Zohran Mamdani has won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, a new vote count confirmed Tuesday, cementing his stunning upset of former Governor Andrew Cuomo and sending him to the general election.
After the results of the city’s ranked choice voting tabulation were released, it showed Mamdani trouncing Cuomo by 12 percentage points, reports AP.
Mamdani said he was humbled by the support he received in the primary and has started turning his attention to November. “Last Tuesday, Democrats spoke in a clear voice, delivering a mandate for an affordable city, a politics of the future, and a leader unafraid to fight back against rising authoritarianism,” he said in a statement.
However, US President Donald Trump does not seem pleased with the outcome. He threatened to have Mamdani deported if he blocks Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in New York.
Trump, while visiting a new detention centre for immigrants in Florida’s Everglades on Tuesday, accused the mayoral candidate of being “a pure communist” and has threatened to cut off funds to New York if Mamdani becomes mayor and “doesn’t behave himself”.
Mamdani responded in a statement, “The President of the United States just threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp and deported. Not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let ICE terrorize our city.”
“His statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you. We will not accept this intimidation,” he added.
The Trump administration has raised the possibility of stripping Mamdani of his US citizenship as part of a crackdown against foreign-born citizens convicted of certain offences, reports news agencies.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and member of the state Assembly since 2021, was virtually unknown when he launched his candidacy centered on a bold slate of populist ideas. But he built an energetic campaign that ran circles around Cuomo as the older, more moderate Democrat tried to come back from the sexual harassment scandal that led to his resignation four years ago.
Mamdani’s win had been widely expected since he took a commanding lead and declared victory after the polls closed a week ago, but fell just short of the 50% of the vote needed to avoid another count under the ranked choice voting model. The system allows voters’ other preferences to be counted if their top candidate falls out of the running.
He will now face a general election field that includes incumbent Mayor Eric Adams as well as independent candidate Jim Walden and Republican Curtis Sliwa.