New York City \u2013<\/strong> Zohran Mamdani has won the race to lead the largest city in the United States, capping a heated contest that grabbed the world\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n His victory in the mayoral election on Tuesday marks a historic moment for the city of more than 8.4 million people, an economic and cultural powerhouse with international prominence.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Mamdani will be the first Muslim, the first person of South Asian descent and the first person born in Africa to lead the city.<\/p>\n \u201cTonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands,\u201d the 34-year-old state assemblyman and newly minted mayor-elect told a crowd of cheering supporters. \u201cMy friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNew 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n With 90 percent of the votes counted, Mamdani had a 9-percentage-point lead over Cuomo, receiving 1,033,471 votes, compared with the former governor\u2019s 852,032 votes. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa had won about 7 percent of the tallied votes.<\/p>\n While voters across the diverse metropolis hailed Mamdani\u2019s historic win as progress, most of his ardent base has been clear: It is not about his religion or ethnic identity; it is about his laser-focused message of affordability.<\/p>\n In front of a sea of campaign signs and yellow beanies, Mamdani appealed to the diverse coalition he mobilised.<\/p>\n \u201cI speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties, \u2026 to every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis city is your city, and this democracy is yours too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The race has also taken on a dimension as a bellwether for the future of Democratic politics with Cuomo representing to many the wealthy\u00a0donor-dominated establishment of the past<\/span>\u00a0and Mamdani, an avowed democratic socialist, representing a possible way forward for the party.<\/span><\/p>\n Cuomo did not mince words on Tuesday as he cast his ballot, calling it a \u201ccivil war in the Democratic Party that has been brewing for a while\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have an extreme radical left that is run by the socialists that is challenging, quote unquote, moderate Democrats,\u201d said Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in June to Mamdani.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that contest is what you\u2019re seeing here.\u201d<\/p>\n Hours later he conceded defeat, telling supporters at his own election watch party, \u201ctonight was their night.\u201d<\/p>\n Referencing the party schism in his victory speech, Mamdani was defiant.<\/p>\n \u201cI am young despite my best efforts to grow older,\u201d he told supporters.<\/p>\n \u201cI am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist and, most damning of all, I refuse to apologise for any of this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n For Joshua Wilson, a social worker who cast a ballot for Mamdani in the Mott Haven neighbourhood of the Bronx, Cuomo was right on the mark.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring Donald Trump\u2019s second presidency, all eyes are on New York, and all eyes are on the United States. Everything is politicised, and it\u2019s so much more vitriolic,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s also this big push against younger voices coming in. People are really scared and want to, like, be conservative. They want to keep things the way that they are,\u201d the 33-year-old said.<\/p>\n Lucy Cordero, a 68-year-old from the neighbourhood, echoed the sentiment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen Cuomo. We know who he is, and he hasn\u2019t been a great person,\u201d she said. \u201cI picked Mamdani because he\u2019s new and he\u2019s fresh. Maybe he can make a change and fix what\u2019s messed up now.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump endorsed Cuomo in the final hours of the race, a move meant to galvanise conservative voters, which may have backfired.<\/p>\n In the Crown Heights neighbourhood in Brooklyn, Megan Marks, 52, a freelancer, said Mamdani skews further left than she does.<\/p>\n Still, she saw his bold platform as a counterpoint to federal politics, dominated by Republicans and US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like we have nothing to lose. He\u2019s idealistic and a little young,\u201d Marks said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe might as well balance what is happening in the country by having someone from a very different perspective, so I\u2019ve decided to get behind him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Even former Cuomo supporters were not immune to the buzz surrounding Mamdani\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the primary, I did not vote for [Mamdani], but I changed my vote to him after some reflection,\u201d Alex Lawerance, a 55-year-old lawyer from Crown Heights, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not as progressive as [Mamdani], but he has a positive message, he has integrity, and I think he will do a fine job. I want to give the guy a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n Iftikar Khan, 60, a driver originally from Bangladesh, pointed to the large coalition of Muslim and South Asian voters that Mamdani has mobilised in the race.<\/p>\n Many see his victory as emblematic of a new political renaissance for Muslims in the city, who faced a fever pitch of discrimination in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s staunch support for Palestinian rights \u2013 a departure from both mainstream Democrats and former New York City mayors \u2013 has also galvanised support.<\/p>\n \u201cMy family convinced me. They really love Mamdani,\u201d Khan, a registered Republican and Trump supporter who voted for Mamdani on Tuesday, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cMy family really wanted Mamdani, so I said OK,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Several questions remain over how Mamdani will enact his ambitious vision.<\/p>\n On his affordability mission, he has pledged free public buses, universal childcare and rent freezes on stabilised units.<\/p>\n His plan envisions paying for some of these programmes through increased taxes on corporations and wealthy residents. That would require building a coalition of support not just in New York City but also in the state legislature.<\/p>\n When he takes office on January 1, he will also face a balancing act as he courts support from moderates while not alienating his progressive base, including the Democratic Socialists of America, an organisation that has helped raise a volunteer army numbering more than 100,000 people.<\/p>\n Nationally, some top Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have continued to withhold support for Mamdani, even as he faces threats from Trump over cutting New York\u2019s federal funding and deploying the National Guard to the city.<\/p>\n In the Bronx, 33-year-old Andre Augustine held no illusions about the challenges ahead for Mamdani.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not gonna say that it\u2019s gonna be easy, but I think having a vision is very important,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like it\u2019s going to be hard, but I also think we\u2019re going to put a lot of pressure on him. We\u2019re going to hold him accountable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m cautiously optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n Back at his election watch party in Brooklyn, Mamdani hailed that voter optimism, thanking those who \u201callowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible\u201d.<\/p>\n He promised to build a coalition, including Jewish New Yorkers and Muslims, to beckon in a \u201cnew age\u201d of bold leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cNo more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election,\u201d he said in a veiled reference to Cuomo\u2019s attacks throughout the race.<\/p>\n He then turned to Trump, who has surged immigration enforcement to the city and threatened funding cuts and a National Guard deployment.<\/p>\n \u201cNew York will remain a city of immigrants, a city powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n New York City \u2013 Zohran Mamdani has won the race to lead the largest city in the United States, capping a heated contest that grabbed the world\u2019s attention. His victory in the mayoral election on Tuesday marks a historic moment for the city of more than 8.4 million people, an economic and cultural powerhouse with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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