In a quiet and unassuming coffee shop in Astoria, a once affordable, diverse neighborhood in Queens where rent is skyrocketing to the heights of other parts of New York, a man in a black jacket sits against the window.
He doesn’t look the part of a large metropolitan city’s typical politician, but Zohran Mamdani represents this area in the state legislature as the assembly member for district 36 – the first south Asian man in the state assembly and only its third Muslim.
On Wednesday, Mamdani, 33, announced his candidacy for mayor of New York.
“There is a representation of sets of voters that typically, in the very best scenario, have been erased from the political fabric, and in the worst scenario, have been persecuted by the political system in the city,” Mamdani told the Guardian.
“I represent Steinway Street – the same street that Michael Bloomberg created the demographics unit within the NYPD to illegally surveil Muslims on the basis of our faith [after 9/11]. And now the representative of that street is going to run for the same position that created that department.”
Mamdani is a millennial who watches Love Island and Love is Blind. And before he was elected as a local representative in 2020, he assumed many identities, including a foreclosure prevention counselor and failed rapper – a career he said helped prepare him for this very moment.
“I would stand and rap with this guy in the equivalent of a 14-seater public bus. As we waited for the bus to fill up, we would try and sell our CD,” Mamdani recounted.
“Once you’ve done that, it’s a lot easier to ask people on the Broadway platform of the N/W train if they’ll sign your petition to get on the ballot.”
Before moving to Queens at the age of seven and taking over local leftist politics, Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to parents Mahmood Mamdani, a Columbia University professor who specializes in study of colonialism, and Mira Nair, a director and producer of Mississippi Masala starring Denzel Washington and the film adaptation of the Reluctant Fundamentalist.
When asked if he considers himself a nepo baby, Mamdani is diplomatic in his response.
“I’ll leave that to others. There have definitely been opportunities that have been afforded to me,” Mamdani, who worked on the soundtrack for one of his mom’s films, Queen of Katwe starring Lupita Nyong’o, said.
“But in local politics, I don’t think it has meant that much to the people of Astoria and Long Island City.”
Though nearly a year away, the New York mayoral race is already crowded. The city’s comptroller Brad Lander threw his hat in the race in July; the Democratic primary, so far, includes two state senators, Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, as well as former comptroller and current assembly member, Scott Stringer.
All of these candidates, including Mamdani, may also have to challenge incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who says he still plans on finishing his term and running for re-election – despite facing federal charges of bribery and fraud for allegedly accepting foreign campaign contributions and lavish gifts from Turkish nationals.
A socialist, Mamdani distinguishes himself from the pack on political ideology – but it probably doesn’t hurt that he’s young, charming and often addresses large crowds with Obama-esque orations.
“We are here to say these struggles are interconnected – whether it’s BLM or BDS, it’s all about justice. We are here to say you cannot disentangle this fight for freedom. You will not scare us away from this call for justice,” Mamdani said into a loudspeaker in Astoria Park during a 2021 protest against the Israeli occupation in the aftermath of violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Unlike many other politicians, Mamdani doesn’t avoid the topic of Palestine. He cofounded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and has fought to make it a local issue.
“I think Palestine has often been a glaring contradiction in our politics for many, many years. I could not understand why we would draw a line at universal beliefs when it came to Palestinians, why we thought that everyone deserved safety, everyone deserved justice, everyone deserve freedom, except for a certain class of people,” Mamdani said.
“As we’ve seen over the past year with the genocide that our country has funded and continues to fund – an Israeli military bombing campaign that has expanded into Lebanon and Syria and Yemen – we are continuing in this country to find money to kill kids while we tell public housing tenants that we don’t have enough money to fix their boilers.”
The cost of living crisis plaguing New Yorkers is another issue Mamdani cares deeply for, which he said stems from his time as a foreclosure prevention counselor. During that time, he negotiated with lenders and the city on behalf of low- to middle-income homeowners in Queens who were delinquent on their mortgage payments and on the brink of eviction.
“What I will bring to this race is an explicit and relentless focus to the number one issue of importance to New York City voters,” Mamdani said. “They can’t afford their rent. They can’t afford their childcare. They can’t afford transit. They can’t afford their groceries.
“The mayor has an incredible set of powers to provide relief in each of those areas, and yet, at every opportunity that has been given is almost always taken the decision to exacerbate the cost of living crisis, and that’s why working-class New Yorkers are being pushed out of the city that they built, the one that they call home.”
The young politician has built somewhat of a reputation for putting his body on the line for the causes he supports, sometimes literally. Mamdani is credited by hundreds of the city’s taxi drivers for helping secure life-changing debt relief for them.
In 2021, Mamdani went on a 15-day hunger strike to protest of predatory loans that targeted the taxi drivers who purchased “medallions”, the physical certificate required to operate a yellow cab. The city eventually caved and struck a deal with medallion loan guarantors, securing $450m in transformative debt relief for these drivers.
It was just one of the “handful of times” Mamdani was arrested for a cause.
Mamdani was arrested again earlier this year at Hunter College, where the city’s rent guidelines board voted to increase the rents of rent-stabilized tenants 2.75% on one-year leases and 5.25% on two-year leases. If elected, Mamdani says he will immediately freeze these tenants’ rent upon assuming office.
His policies have already garnered the support of one group: the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The organization, which helped elect fellow socialist US house representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who also represents some of the same areas as Mamdani at the federal level, endorsed Mamdani on Saturday.
“NYC-DSA has officially decided to endorse Zohran Mamdani in the June 2025 Democratic primary election for mayor of New York City,” the political organization told members after its annual convention. “Now, it’s time for us to get to work to replace our corrupt, autocratic mayor with a proven socialist and a cadre-member of NYC-DSA.”
Mamdani said he plans to work – every day of his campaign – on making New York more affordable.
“We all love this city, and yet it doesn’t mean much if we can’t afford to stay here. We don’t want New York to be a symbol. We don’t want it to just be something that is unattainable for so many. We want it to be where people live, grow old and raise families.”
