How Zohran Mamdani charmed New York

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, why all eyes are on New York for the hottest mayoral race in memory.

0:21It's polling day in New York City. And for the first time in decades, the race to become New York mayor has people everywhere talking. Arguing. Hoping for what could be the most radical victory for a guy that just months ago, barely anyone had heard of. Zoran Mamdani.

0:43He absolutely does not want to see Zemdami. Zoran Mamdani. His name is Zoran Mamdani. The name is Mamdani. M-A-M-D-A-N-I. You should learn how to say it because we got to get it right. Mamdani, the socialist Muslim child of immigrants, is on the precipice of winning one of the biggest jobs in American politics. He could be in charge of the country's biggest city, home to more than 8 million people with a police force the size of the Belgian army and a budget of over$100 billion. And by the way, he's only 34. But this isn't just about the numbers. It's about everything else Mamdani brings to the table.

1:26What will a Mamdani win mean beyond New York City? And could he kickstart a fight back against Donald Trump?

1:37From The Guardian, I'm Naseen Iqbal. Today in Focus, Zora Mamdani's bid for New York City.

1:49Adam Gabbett, you're a reporter for The Guardian US and you live in New York. Can you tell me about the first time you came across Zoran Mamdani? Yeah, so I think a little bit of backstory is important. So the current mayor, Eric Adams, he's a former police officer, was a Republican, became a Democrat. Now he's an independent. And last September, he was in 2024, he was charged with fraud and bribery, pleaded not guilty. But his reputation really was down the pan. So we knew there were going to be a lot of people spying an opportunity to run against him this year. And against that backdrop, Zoran Mamdani, who's a member of the New York State Assembly, but at that point, basically unknown.

2:32He drops a video saying he's running for mayor. Every politician says New York is the greatest city on the globe. But what good is that if no one can afford to live here? You actually enjoy watching it. It's got these snappy cuts, hip hop music over the background. There's this washout filter. It looks great. And it's not some grim-faced old bloke talking about how terrible things are. It shows Mamdani's going to all these different bits of New York. Happy people are meeting him. There's smiles, backslaps. It's positive. It could almost be an advert for how great the city is. And I think crucially in the video, he really nails what's the central theme of his campaign.

3:17Life in this city doesn't need to be this hard. But politicians like Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo want it to be this way. There's a line in it. Life doesn't have to be this hard. And I think that's how a lot of people feel about living here. You know, a lot of New Yorkers love it. But rent costs a fortune. The subway's knackered half the time. Everything's expensive. So Mamdani had this laser focus from the beginning on affordability. We can do all of that and so much more. Because this is New York. We can afford to dream. he's just some random guy at that time. And then he starts to get a bit of traction around the beginning of the year.

3:59It's like, hey, who's this like young, cool guy who does these really snappy videos, but also is exciting people in a way that none of the other candidates were. And so, I mean, cool isn't really a word that comes up when you talk about politicians. So he's already sounds quite unusual in that space. And I wonder, so he's, you know, He's young, he's charismatic, he's fluent in the language of social media. His critics, of course, say his CV could fit on the back of a napkin. But Adam, what can you tell me about who Zaran Mamdani is and where he came from? Well, he was born actually a non-citizen, like a lot of New Yorkers.

4:37He was born in Uganda to Indian parents. He would be New York's first Muslim mayor. He's 34 years old, which is obviously quite young to lead America's biggest city. although he wouldn't be the city's youngest ever mayor. His father is a really renowned academic, and his mother's a film director, also of renown. She has a film, Naseen, you might know that. Mississippi Masala. Yes, yes, and I watched it recently. How long have you been in Mississippi? Three years. Before that, I was in Africa. You're kidding. I'm a mixed masala. Hot and spicy. But both of them sort of well-known, Both of them, you know, liberal politics.

5:20Edward Said, people like that, would drop into his house for dinner growing up. But before politics, he had a career as a rapper, Mr. Cardamom.

