The Historic Rise of Zohran Mamdani: Democracy Now! Coverage from 2021 Hunger Strike to Election Night

AMY GOODMAN: In this Democracy Now! special, we look at the rise of New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. On November 4th, he made history by winning the race to become the next mayor of New York City. The democratic socialist is the first Muslim and first person of South Asian descent elected to lead the largest city in the United States. At 34 years old, he’s also the youngest person elected to the office in over a century. His meteoric rise from a little-known state assemblymember to his stunning upset over former Governor Andrew Cuomo has sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party.

Today, we spend the hour hearing Zohran Mamdani in his own words and look at the grassroots campaign behind him. Mamdani was born in Uganda and moved to New York as a child. His parents are the acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani. In 2020, Zohran Mamdani won a seat in the New York Assembly representing Astoria, Queens.

In October 2021, Mamdani appeared on Democracy Now! for the first time while taking part in a 15-day hunger strike to demand debt relief for New York taxi drivers.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I’m participating in solidarity with the Taxi Worker Alliance and to try and bring to light what the consequences are of the city’s inaction for many years and now their completely insufficient plan for debt relief, because, you know, it is — we started this hunger strike last Wednesday. We’ve now completed seven full days of being without food, one of the most basic elements of dignity. And the consequences we have seen in our own bodies — you know, an inability to sleep, unrelenting hunger, moments of blurred vision, stress, headaches — these are the same consequences that I heard drivers talk about when they say what the physical realities are of being hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, unable to take care of your family and seeing no way out. So, it’s important for us as legislators to bring to light what it is that people are suffering from out of view of those in the political elite, and bring it right front and center in front of City Hall.

AMY GOODMAN: In 2022, New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani came back on Democracy Now! after the Republican Party won control of the House of Representatives, in part because Republicans flipped four seats in New York.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: You can only get so far presenting a negative version of the Republican vision. We can only get so far telling people that “Vote to defeat Lee Zeldin.” We need to have an affirmative vision. The Working Families Party has laid out what that vision could look like, and now the Democratic Party needs to do so, as well.

And when I think about that, I think particularly about two issues: housing and the climate crisis. Right? More than 75% of New Yorkers across the state are concerned about rising rents, and more than 67% believe that we need to pass good cause eviction as a means by which to keep those rents under control.

AMY GOODMAN: In October 2023, I spoke to Zohran Mamdani when he took part in a historic protest when the group Jewish Voice for Peace and their allies shut down the main terminal of Grand Central Station during rush hour to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: My name is Zohran Mamdani. I’m an assemblymember for parts of Astoria and Long Island City. And I’m here today to join thousands of Jewish New Yorkers, rabbis and allies to say that the time is now for an immediate ceasefire.

AMY GOODMAN: What does it mean to you that on this Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, thousands of Jews are here at Grand Central saying “Ceasefire now”?

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: It shows that what we have been told about the consent for this genocide is not true. So many of the Jewish New Yorkers here are struggling through heartbreak and mourning of October 7th, and they have made it very clear that do not use their heartbreak, their tragedy as the justification for the genocide of Palestinians. In over two-and-a-half weeks, we’ve already seen more than 7,000 Palestinians be killed, close to 3,000 Palestinian children, one Palestinian child killed every 15 minutes. These New Yorkers, and so many across the state, are saying the time is now for a ceasefire, and if you’re not calling for it, you’re supporting a genocide.

AMY GOODMAN: Last October, Mamdani joined Democracy Now! as he launched his mayoral campaign, and laid out the platform he’s now known for.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: We are going to freeze the rent for every single rent-stabilized tenant for every single year of the mayoralty. We are going to make buses free and fast across this entire city. And we are going to enact universal child care at no cost for all New Yorkers for children from the ages of 6 weeks to 5 years. These are the policies that will set us apart, and these are the policies that resonate with New Yorkers’ concerns.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And if you could talk some more about your stance on the war in Gaza, which clearly — or, in the Palestinian territories, which clearly is not normally a plank of a candidate for mayor in New York City, but certainly will affect how people vote?

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: You know, I think there’s tremendous anger and alienation across New York City today, whether it’s theses corruption crises or the cost of living or the fact that our tax dollars are continuing to fund a genocide across Palestine. And what voters are looking for is someone who can speak clearly to that crisis of confidence and of faith in the power of government to be a positive force in people’s lives, and to offer them a vision that is worth believing in.

