Democrat Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, was projected by multiple news outlets to become New York City’s next mayor—an outcome that would have been unthinkable just a year ago.

He defeated disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic nomination in June, and the GOP nominee, Curtis Sliwa, frequent New York candidate perhaps best known for his red beret and love of cats.

As of publication, Mamdani led with 50 percent of the vote to Cuomo’s 41 percent, with 75 percent of the expected vote counted, according to the Associated Press.

f the results hold, Mamdani’s victory would amount to a generational break from the city’s political establishment—and a humiliating defeat for Cuomo, the once-dominant governor who left office in disgrace and had been itching to claw his way back.

What started as a sleepy reelection bid for incumbent Mayor Eric Adams evolved into a full-blown political reckoning, reshaping the city’s political map and derailing Cuomo’s attempted comeback tour.

The path to this moment took a dramatic turn in late September, when Adams withdrew from the race amid plummeting approval ratings and ongoing scandals, including federal corruption probes. In late October, he endorsed Cuomo, hoping to persuade his small base of backers to support another scandal-plagued independent.

Yet Mamdani’s insurgent campaign didn’t falter. His message was steadfastly focused on the city’s cost-of-living crisis, with him proposing policies like rent freezes, higher taxes on the wealthy, free buses, and city-owned grocery stores. And clearly, it has resonated with voters. Despite facing millions in super PAC attacks as well as a well-funded establishment candidate, he built a devoted coalition of progressive activists, younger voters, and working-class New Yorkers.

By early voting, the race had become a clear test of which Democratic vision New Yorkers preferred. Cuomo leaned on the old-guard playbook, promising stability and toughness, while Mamdani ran as an insurgent pushing for big, structural changes.

Cuomo and his allies tried to frame Mamdani as untested and extreme, pointing to his pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel. President Donald Trump and far-right billionaire Elon Musk also waded in, with both endorsing Cuomo on Monday.

Earlier this year, Trump falsely branded Mamdani a “communist,” and threatened to withhold federal funding if Mamdani enacted policies the president disagreed with. “Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises,” Trump posted online in September. “He won’t be getting any of it.”

Right-wing news outlets also waged a war against Mamdani. Fox News aired segments suggesting he should be deported, while the New York Post churned out near-daily front page warnings of radical rule in City Hall. (Both outlets are owned by right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch.)

But the attacks seemed to only harden Mamdani’s base. His campaign mobilized a grassroots operation. Volunteers hit subway stations, organizers livestreamed rallies, and voters lined up at early-voting sites across the city—a wave of energy that recalled the campaign that propelled Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress seven years ago. Privately, Trump reportedly told allies he didn’t think Mamdani could be beaten, underestimating the candidate’s broad appeal.

Even as Mamdani’s rallies drew massive crowds, much of the Democratic establishment was hesitant to embrace him. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries waited until late October to endorse him, while New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer never publicly supported his campaign. But that apparent caution strengthened Mamdani’s anti-establishment image, positioning him as the candidate of street-level energy and outsider momentum.

For months leading up to June’s Democratic primary, Cuomo led nearly every poll, but Mamdani closed the gap and won the party’s nomination, thanks to a surge of younger voters and working-class New Yorkers fed up with the status quo. By August, polls of the general election showed him overtaking both Cuomo and Sliwa as the Democratic base consolidated around their candidate.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

One of the things I most look forward to this week is this: conservative columnists at The New York Times finally having to clam up what a disaster it will be to have a 34-year-old Democratic Socialist Zohran Kwame Mamdani become mayor of New York City.

It’s their job, I guess, as professional conservatives. But all the bitter rending of garments among those who want to see the Democratic Party remain an enfeebled centrist force at a moment that calls for change has not slowed the Mamdani Momentum. The man is non-stop. Over the weekend, Mamdani showed up at salsa classes, tai chi classes, and gay bars. He put out an Instagram post in Arabic. His campaign has knocked on 103,000 doors.

One reason we can be pretty sure that Mamdani, a kid who could have been written into history by Lin-Manuel Miranda, has it in the bag is that Donald Trump is already threatening collective punishment. In addition, The New York Post has already suggested that the election has been rigged by foreign actors. On October 22, Ariel Zilber wrote a fact-free story that the Chinese government has used TikTok to throw the election to Mamdani. Based on research done at Tel Aviv University that measures normal user engagement against aberrational activity, the researcher saw that “Political videos—especially those supporting Mamdani—were shared far more often than expected, while pro-Cuomo videos appeared less often.”

