When Zohran Mamdani finished his victory speech late Tuesday after winning the New York City mayoral race, a small crowd gathered around a man with blonde, curly hair who had watched the candidate with a satisfied smile from a corner of the stage.
Morris Katz, lead media strategist for Mamdani’s campaign, had every reason to celebrate. He was part of the team that helped shape the candidate’s stunningly successful message around three promises that resonated with voters, many of them young: a rent freeze, free buses, and universal childcare.
“There are a lot of votes to be won, and we don’t have to live confined to politics as it is. But if we dare to imagine politics as it can be, we can build that very politics,” he said after Mamdani handily defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
Katz was right: there were a lot of votes to be won on Tuesday. Mamdani’s progressive message energized New Yorkers, including many who sat out last year’s presidential election, propelling turnout to more than 2 million. That was the highest for a mayoral election since 1969, according to the New York City Board of Elections.
The surge was driven by a wave of young voters, newcomers to the city, first-time voters and renters, according to NBC News exit polls, opens new tab. Many of them were galvanized by the 34-year-old Mamdani’s proposals to lower the cost of living in the most populous U.S. city and perhaps its most expensive.
“Just the idea that someone young and new can try new ideas and bring new policies into the city was inspiring to me,” said Michael Darby, a 26-year-old bartender and actor, after voting in Brooklyn.
HISTORIC WIN DRAWS DIVERSE COALITION
Despite the youthful cast of his coalition, the Ugandan-born Mamdani – the city’s first Muslim mayor-elect and the first of South Asian descent – appealed to a broad spectrum of voters in a city known for its diversity.
He won four out of five of the city’s boroughs, cementing the lead that he had established with his surprise victory in the June primary, when he knocked off Cuomo, scion of one of the state’s most prominent political families and a heavy favorite.
Humayun Ahmed, a 62-year-old owner of a small business who moved to New York from Bangladesh decades ago, is a registered Democrat but voted for Trump in 2024, hoping for a change. This time, he cast his ballot for Mamdani, impressed by the promise to address an affordability crisis.
“You need to balance between rich and poor,” Ahmed said.
While the progressive Mamdani was clearly a banner story for Election Day 2025, he shared the limelight with two moderate Democrats – Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, elected as governors of New Jersey and Virginia, respectively.
Still, his decisive win offers at least one blueprint for foundering Democrats to find their footing in the November 2026 midterm elections, when the party hopes to pick up enough congressional seats to put the brakes on President Donald Trump’s agenda.
But failure to make good on his promises could set back the party next year and beyond.