And that is what I am going to do in this campaign, is to put forward an economic agenda that puts working-class New Yorkers first, all while recognizing the world as it actually is, which is one where there is a hierarchy of human life that the United States government is following that states it is fine for Palestinians and Lebanese and Syrians and Yemenis to be killed, because that is simply the worth that they have in the eyes of our federal government.

AMY GOODMAN: Over the next 12 months, Mamdani would rise in the polls from last place to first, shocking the political establishment by building a historic grassroots coalition. In June, he defeated disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: In the words of Nelson Mandela, it always seems impossible until it is done. My friends, we have done it. I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City.

AMY GOODMAN: Zohran Mamdani came back on Democracy Now! in September, hours after New York Mayor Eric Adams ended his reelection campaign. Mamdani talked about his plans to “Trump-proof” New York City following the president’s threat to cut off federal funds to New York if Mamdani won the general election.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: You know, I think it’s — it is a sad reality in this country, where we have a president who ran an entire campaign premised on cheaper groceries and lowering the cost of living, and what he has instead delivered, time and again, is an exacerbating of that very crisis, all while focusing on the persecution of his supposed political enemies. And when we talk about Trump-proofing the city, it’s not just the question of hiring the 200 additional lawyers at our law department to bring us back to the staffing levels prior to the pandemic. It’s a question of actually standing up and fighting Donald Trump, and fighting Donald Trump because what his agenda is doing is endangering the welfare of New Yorkers.

This bill that he recently ushered through Washington, D.C., it throws millions of New Yorkers off of their healthcare. It steals SNAP benefits from so many hungry New Yorkers. And it does all of this in the interest of the largest wealth transfer that we’ve seen in this country. And to do those things while speaking about a cost-of-living crisis, it is truly a betrayal of so much of what his campaign was premised on, and an illustration of why he is so fearful of our campaign, because, unlike him, we don’t just diagnose this crisis, we will deliver on it. We will actually ensure that we have New Yorkers who can afford the city that they call home, that we freeze the rent for more than 2 million New Yorkers, we make buses fast and free, which are currently the slowest ones in the nation, and we deliver universal child care. And that’s what Donald Trump is afraid of: the stark contrast between our delivery of those things and what he has done as the president of this country. …

New Yorkers are facing twin crises: authoritarianism from Washington, D.C., and an affordability crisis from the inside. And we often tend to separate these out. We think about democracy as an ideal that must be protected, but not that democracy also has to be able to deliver on the material needs of working people. And it was Fiorello La Guardia that said, “You cannot preach … liberty to a starving land.” You have to be able to deliver on both fronts.

AMY GOODMAN: Zohran Mamdani on Democracy Now! in September. Coming up, we look at how working-class South Asians helped propel Mamdani to victory.

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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

In this holiday special, we’re continuing to look at the rise of New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Just prior to the November election, Democracy Now!‘s Anjali Kamat filed this report looking at a crucial, often overlooked portion of Mamdani’s base: working-class South Asians.

ANJALI KAMAT: It’s Friday afternoon in a quiet neighborhood in Kensington, Brooklyn. These women are members of DRUM Beats, an advocacy group for low-income South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities here in New York. and they’re getting ready to canvass for Zohran Mamdani.

KAZI FOUZIA: So, half of the list, you’re going to cover with them. Then they will — they will find them.

ANJALI KAMAT: They split up into groups, and I followed them as they knocked on dozens of doors. Armed with colorful flyers about the campaign in Bengali and Urdu and dozens of Zohran pins, they explained why they thought Mamdani was the best candidate, and reminded neighbors about early-voting times and locations.

DRUM BEATS CANVASSER: So, November 4th is the final vote. As-salamu alaykum.

ANJALI KAMAT: Their enthusiasm was infectious, often bursting into Bengali chants of “My mayor, your mayor.”

DRUM BEATS CANVASSERS: Āmāra mēẏara, tōmāra mēẏara. Āmāra mēẏara, tōmāra mēẏara. Āmāra mēẏara, tōmāra mēẏara.

ANJALI KAMAT: And for the most part, it seemed to work. I spoke to Fahd Ahmed, who runs DRUM Beats, which stands for Desis — or South Asians — Rising Up and Moving. Their organization was among the very first to endorse Zohran’s run for mayor last year.

FAHD AHMED: Many people will say that, “Oh, well, it’s a South Asian-descended candidate, and so it must be an identity thing.” But we’ve had several South Asian or Indo-Caribbean candidates, and none of them elicited this response. And I think the fact that the campaign spoke to the very material issues of working-class people has, first and foremost, has really made a very significant difference.