Color me skeptical, because I rarely share on TikTok. Yet, I have been sharing Mamdani videos, and I think others do too—because they are good! The campaign’s strategy seems to combine vibrant personal appearances with a beautifully crafted social media campaign, one that meets young voters where they live but captures the hearts of their elders as well. My favorite? Mamdani announcing that, in response to voter concern that he was only 33, he would pledge to turn 34 on his birthday.

How steep a hill is Cuomo (whose TikToks are depressing and dull) climbing at this point? At least one betting platform gives Mamdani a 44 percent chance of winning between 50-60 percent of the vote in a three person race. Professional prognostications are more modest, and predictably divergent, but the story about this election is clearly not “if” but “by how much?” Marist dropped a poll over the weekend that showed Mamdani’s lead declining to (wait for it!) 16 points. Other polls suggest that the first Muslim mayor in waiting may even be widening his lead. On the same day, Emerson College/PIX11/The Hill poll numbers showed Mamdani with a 25-point advantage over Cuomo.

All of which makes it important to point to the role that the Republican Guardian Angels co-founder, and world-famous cat lady Curtis Sliwa has played in blocking Cuomo’s political renaissance.

But Sliwa has also injected a measure of “nice” into the race that reminds us of a time when it didn’t seem like a catastrophe to elect a Republican. This, in turn, has caused many of us to not be able to forget what a horrible person Andrew Cuomo is. One thing the sexual harassment scandal that drove him from the governorship in 2021 accomplished was to reveal what everyone in Albany already knew: Cuomo is a bully and a horrible person who ruled the New York State Democratic Party with an iron fist. During the scandal, New Yorkers went from thinking Cuomo was a “son of a bitch—but our son of a bitch” to reminding us of every workplace bully we had ever known.

Unlike practically every other Republican, however, Sliwa has dissassociated himself from MAGA tactics. He is nice, and having two candidates in the race who exude good will and humor only emphasized how much New Yorkers do not want to live with a Democratic Party that behaves as Andrew Cuomo does. In fact, I can name a dozen Republicans I like better than Andrew Cuomo.

So, while some have called Sliwa a “spoiler” candidate, in truth, he is simply the candidate everyone likes even if they are not voting for him. By contrast, Cuomo’s fear-mongering, and his explicit alliances with billionaires and Trump supporters, have produced two responses among New York City Democrats who can’t bring themselves to vote for a Muslim socialist who won’t tie his campaign to Bibi Netanyahu’s war. Hold one’s nose and vote for an establishment Democrat running an establishment campaign; or vote for someone else.

That someone else is Curtis Sliwa (who, endearingly, is also running on the Protect Animals line.) “Look up Sliwa on TikTok or Instagram,” Shawn Griffiths wrote at Independent Voter News, “and there are countless videos from Mamdani supporters, in particular, who say they won’t vote for Sliwa, they disagree with him on policy, but they like him and feel that he represents a true New Yorker.” As one TikTok commenter put it: “I don’t want Sliwa to win, but I want him to run for everything.” More importantly, Republicans like him too, and remain unpersuaded by right-wing social media influencers that they should vote for an unlikable, dishonest, Democrat who puts his hands on women strange to him, to save their city from a communist threat that does not exist.

Sliwa explicitly rejects the MAGA political style and its rhetoric. “We have had socialists in elected office. We have had communists in the city council,” Sliwa said. “Somehow life went on. We survived it. It’s part of the political process. I don’t fear socialists. I don’t fear communists. I say, leave it to the people.”

Who knows, if the campaign was two years longer Sliwa might even win this thing! Emerson positions him as having gained 11 points since the last poll, which would translate to 21% of the vote. According to NBC New York, these gains put Sliwa “within striking distance of Cuomo for second place.” This also leads us to the conclusion that the more exposure New Yorkers have to Cuomo, the less they like him.

Finally, I would argue that Mamdani and Sliwa have three other things in common, other than being little rays of sunshine in an otherwise bleak political landscape. They both exude authenticity. They understand that New York is a city of neighborhoods, not demographics to be sliced and diced. Finally, they both embody a New York City, can-do, in-your-face, go anywhere campaign style that comes off as distinctly unmanufactured by professional campaign consultants. They remind most of us that the most iconic mayors—Fiorello LaGuardia, John Lindsay, and Ed Koch, who plunged into crowds with sleeves rolled up, and asked for voters’ support as if they really wanted it—were fun.

So, by this time on Wednesday, Zohran Kwame Mamdani will be the first Muslim and the first Democratic Socialist to be mayor of New York City.

And I am there for it.

Claire Bond Potter is a political historian who taught at the New School for Social Research. She is a contributing editor to Public Seminar and wrote the popular blog Tenured Radical from 2006 through 2015. Please consider subscribing to Political Junkie, her Substack newsletter.

Reprinted with permission from Political Junkie.