5:35I'm not an expert in rap, so I'm not really the one to comment on how good they are. But they were funny. They'd show him like in a food truck. look, he's just in an apron with his top off. And in fact, his opponents have used that to say he's not serious. But I mean, it just shows like he's had the, we've all done stuff like that. I mean, not specifically rapping, but we've all got stuff in our background that, you know, maybe if we were running for office, you wouldn't want front and centre. But he's kind of embraced that.

6:09So how would you describe Mamdani's politics? so uh very progressive and as i said before he's got this laser focus on affordability so there's three strands to his campaign you guys know new yorkers have more of a choice than just adams or cuomo this election right who the f*** are you i'm zahram i'm donnie i'm running to be the next mayor of new york city what have you ever done people talk about his snappy videos but really in the videos he repeats these all the time what about our rent we're gonna freeze the rent for every single rent-stabilised sentence. Childcare. Universal at no cost to New York families.

6:44Losses. Fast and free for every New Yorker. Look, no matter what your questions are, we're going to put working people... He'd freeze rent in rent-stabilised housing. So what that means is there's a lot of buildings and apartments in New York where the landlords are only allowed to increase the rent by a certain amount each year. But he wants to freeze that. So normally rent would go maybe 2%. Your rent could go by$100 each year. That's a lot to a lot of people. he would freeze that. And that would affect a lot of New Yorkers. That would affect about two million people. So a freeze on rent. What else did he campaign on?

7:19Free buses and free childcare from six weeks old until children go to school at five. So all things that are really, I guess, quite sort of populist left wing politics, but that really, they're very neatly described. And he does talk about how he would pun them as well. And just a real widespread appeal.

7:52Adam, Mamdani's first real test was to secure the Democratic nomination for New York City's mayoral race. Who stood in his way? That's a good question. So initially, the front runner was Andrew Cuomo. Hello, I'm Andrew Cuomo. Let me start by telling you what you already know. New York City is the greatest city in the world. Who's sort of the quintessential establishment figure. So Cuomo goes way back in centrist democratic politics. He worked for Bill Clinton. He was elected governor of New York for three times. His dad was governor of New York. And just in a sense of how embedded he is, there's actually a massive bridge, the Mario M.

8:34Cuomo Bridge, which is named after his dad just north of the city. And Andrew Cuomo pressured state politicians to call it that. So Cuomo was by a long way the frontrunner, but he had a lot of baggage. He resigned as governor after more than a dozen women accused him of sexual harassment. And his administration also held back reporting of deaths in nursing homes. They underreported deaths during the COVID pandemic. So on the one hand, you've got this established career politician who comes from a political family, and then you've got this fresh-faced, ambitious outsider. Adam, just how different were the campaigns?

9:15So different. So Mamdani managed to attract a lot of young first-time voters. That's why I'm putting out the calls to New Yorkers. Assemble! We want to create the single largest volunteer operation in New York City history. And we need your help. And they were really enthusiastic. So he had people out knocking on doors for him, leafleting. You could barely avoid them at one point. And, you know, in terms of that grassroots campaign, he had 87 ,000 volunteers and texting all the time. I mean, honestly, once they've got your number, just try and try and get out of it. Texting all the time, calling all the time, knocking on doors.

9:54It was really noticeable. And he was everywhere. He was doing things. He was out and about. He was grabbing attention. He walked the length of Manhattan in a day. We have just begun our walk through the entirety of Manhattan. We're at Inwood Hill Park at the tip top. Ended in the pitch black, went through all these different neighborhoods. He ran the New York Marathon. My name's Zoram Amdani, and I'm running for mayor of New York City. And he would have, he was doing TikTok clips during it. You know, there was a sense of sort of positivity, but also just of like, okay, I'm getting to know this guy.

10:32Cuomo ran this stereotypical frontrunner campaign, I think. So he just wasn't exactly invisible, but he held tightly controlled small press conferences. He wasn't out and about or campaigning for votes. He was relying on name recognition and his reputation. So some of the people behind Cuomo's campaign were very, very rich people, including some people who donated to Trump in 2024. There was an outside organization set up to support Cuomo due to the U.S.'s poor regulation of campaign spending. People could pump in, I think it was up to 10 million that eventually went in and they were running ads against Mamdani.