ANJALI KAMAT: I also spoke to Jagpreet Singh, DRUM Beats’ political director, who’s in charge of endorsing political candidates and getting the vote out.

JAGPREET SINGH: When Zohran had come to us, to begin with, he said his base, the base he was looking at, were three planks. Number one was the leftist progressives. His second plank was rent-stabilized tenants. And the third was Muslim and South Asian communities, communities that have not been previously galvanized, have not been previously activated, usually have some of the lowest voter turnout rates. So, from the get-go, our communities were going to be a big part of his base.

ANJALI KAMAT: Kazi Fouzia moved to New York City from Bangladesh in 2008. Now she’s DRUM’s organizing director. The tireless campaigning by women like her was crucial to Zohran’s victory in the primaries. In some neighborhoods, voter turnout among South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities doubled.

KAZI FOUZIA: Just 24/7, they are thinking how to win. Some of them work in the cafeteria in the school. Some of them also work in the retail store. Some of them are home health worker, take care of the patient. One of my leader actually restoring ship. They are not only just volunteers. They build, actually, movement.

ANJALI KAMAT: After a long evening of canvassing, they’re back at the office only to get ready for more of the same the next day and every day after until the elections.

KAZI FOUZIA: These all tired people come together and creating movement to show the world how political campaign supposed to be looked like. The early vote kick-off.

CAMPAIGNER: Six, seven million voters. In June, we won the primary because of historic numbers of new voters that turned out. We changed the electorate.

ANJALI KAMAT: Earlier this month, Zohran Mamdani addressed an excited crowd of supporters at a Bangladeshi restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens.

ANNOUNCER: And up next now we hear from the Zohran Mamdani!

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: What we did in the primary is we increased the turnout of Muslims by 60%, the turnout of South Asians by 40%. And when I stood in front of the world and gave a speech that night, I made sure to remember the Bangladeshi aunties that knocked on the doors across this city. And people have asked me, “What will it mean to have a Muslim mayor?” What my grandmother Kulsum taught me, that to be a good Muslim is to be a good person. It is to help those in need and to harm no one. The truth of this campaign, it is a truth that believes in each one of the people in this room and their possibility. It is the truth that looks at the youngest among us and sees that they could be anything in this city, anything they want.

ANJALI KAMAT: At the Jackson Heights farmers’ market that weekend, the high school students who met Mamdani at the restaurant were still thinking about his words.

MOHINI MEHBOOBA: If I could run for mayor, I think I would have a lot of great ideas, just like Zohran, making New York City affordable. I want to be able to live here without any worry about paying rent. I know I’m just 17, but I want to be able to move out next year and experience living in the city, because I know, even for my family, it’s really hard to pay the rent. So, yeah.

ANJALI KAMAT: Mohini Mehbooba is one of the youth members of DRUM Beats. A talented artist, Mohini was giving people henna tattoos that spelled “Zohran.”

MOHINI MEHBOOBA: We work so hard phone banking, canvassing. And I love doing it, and I’m going to do some more today, hopefully. And it’s just a really good feeling to do something that will be able to change for us, as well.

PHONE BANKER: Thank you so much.

ANJALI KAMAT: At the DRUM Beats office in Jackson Heights, there’s a different group of people phone banking every afternoon. They’re reaching out to communities in a variety of South Asian languages, with volunteers making calls in Nepali, Urdu and Bengali. A group of high school students are also making calls — in between joking around.

SAMMY: Hey. My name is Sammy, and I am a high school volunteer for the Zohran Mamdani’s campaign. Have you ever heard about Zohran Mamdani? Are you planning to vote for him on the Election Day, November 4th?

ANJALI KAMAT: High school student Miftahun Mohona explains why she’s passionate about campaigning for Zohran Mamdani.

MIFTAHUN MOHONA: Even though I’m not at the age to vote, not yet, I still care about, like, people above 18, like for them to vote for Zohran, because the thing is, if they vote for the — if they vote for the right person, that also benefits me, because I live in a world where it’s very corrupt, and every action that the people over 18 taking, like voting, their action means a lot to me, as well, because I come from a working-class family. We don’t have many benefits. We don’t have much resources.

ANJALI KAMAT: Across working-class South Asian communities in the city, there’s a deep belief that Zohran Mamdani will stand up for them if he becomes mayor. A big reason for that is his role in the taxi workers’ protest against medallion debt back in 2021. When the drivers decided to go on a hunger strike, Assemblyman Mamdani joined them for the full 15 days. Kazi Fouzia remembers how moved the community was.

