In an astonishing victory, 34-year-old state legislator Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election. Defeating former state Governor Andrew Cuomo, who enjoyed strong backing from US President Donald Trump and the political establishment, Mamdani became the city’s first Muslim immigrant mayor and its youngest in more than a century. The democratic socialist’s victory sent shock waves through national politics, emboldening progressives across the country to run and to win on agendas as unapologetically ambitious as the moment demands.Campaigning across the city, Mamdani reached out to various social groups, including African Americans, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, East Africans and South Asians, and especially the youth, many of whom had grown politically disengaged after the Democratic Party’s demoralising performance in recent years. He brought people back into the political process, mobilising voters who otherwise might have stayed home.Running on a platform calling for a more equitable distribution of wealth through higher taxes on the super-wealthy, a more affordable and accessible housing market, a free and faster public bus system, and universal, no-cost childcare for children from six weeks to five years old, Mamdani has brought into the mainstream a political discourse centred on equity, one the nation has arguably not witnessed since Eugene V Debs, the early 20th-century socialist organiser and five-time presidential candidate who championed workers’ rights and economic justice …
