ZOHRAN Mamdani, 34, will be the first South Asian man as well as the first Ugandan and the first Muslim to be the Mayor of New York.
He will be inaugurated on January 1, 2026.
Mamdani was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, moving to New York City with his family at the age of 7. A graduate of the NYC Public School System, he attended the Bronx High School of Science and received a Bachelor’s Degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College. A few years later in 2018, he became naturalized as an American citizen, according to his biography at nyassembly.gov.
His mom is Indian filmmaker Mira Nair (“Mississippi Masala” and “Monsoon Wedding”) and his dad is Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University. Mamdani recently married Rama Duwaji, an artist of Syrian descent.
Prior to representing the 36th Assembly District of the New York State Assembly and its neighborhoods of Astoria, Ditmars-Steinway, and Astoria Heights, Zohran, who is a three-term state assemblyman, worked as a foreclosure prevention housing counselor, helping low-income homeowners of color across Queens fight off eviction and stay in their homes. It was this job that led him to run for office.
Mamdani beat former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo again; Mamdani had defeated him in the June Democratic primary as well. He told his wildly cheering supporters on Tuesday night that they had “toppled a political dynasty.”
As CNN notes: “He inherits a deeply complex city home to 8.5 million people, a large bureaucracy, a municipal workforce of roughly 300,000 and a city budget of $115 billion.”
In his victory speech, Mamdani quoted India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s midnight speech of 1947, when India gained independence from Britain: “A moment comes but rarely in history when we step out from the old to the new. When an age ends and the soul of a nation finds utterance. Tonight, we step out from the old to the new.”
He also mocked U.S. President Donald Trump, saying: “New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and as of tonight, led by an immigrant. If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”
It was a bad night for Trump and the Republicans as Democrats were victorious in governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia. Also, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50 – to draw new congressional district boundaries – was approved by voters.