KAZI FOUZIA: I saw how long he’s doing the hunger strike, and he almost die in that time. So I feel this call, actually, real solidarity. Solidarity, not just come and talk and leave. Solidarity, also he put his body frontline.

ANJALI KAMAT: DRUM, or Desis Rising Up and Moving, was founded in Jackson Heights, Queens, in 2000 as a membership organization of low-wage South Asian and Indo-Caribbean workers and youth. For most of its history, their membership has faced the brunt of domestic repression and hate crimes that followed the September 11th attacks. Kazi Fouzia found herself the target of NYPD surveillance when she started organizing in immigrant Muslim communities.

KAZI FOUZIA: I came 2008 this country, and I used to work in retail store in Jackson Heights. And that time, I’m doing volunteering organizing with the DRUM, and one day I found informer behind me.

ANJALI KAMAT: A few years later, as hate crimes against South Asian immigrants spiked again, many people suggested she stopped wearing her hijab.

KAZI FOUZIA: People asked me, 2013, “You should take off your hijab because it’s not safe anymore.” We saw how much isolations and fear community have after 9/11.

ANJALI KAMAT: Jagreet Singh remembers his Sikh family members cutting their hair and beards and wearing American flag T-shirts to stay safe after 9/11.

JAGPREET SINGH: This is a reality we lived with for a long time, that we had to hide ourselves, that we had to retreat back, that we had to fight for everything that we wanted. And we’re in this reality now where Zohran Mamdani is about to become mayor of our city, a very outward Muslim man, South Asian, who is very much into his identity, who does not hide his identity.

ANJALI KAMAT: From the shadows of post-9/11 repression and fear, the Mamdani campaign has given this community a new sense of political confidence and purpose.

KAZI FOUZIA: So, if you see now our member, our community member, our religious leader, our neighbors, all now talking, talking, talking for Zohran. If they go back to 9/11 era and they try to talk about Islamophobia, xenophobia, it’s not going to sell. It’s not going to sell. It’s over. People are not going to go back the isolating zone anymore. If they try to implementing this, they will push back.

ANJALI KAMAT: If Zohran Mamdani wins the mayoral election, DRUM Beats, like other progressive groups that backed Mamdani from the start, could find themselves in a brand-new role: collaborating with the administration to govern the city. It’s been a long journey from advocating for those on the margins to potentially having a seat at the table. Here’s Jagpreet Singh again.

JAGPREET SINGH: Talks about what the administration would look like are still a little premature, but the campaign and the administration has been very willing to work with organizations like ours at DRUM Beats. It feels amazing to see that we now get to take up leadership, that we get to not only have a seat at the table but run how our city runs. It’s not just going to happen by him being in office, no matter how charismatic he is.

ANJALI KAMAT: Kazi Fouzia says that if Mamdani wins the race but is unable to keep his campaign promises down the road, their members will not hesitate to push his administration and hold their feet to the fire.

KAZI FOUZIA: Zohran make impossible possible in his grassroot movement, too, in the mayoral campaign. So Zohran have to keep his promises and fulfill his commitment. And we will be support all the time him. And also, if he don’t fulfill or keep his promises, we will hold him accountable.

ANJALI KAMAT: In the event of a Mamdani victory, his administration will not face an easy path. People like Fahd Ahmed are already preparing for how to confront the many challenges and threats that may come, whether from the Trump administration or Wall Street and real estate interests.

FAHD AHMED: Our side, there will be real challenges of trying to run a city as a left, when we don’t have extensive experience of doing that. But how it is that we govern, tending to the actual material needs that come up in day-to-day administration of the city, while having a vision that is transformative, that does believe that cities and society can be shaped differently and can function in ways that actually meet the needs of everyday working people.

MAMDANI SUPPORTERS: Zohran! Zohran! Zohran! Zohran! Zohran!

ANJALI KAMAT: But for now, the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities that have been pounding the pavement for Mamdani couldn’t be more excited for a potential Zohran Mamdani victory — and their new role in the spotlight.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI: We choose the future, because for all those who say our time is coming, my friends, our time is now.

ANJALI KAMAT: For Democracy Now!, this is Anjali Kamat, with Nicole Salazar. Thanks to Rehan Ansari.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was looking at some of the organizing leading to Zohran Mamdani’s victory. Coming up, we hear Zohran Mamdani in his own words after he won the New York mayoral race in what Senator Bernie Sanders called “one of the great political upsets in modern American history.” Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

In this holiday special, we’re continuing to look at the rise of Zohran Mamdani. On election night, Democracy Now! was at Mamdani’s victory party at the historic Brooklyn Paramount, where more than a thousand people packed in. We spoke to some of his supporters and organizers as the election results started coming in.

