorello LaGuardia), mayors with little to no prior experience in elected office (Michael Bloomberg), immigrant mayors (Abe Beame), and even one who supported the Democratic Socialists... (That would be David Dinkins.) Whether Mamdani turns out to be a good or a bad mayor, he will also not be alone in either respect. He will, however, be the city’s first Muslim mayor, and the first with family roots in Asia. He is as avowedly of the left as any mayor in city history. And the velocity of his rise to power is the fastest that anyone in town can recall. Since his general-election trouncing of the former governor Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani has been preparing for the sober realities of governing—appointments, negotiations, coalition management, policy development.

Trying to preserve the movement energy he tapped during the campaign, he has also made an effort to continue the inventive outreach practices that brought him to broad public attention. Just last Sunday, for instance, he sat in a room in the Museum of the Moving Image, in Astoria (a few blocks from the rent-stabilized apartment he’s giving up to move into Gracie Mansion),... It was a gesture to show that he could look his constituents in the eye, and that he could listen to them. Mamdani ran a disciplined campaign, and he has run a disciplined transition. He didn’t take the bait when Mayor Eric Adams criticized him, told Jews to be afraid of him, and pulled other last-minute maneuvers seemingly designed to undermine him. Mamdani met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office—and they startled everyone by having an outwardly productive meeting.

(Trump happily told Mamdani that it was O.K. to call him a “fascist.”) Mamdani discouraged a young D.S.A. city-council member, Chi Ossé, from staging a primary challenge next year to the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries—a magnanimous move, considering Jeffries’s ongoing chilliness toward Mamdani. In rooms full of wealthy business leaders and in others filled with donors, he has tried to win over skeptics among New York’s élite. (“They are finding themselves, unexpectedly, charmed,” the Times reported recently.) It was a relief to the city’s political establishment when he asked Jessica Tisch, the current police commissioner, whom Adams appointed, to stay in... Last week, when a top appointee’s old antisemitic tweets surfaced, Mamdani accepted her resignation within hours.

Having rocketed, in a matter of months, from one per cent in the polls to mayor, Mamdani seems comfortable facing his doubters. But what he’s up against cannot be overstated. It’s been an open question for centuries as to whether New York is “governable” in a top-to-bottom, municipal, positive sense. For a long time, city government here was considered little more than a trough for Tammany Hall. In the past century, the city proved that it could (more or less) pick up its own garbage, get a handle on crime, and operate large school and hospital systems, even if sometimes just... It can do more than that, of course, but can it durably make life in New York better, and not just more tolerable, for the bulk of its residents?

In his effort to answer affirmatively, Mamdani will have to navigate problems of management, budget, and bureaucracy inside City Hall, and also Trump (does anyone think their chumminess will last?), ICE raids, intransigent billionaires,... The billionaire exodus that was forecast during his campaign has shown no signs of materializing, but one bad blizzard in January could hamper Mamdani’s ambitious agenda for months. Find this story in your account’s ‘Saved for Later’ section. It is official: Zohran Mamdani is projected to win the election to be the next mayor of New York City, according to NBC News and Decision Desk HQ. The 34-year-old assemblyman and democratic socialist sailed to victory during Tuesday’s election, trouncing former governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary, and Republican Curtis Sliwa. He will be the city’s first Muslim mayor.

Mamdani won the Democratic primary in June by a landslide, a stunning upset that took both everyday New Yorkers and the wider Democratic Establishment by surprise. Before the primary, Mamdani’s campaign was believed to be a long shot against Cuomo, who resigned from office in 2021 amid a slew of sexual-harassment allegations. But Mamdani — the first democratic socialist since David Dinkins to be elected mayor — won over New Yorkers with the promise of making the city an affordable place for all, freezing rent, making... Mamdani ran a campaign as tireless as it was creative. Some 50,000 volunteers knocked on 1.5 million doors before the primary, and throughout the race, he held events like a citywide scavenger hunt, an interborough soccer tournament, and a debate-night bingo game for seniors. He made surprise appearances at concerts — including for PinkPantheress, Wu Tang Clan, and onstage with Lucy Dacus at All Things Go — and ran a series of reality-TV–themed ads that ran during Survivor...

Mamdani also faced racism and Islamophobia throughout his campaign, frequently facing attacks for his vocal support for Palestinian rights. Though he was popular with voters, a number of centrist Democrats dragged their feet endorsing him: Governor Kathy Hochul waited until September to throw her support behind Mamdani, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries... Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, didn’t endorse him at all; neither did New York senator Kristen Gillibrand, who over the summer falsely accused Mamdani of making “references to global jihad” (she later apologized). He did, however, garner endorsements from a number of progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who spoke at a rally for him ahead of the election.

N Y C Mayor S Race This City Belongs To You Mamdani Says As He

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