The New York City Election board yesterday confirmed a stunning victory by mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary, clearing the way for the political upstart to be the party’s nominee for the November mayoral election.
The ranked-choice voting results released yesterday showed Mamdani, who started his campaign as little-known New York state assembly member, clinched 56 per cent of votes in the third round of the voting, where over 50pc of votes are required for a winner.
As the Democratic nominee, Mamdani will face current mayor Eric Adams in the general election. Adams, who won as a Democrat in his first mayoral race in 2021, is running as an independent candidate after his indictment on corruption charges and the subsequent decision by the Department of Justice to drop the case.
In a new video on X, Mamdani compared his victory in the primary to the election campaign Adams had in 2021.
“We have always thought our victory would come after multiple rounds of ranked-choice voting. When we got more votes in the first round than Eric Adams got in the seven rounds in the last election, it was astonishing,” he said. An unexpected victory of 33-year-old Mamdani, a Uganda-born Muslim, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, over veteran politician Andrew Cuomo, a moderate, caused unease among Democrats, worried that his political views may make them a convenient target for Republican attacks.
The day after Mamdani’s victory, President Donald Trump called him a ‘100pc Communist Lunatic’ while the Republican party’s congressional campaign arm promised to tie him to every vulnerable Democrat in next year’s midterm elections.
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