SUMAYA AWAD: My name is Sumaya Awad, and I’m a member of New York City DSA. And I am — to say I’m excited and ecstatic and relieved is an understatement. I mean, we have fought so hard for this, right before the primary, and then now, in the last couple of months and last couple weeks and today. I’ve been canvassing since 9 a.m. And I feel exhausted, but it’s the best kind of exhausted, because it’s exhaustion from something that I believe in with every fiber of my body and that I know that the majority of New Yorkers believe in. And we haven’t felt that — I haven’t felt that in my lifetime.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what it is you believe in.

SUMAYA AWAD: It’s a politician and an agenda that is truly for working-class people, and one that doesn’t put the platform and the mission at the expense of anyone. He has not left anyone out of what he is fighting for, and he’s made it clear. Whether you support him or not, he is fighting for us.

AMY GOODMAN: What did you say?

RUBY: NBC just called it for Zohran.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you think?

RUBY: I’m so, so happy. I’ve been awake since 4:30 in the morning today, out canvassing in Park Slope and Prospect Heights. And we’ve been working towards this for a year, and I’m just so happy to win the New York City that we deserve.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s your name? Where are you from?

RUBY: My name is Ruby. I live in Crown Heights. Whoo!

AMY GOODMAN: Hi.

HARRISON: How’s it going?

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell me your names? And what do you think?

HARRISON: I’m Harrison, and I’m thrilled. We’ve been canvassing since February, January, and it’s so happy to see all of our work pay off.

JANIE: It feels surreal that it’s actually here and that it’s happening, yeah. It’s so crazy.

AMY GOODMAN: What does it about Zohran Mamdani that led you to support him? And what is your name?

JANIE: I’m Janie. He just has inspired hope, I feel like, across the city in a way that no one has in a long time. Yeah, a lot of us didn’t want to vote for a Democrat who we felt like we had to, you know, choose over another person. So, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: As you can hear, they have just called it for Zohran Mamdani. And here we are in the Brooklyn Paramount. What’s your name? What are your thoughts?

BEN: My name is Ben. I couldn’t be more excited. I couldn’t be more excited.

AMY GOODMAN: What group are you with?

BEN: I’m an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace. We’ve worked really hard for this moment. I’m so excited to celebrate with everybody.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you think you’d see this day?

BEN: I was confident. I was confident. Yeah, yeah. Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you say about Donald Trump saying today that any Jew who votes for Zohran Mamdani is stupid?

BEN: It’s antisemitic nonsense. I mean, it’s bigotry, plain and simple. And we’re sick of antisemitism being weaponized against Palestinian people and against our own communities, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you want to see Zohran Mamdani do as mayor?

BEN: Making New York City a city for everybody, a city we can afford, a city where people can lead dignified lives.

ROULA HAJJAR: My name is Roula Hajjar. I really — I don’t know what to say. I mean, it’s been a very hard few years with the genocide, and this is the first good news that we’ve had, it feels like, like truly, truly good news, something to really look forward to and celebrate.

AMY GOODMAN: What about local issues here in New York? What most appeals to you about Mamdani?

ROULA HAJJAR: Well, I mean, I think that — so, I’m a social worker by training, and I think that the way that he is construing public safety issues as not — you know, not criminalizing mental health issues is very, very significant and, I think, will change how we think of safety and security in New York City, which is something that I know is on the minds of a lot of people.

JAGPREET SINGH: My name is Jagpreet Singh. I’m the political director at DRUM Beats. And I feel amazing. I feel ecstatic. I’m on top of the world. It’s going to be a couple of days until I come back down.

NABILA: Hi. My name is Nabila. I’m a youth organizer at DRUM Beats.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s well known that while young people are very enthusiastic, they’re the least likely to vote.

NABILA: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s your response to that?

NABILA: I think this just goes to show when we have a candidate that actually cares about the popular issues that affect everyone, and someone who’s charismatic and who doesn’t talk down to youth, you finally have a youth that’s ready to show the energy they’ve always had. It’s just that they’ve been marginalized all this time.

KEANU ARPELS–JOSIAH: Hi. My name is Keanu Arpels-Josiah. I’m with Sunrise Movement New York City.

AMY GOODMAN: So, what are your feelings right now?

