Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a 33-year-old Muslim of South Asian origin, stunned political observers by dealing a crushing defeat to heavyweight former Governor Andrew Cuomo, positioning himself as the Democratic candidate for mayor of the United States’ biggest city.
A Democratic Socialist, Mamdani is the son of acclaimed Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani and Indian filmmaker Mira Nair. If elected in November, he would make history as the first Muslim, Indian-origin mayor of New York City.
Born in Kampala, Uganda, Mamdani moved to New York at age seven. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College in Maine, and before entering politics, he worked as a housing counsellor, helping low-income families avoid eviction.
In 2020, Mamdani was elected to the New York State Assembly from the 36th district, representing Astoria, Queens.
Earlier this year, Mamdani married Rama Duwaji, a 27-year-old Syrian artist based in Brooklyn. The couple celebrated their wedding in a small, culturally vibrant ceremony that brought together family and close friends from around the world.
Rama Duwaji’s art, spanning animation, ceramics, and painting, has been featured in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and VICE. Their marriage reflects a shared passion for social justice, creativity, and community-building.
Mamdani’s mayoral campaign is built around an ambitious progressive platform: redistributing wealth, expanding public services, and transforming urban life. Among his flagship proposals is making all city buses free by 2027, pointing to pilot programmes that showed higher ridership and fewer assaults on drivers.
He has also proposed opening one municipally owned grocery store in each borough to improve affordable, healthy food access, expanding free school meals to include city colleges, and introducing universal childcare and early education.
On public safety, Mamdani envisions shifting resources away from the New York Police Department toward a new Department of Community Safety that would include mental health professionals, crisis responders, and outreach workers.
The general election will take place on November 4, with Mamdani facing Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who lost badly in the 2021 race.
Given New York City’s overwhelming Democratic majority — with Democrats outnumbering Republicans by more than six to one — Mamdani enters the contest as the firm favourite to become the next mayor.
The last Republican to win City Hall was Michael Bloomberg in 2001.