11:15So really, like the establishment, the Republicans in New York were backing Cuomo. The sun is starting to rise. And together, New York, we are going to win.

11:44Adam, can you take me back to the night of the Democratic primary in June, where Mamdani was up against Cuomo to win the nomination to run for city mayor? What happened? Well, he blew Cuomo out of the water. We've got the final results. What did they show? Former Governor Andrew Cuomo's defeat was further solidified after this last round of ranked choice voting, casting doubt on his ability to run a success. And he ended up winning 56 percent of the vote to Cuomo's 43 percent. I mean, that's a huge shock, especially if you'd said that was going to happen in October 2024. So, yeah, I think there'd been questions about whether the enthusiasm behind Mamdani, those 87 ,000 people, would actually bring in votes.

12:29You know, I think progressives, there's always questions about that. Are they going to actually turn out on the day? Eight months after launching this campaign. But clearly they did. And it was a huge victory. We have won. So it's a staggering historic win, but within weeks, Andrew Cuomo announces he will still run in the mayoral race, this time as an independent. Adam, from everything I understand, mayoral campaigns in New York have this reputation for running pretty rough and pretty dirty. And I gather they've been particularly aggressive with the first Asian Muslim candidate to become a serious contender to run the city.

13:05What can you tell me about what Mamdani has been up against? Yes, who would have thought that Mamdani would be targeted? So Cuomo's kind of thrown everything at the wall. He's accused Mamdani, who's been critical of Israel and said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. He's accused Mamdani of being anti-Semitic. It doesn't justify leaders who stoke the flames of hatred against Jewish people, which is what Zoran does, in my opinion. He's too inexperienced. In other words, what the assemblyman said is he has no experience. And this is not a job for someone who has no management experience to run 300 ,000 people, no financial experience to run$115 billion budget.

13:51And Cuomo, just to put a nice cherry on the top of all that, posted on his social media an AI ad about Mamdani that was just sort of laced through with racist stereotypes. Right. I didn't have a real job until I was 30. But sure, give me the keys to the city. what's the worst that can happen? Paid for by Cuomo for NYC. And there was a moment on a podcast very recently. Any given morning there's a crisis and people's lives are at stake. God forbid another 9-11. Can you imagine Mondani in the seat? Where Cuomo sort of agreed with the host that Mondani would cheer on 9-11 if it was to happen again.

14:34I could. He'd be cheering. It's another problem. But can you imagine that? No. No. Which obviously is particularly beyond the pale. Cuomo tried to walk that back a bit, but, you know, that kind of thing is memorable and sticks. Adam, Mamdani has forged this campaign on a very lefty, arguably radical agenda. And I wonder if that's changed at all since he actually became the Democratic candidate. I think he's softened slightly some of his stances. I think on the police in particular, he was extremely critical of the police for a long time and not without good reason. The New York Police Department does have a history of unfairly targeting black and brown New Yorkers.

15:26But he has walked back his comments that they were explicitly racist. He's specifically apologized to the police force. He's met with members of the police force. He's also gone from being this, you know, extreme outsider. And I mean extreme outsider in the sense that no one knew who he was to meeting with some of the traditional power brokers in New York, by which I mean the people with money. So big business hedge funders and all stuff like this. And I think trying to placate them. but he's stuck with his message of what he wants to achieve. And, you know, another thing is he's retained this sense of fun and positivity throughout his campaign.

16:05So I think he's done things that really involve people and that are pretty fresh, as far as I can tell. We are doing a scavenger hunt across New York City tomorrow, Sunday, August 24th, starting at 2 p.m. He ran a scavenger hunt where he had about 5 ,000 people trekking all over New York.

16:26He's run videos in Spanish and where he's also spoken Urdu or Hindi.