KEANU ARPELS–JOSIAH: I’m joyful. This is the beginning of a new future for New York City, a future where we have a politics that works for our generation, for affordability, fights the climate crisis, fights the billionaire class taking over our government, stands up to fascism and stands up for our issues. This is a moment where all of politics is changing. New York City is changing. New York City is standing up and demanding a different future for our world, for our country and for our city. I couldn’t be more excited.

AMY GOODMAN: How will it change what you do?

KEANU ARPELS–JOSIAH: It means the same for us in some ways, and it means everything is different in other ways. It means collaboration. It means a politics of working with those in office to deliver the agenda, but it also means a politics of accountability. We need to be with Zohran celebrating today, and we need to be talking with him tomorrow to make his agenda a reality. We need to be standing alongside. We can’t just be yelling at each other. But we have to have collaboration and accountability. And it means we need to fight Governor Hochul, who’s trying to build fossil fuel pipelines through New York City, that Mamdani opposes. We need to fight to tax the rich. And we need to fight Washington as it attacks our communities.

SIMONE ZIMMERMAN: My name is Simone Zimmerman. I’m a part of the Jews for Zohran campaign. I’m a board member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice Action. And I’m over the moon. I don’t know. This is it.

Trump called the Jews who voted for Zohran stupid. But look, we’re in a moment right now where we have an administration that is using racism and fear and is sowing terror in cities around the country. And Jews are not different from any other Americans. We see the hatred and the racism that they’re spreading, and we’re terrified of it. And despite the fact that millions of dollars were poured into this race to scare the living daylights out of Jewish voters, I think we’re going to see so many people see in Zohran a vision of safety and belonging in the city that they want to be part of, despite the fact that over and over again they were told, “You don’t belong. You don’t belong.” Zohran worked so hard to go to synagogues, to reach out to Jewish communities across the city, Jewish communities of such ideological and religious diversity, and say, “You belong here.” And I think people believe him, and I think that tonight we’re seeing that.

FAHD AHMED: My name is Fahd Ahmed, and I’m the director of DRUM Beats. This campaign was successful because it had a movement behind it, and it was successful because it spoke to the material needs of people.

AMY GOODMAN: This is a very strong message to the entire country. It’s not only Republicans who were organized against Mayor Mamdani. It’s the Democratic Party, as well. What are your thoughts on that?

FAHD AHMED: Yeah. You know, in our work, we talk about that the — it is the policies of the centrists, whether they’re Democrats or some of the old Republicans, that created the conditions that caused the rise of the right. When people’s needs aren’t being met, they need an alternative, and so far, only the far right was providing an alternative in the form of authoritarianism, in the form of fascism, in the form of hate, turning against immigrants, against queer people, against Muslims. And what this campaign and our movement was able to do was offer a left alternative.

JAMES DAVIS: I’m James Davis. I’m the president of the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, the CUNY faculty and staff union.

AMY GOODMAN: You were among the first unions to endorse Zohran Mamdani.

JAMES DAVIS: We were. I mean, we’ve known Zohran since his time in the Assembly. So we knew that even though he was a long-shot candidate, he would have tremendous message discipline. And in a time like now, when there’s Trumpism from the federal government, we also knew that his message was going to resonate among working New Yorkers.

We see what President Trump has done with the budget bill as a massive transfer of wealth to the already wealthiest. So, part of our agenda is making sure that there’s additional progressive taxation, so that the public services, including the City University of New York, can be properly funded, so we can have not just an affordable education, but a high-quality education that our students deserve.

JASMINE GRIPPER: Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the New York state Working Families Party. We are feeling proud of our success. We endorsed Zohran early. And tonight he got over 140,000 votes on the Working Families ballot line. He himself voted for himself on the Working Families ballot line. So, we’re ready to continue to build power to make his agenda a reality, to help all New Yorkers.

WALEED SHAHID: Waleed Shahid. I’m a political strategist. I’m South Asian. I’m Muslim. I think the campaign that Zohran started was based on the fact that so many Muslim Americans, South Asian Americans, Arab Americans felt left out of the Democratic Party because of the party’s support of Benjamin Netanyahu’s war crimes. And Zohran made an effort to include those people in the Democratic Party, in the Democratic primary process, in a way that so many politicians were unwilling to do. And I think you’re seeing the results of that tonight, is that not only was it Muslims and South Asians and Arabs, but young Jews, young people of all backgrounds, wanted to see a candidate who had conviction and courage, whether it was about opposing war and genocide or standing up to the real estate lobby in this city, that they want a candidate who is consistent. And I think Zohran represents that in many ways and is like the — represents the future of a lot of what American politics is going to look like.

