Democratic Socialist leader Zohran Mamdani officially defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday — formally securing the party nomination for the Mayoral election in November. His victory had been widely expected after the 33-year-old took a commanding lead soon after polls closed last week. However the ranked choice voting had kicked into effect as none of the nominees managed to secure the 50% threshold needed to avoid another count. Cuomo had conceded the elections soon after the first round of voting indicated a stunning upset for his campaign.
The Associated Press called the race after the results of the city’s ranked-choice voting tabulation were released and showed Mamdani trouncing Cuomo by 12 percentage points. Mamdani had declared victory on June 24 (hours after the Democratic primary) and will now face a general election field that includes incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, independent candidate Jim Walden, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
“I am humbled by the support of more than 545,000 New Yorkers in last week’s primary. This is just the beginning of our expanding coalition to make New York City affordable. And we will do it together…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,” Mamdani said on Tuesday.
His meteoric rise in popularity has also caught the eye of US President Donald Trump — prompting several jibes about his policies and false claims that Mamdani was “here illegally”. The POTUS had also warned that the Mayoral candidate would “have to do the right thing” or face financial pressure from the federal government if elected. He was however quick to dismiss the possibility and insisted that Mamdani’s victory was “inconceivable” because he was a “pure communist” candidate.
“Let’s say this, if he does get in, I’m going to be president and he is going to have to do the right thing, but they’re not getting any money. He’s got to do right thing. It’s shocking that I would have assumed that. I used to say we will never have a socialist in this country. No, but we’ll have a communist. I mean, he’s a communist, he’s gonna be mayor of New York,” Trump told Fox News.