16:35He organised a football tournament. He's a keen player. I know a few people who've played with him. Apparently he's quite good. Right. But he's been vocal about the World Cup ticket prices, which are obscene. It's also worth mentioning that he called up or his team called up our sister podcast Football Weekly to ask to be a special guest. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he's a legit fan. We're joined by the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City and a big Arsenal fan, Zoran Mamdani. You approached us. You're a very busy man. Why on earth do you want to talk to me and Barry? To make very clear that the crisis of affordability is also one that impacts football and soccer fans across the world.

17:15Well, Adam, we're speaking to you on the eve of the election. Zoran Mamdani is well ahead in the polls. So firstly, do you think he'll do it? And secondly, how big a moment will it be? Yeah, I think he will do it. And it will be huge. You know, I think possibly unprecedented. We've seen progressives elected to the House of Representatives. But this is different. I mean, he will be a chief executive, he will have so much influence over what happens in New York. And New York is by far the biggest city in the US. And I think people look to the politics here to an extent to see where the future of the party might go, where the enthusiasm is.

17:58And I mean, what he'll be taking on is huge. I wouldn't want to do it. He'd be taking on a budget of$116 billion, which is a lot of money. And he would be in charge of 330 ,000 people. It would be a real boost to progressives who are tired of, as they might see it, Democrats doing basically nothing in the face of Republican extremism.

18:29Coming up, is this how you fight back against Trump? Mehdi Hassan on Zoran Ramdani.

18:46Medhi Hassan, you're a Guardian colonist and you live in Washington DC and you follow American politics, I'd say very, very closely. So first, basic question. What have you made of Zoran Mandani's campaign? It's been a brilliant campaign. It's very hard to critique it. And I say this not just as someone who obviously shares his politics and loathes Andrew Cuomo, but just as a political journalist who follows his stuff for a living and has followed multiple election campaigns on both sides of the Atlantic, he has run a campaign that has literally done what you see in the movies, right? Just as an example, there was a marathon going on in New York at the weekend.

19:26People were ruining their times. They were stopping running to take selfies with this guy on the side of the screen.

19:36That's the kind of thing you see in a TV show or a movie. And he's energized people. He has momentum. He smiles. SNL just did a skit at the weekend with our good friend Rami Youssef. And I know some of you are out there scared of the idea of a young socialist Muslim mayor. So allow me to put you at ease by smiling after every answer in a way that physically hurts my face. like he's doing everything a candidate should do in terms of getting people to be excited getting people to be energized turning out groups don't normally turn out i interviewed this guy in december 2024 when he was at one percent in the polls or if that and i remember thinking and i told him this to his face when i interviewed him for a second time recently that first interview was a pity interview but look at what he's done it's very hard to fault a campaign that went from 1 % to now on the verge of this historic victory.

20:31And what did you make of him in that first interview? Did he impress you? Did you think he's got something? Yeah, it's a great question. No, I didn't come out that interview thinking this guy's going to win. I came out the interview thinking what a nice guy, charming, nice, friendly, clearly believes in progressive values in a way that other Democrats don't. That was the interview where he first said that he would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to New York City for the ICC. And I remember thinking, That's a brave statement, but he's never going to be mayor, so it's easy for a lefty to make.

21:01He stuck to his guns. And I think you're going to now see a lot of copycats. You're already seeing copycat Democrat candidates across the country doing Zoran-style talking, walking videos. The problem is the videos are not enough. The videos are necessary but not sufficient in our current climate. He has the videos, but he also has the charisma. He's a once-in-a-generation candidate in terms of his communication skills. But then, of course, the policy platform is what's also attracting a lot of people. And that's been brilliant, to see the message discipline. This guy has like a set of policies and he sticks to it.

21:30You ask him whatever you ask him, he brings it back to affordability. Well, one of the things that strikes me about him, aside from his progressive pledges, is just how comfortable he seems to be in his own skin. Now, I don't know about you, but looking at other South Asian politicians in the West in my lifetime, I have never seen one be, I don't know how to put it, but like so authentically brown and unembarrassed and not either using his ethnicity for his political advantage or playing it down. You know, he just is. I mean, I think you're being a little unfair to poor old Sadiq Khan, who is the three-term mayor of London and is proud of being a brown man.