SHAHANA HANIF: I’m Shahana Hanif, New York City councilmember representing the 39th District in Brooklyn, which includes Park Slope, Kensington. And I feel amazing.

AMY GOODMAN: So, how will the City Council operate differently now with Mayor Mamdani?

SHAHANA HANIF: Look, we’ll have a partner. We will have a partner who shares similar values and a progressive agenda, that has not been supported by Mayor Adams. You know, we had a mayor who consistently vetoed signature legislation that would transform New Yorkers’ lives. He vetoed ending solitary confinement in our city jails. He vetoed adding more accountability and transparency to our police force. He vetoed expanding vouchers for people who are in shelters, warehoused for years. This mayor, this new mayor, cares so deeply about the working people, the working-class people of New York City, and his agenda is more aligned with the current progressive — with the current progressive New York City Council.

KHALID LATIF: My name is Khalid Latif. I’m the director of the Islamic Center of New York City.

AMY GOODMAN: So, here you are. Zohran Mamdani is about to take the stage. He has won the race for mayor. He will be the first Muslim mayor. Did you ever think you’d see this day?

KHALID LATIF: Yeah, you know, it’s so remarkable. I’ve known Zohran for years, and everything you see him to be and he presents himself as is who he actually is — really sincere, deep conviction, a genuine love for people. And I think for us as Muslims in New York City, with so much of the rhetoric that we’ve seen over decades, but especially ramping up into this night, for him to come and win this so quickly, and so many people from so many walks of life being here behind him tonight, just is a testament to who it is he is. It’s really remarkable. Yeah, there we go.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you read that for me, what it says on the screen?

KHALID LATIF: Zohran right now has over 50% of the votes, 972,000 votes in total. And it’s just going to keep coming in. He’s a remarkable young man, and New York is behind him right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you think this was possible?

KHALID LATIF: You know, I think, early on, when he started, people probably didn’t know what to expect. But as things started to go, I was there the night of the primary, and just the hope that was in the room and the sheer shock that people had that he won so quickly, I think everybody knew we were going to get to this place right now. And it’s just the start of a lot of good things.

MAMDANI SUPPORTER: I!

MAMDANI SUPPORTERS: I!

MAMDANI SUPPORTER: I believe!

MAMDANI SUPPORTERS: I believe!

MAMDANI SUPPORTER: I believe that we!

MAMDANI SUPPORTERS: I believe that we!

MAMDANI SUPPORTER: I believe that we have won!

MAMDANI SUPPORTERS: I believe that we have won! I believe that we have won! I believe that we have won!

AMY GOODMAN: Some of the many supporters and organizers at Zohran Mamdani’s victory party at the Brooklyn Paramount as they learned Mamdani had won the New York mayoral race, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. At mamdani’s celebration, I also had a chance to speak briefly with Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

AMY GOODMAN: The new mayor of New York City, the first Muslim mayor of New York. Your thoughts?

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO–CORTEZ: I mean, Zohran Mamdani, of course, a historic candidate, a tremendous moment for the people of New York. We showed that we’re not going to be bullied. We’re not going to be intimidated. We’re going to fight for working families. We’re going to stand with immigrants. We’re going to stand with the diversity of this city. And we’re also going to make sure that, first and foremost, that this is a city that working people will not be displaced out of.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you say to President Trump, who says he’ll withhold billions of dollars from New York, make it impossible for Zohran Mamdani to govern?

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO–CORTEZ: Well, you know, I think — I think that President Trump was born in New York City, and he knows that if you mess with New York, you mess with the whole country. And so, you know, I think this isn’t a city that doesn’t fight back.

AMY GOODMAN: I also spoke with the Canadian journalist, author and activist and professor Naomi Klein.

AMY GOODMAN: Start off by saying your name and your feelings right now.

NAOMI KLEIN: My name is Naomi Klein. And I’m levitating. This is such an incredible proof of concept of how to fight fascism. You know, Zohran, immediately after Trump’s election, went out and talked to Trump voters, people who had never voted for Trump before, Black and Brown people in working-class neighborhoods, didn’t vilify them, just listened to them.

I talked to Zohran for the first time a week after Trump’s election. And what he said to me was everything is broken for people. Like, the elevator in their public housing hasn’t been fixed for 10 months. Nothing is working. So it’s so easy for someone like Trump to come along and be like, “Blame the immigrant. Blame the unhoused person.” And his entire campaign was about proving that if you actually meet people’s real needs and raise the floor and say, “OK, let’s freeze the rent. Let’s have free and fast buses. Let’s have universal child care. Let’s address that sense of scarcity and insecurity at its root,” that it can pull people back from the fascist abyss. And he won tonight. He proved that that is — that works. That message works.

This movement, this is anti-fascism, and it is also the antithesis of fascism, because fascists want everybody to be the same. They celebrate conformity, uniformity, sameness, hierarchy. Look in — New York is the most unruly city. The entire campaign was a love letter to the diversity, linguistic, faith, cultural diversity of the city, at a time when the Republicans never stop pouring hate onto cities and make people afraid of each other, right?

AMY GOODMAN: And this is Zohran Mamdani on election night addressing supporters who packed into the Brooklyn Paramount. He began his speech by quoting the late labor leader and socialist Eugene Debs. But Mamdani was introduced by his own field director, Tascha Van Auken.

TASCHA VAN AUKEN: The bravery that you all have shown, that this field operation carried across all five boroughs, is going to transform our city. What all 100,400 of us have accomplished has rewritten the possibilities of mass democratic action. And it doesn’t stop tonight. We all know that we won’t stop at electing Zohran. We will continue to fight to bring the affordable of New York City to life. I am so excited to do that with all of you.

And now I’m so honored to introduce the person you’ve been waiting to hear. We’ve worked for many years to bring about change in New York City that it so urgently needs. He’s been a friend, and he is the next mayor of the greatest city on Earth, Zohran Mamdani.

MAYOR–ELECT ZOHRAN MAMDANI: The sun may have set over our city this evening, but, as Eugene Debs once said, I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.

For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands. Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handle bars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns, these are not hands that have been allowed to hold power.

And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands. My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.

I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. But let tonight be the final time I utter his name, as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.

New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change, a mandate for a new kind of politics, a mandate for a city we can afford and a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that.

On January 1st, I will be sworn in as the mayor of New York City. And that is because of you. So, before I say anything else, I must say this: thank you. Thank you to the next generation of New Yorkers who refuse to accept that the promise of a better future was a relic of the past. You showed that when politics speaks to you without condescension, we can usher in a new era of leadership. We will fight for you because we are you, or, as we say on Steinway, ana minkum wa alaikum.

Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city who made this movement their own. I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties — yes, aunties. To every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point, know this: This city is your city, and this democracy is yours, too.

This campaign is about people like Wesley, an 1199 organizer I met outside of Elmhurst Hospital on Thursday night, a New Yorker who lives elsewhere, who commutes two hours each way from Pennsylvania because rent is too expensive in this city. It’s about people like the woman I met on the Bx33 years ago, who said to me, “I used to love New York, but now it’s just where I live.” And it’s about people like Richard, the taxi driver I went on a 15-day hunger strike with outside of City Hall, who still has to drive his cab seven days a week. My brother, we are in City Hall now. …

Standing before you, I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru: “A moment comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.” Tonight, we have stepped out from the old into the new.

So let us speak now with clarity and conviction that cannot be misunderstood about what this new age will deliver and for whom. This will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt.

Central to that vision will be the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorello La Guardia, an agenda that will freeze the rents for more than 2 million rent-stabilized tenants. …

Together, we will usher in a generation of change. And if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.

This is not only how we stop Trump, it’s how we stop the next one. So, Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.

We will hold bad landlords to account, because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections, because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.

New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.

So, hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.

When we enter City Hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them. A great New Yorker once said that while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme, and let us build a shining city for all.

And we must chart a new path, as bold as the one we have already traveled. After all, the conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.

AMY GOODMAN: Zohran Mamdani, speaking at his victory party on November 4th after he won the New York City mayoral race, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. After his speech, Mamdani was joined on stage by his wife, Rama Duwaji, and his parents, the filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani. Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in on January 1st.

And that does it for today’s show. Democracy Now! is produced with Mike Burke, Renée Feltz, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh, María Taracena, Nicole Salazar, Sara Nasser, Charina Nadura, Sam Alcoff, Tey-Marie Astudillo, John Hamilton, Robby Karran, Hany Massoud and Safwat Nazzal. Our executive director is Julie Crosby. Special thanks to Becca Staley, Jon Randolph, Paul Powell, Mike Di Filippo, Miguel Nogueira, Hugh Gran, Carl Marxer, Denis Moynihan, David Prude, Dennis McCormick, Matt Ealy, Anna Özbek, Emily Andersen, Dante Torrieri and Buffy Saint Marie Hernandez. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.