Zohran Mamdani

New York State Representative

Date of Birth	:	18 Oct, 1991
Place of Birth	:	Kampala, Uganda
Profession	:	Politician, Musician
Nationality	:	American, Ugandan
Social Profiles	:	Facebook Twitter Instagram

Zohran Kwame Mamdani is an American politician who is the current mayor-elect of New York City. A member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, he has served as a member of the New York State Assembly from the 36th district since 2021, representing the Queens neighborhood of Astoria.

Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair, both of whom are of Indian descent. The family moved to Cape Town, South Africa, when Mamdani was five years old. When he was seven, they moved to the United States, settling in New York City. Mamdani graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. He received a bachelor's degree with a major in Africana studies from Bowdoin College in Maine in 2014.

After working as a housing counselor and musician, Mamdani entered local New York City politics as a campaign manager for Khader El-Yateem and Ross Barkan. He was first elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020, defeating five-term incumbent Aravella Simotas in the Democratic primary. Representing Astoria, Queens, he was reelected without opposition in 2022 and 2024.

In October 2024, Mamdani announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City in the 2025 election. In June 2025, Mamdani won the Democratic primary in an upset victory over Andrew Cuomo, former governor of the state. He was elected mayor in the November 4 general election against Cuomo, who ran as an independent, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, with 50.4% of the vote.

Mamdani campaigned on an affordability-focused platform in support of fare-free city buses, universal public child care, city-owned grocery stores, LGBTQ rights, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized units, additional affordable housing units, comprehensive public safety reform, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030. Mamdani also supports tax increases on corporations and those earning above $1 million annually.

Early life and education

Mamdani was born on October 18, 1991, in Kampala, Uganda, the only child of postcolonialism academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair. He was given his middle name, Kwame, by his father in honor of Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana. Both his parents are of Indian descent; his father is a Gujarati Shia Muslim of the Khoja community who was born in Mumbai and grew up primarily in Uganda, and his mother is a Punjabi Hindu who was born in Rourkela and raised in Bhubaneswar. His paternal grandparents were born in present-day Tanzania and his father's family was part of the Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa. His maternal grandfather, Amrit Lal Nair, was a former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and maternal grandmother Praveen Nair was a social worker and founder of the Salaam Baalak Trust in India.

Mamdani lived in Kampala until he was five, when his family moved to Cape Town, in South Africa's Western Cape province, after his father was appointed head of African studies at the University of Cape Town. He attended St. George's Grammar School in Mowbray for a few years, during the early post-apartheid years. He later said that the experience of living in Cape Town "taught me what inequality looks like up close... [and] that justice has to be more than an idea; it has to be material".

The family moved to the United States and settled in New York City when Mamdani was seven, and he was raised in Morningside Heights. He has described his upbringing as "privileged", saying, "I never had to want for something, and yet I knew that was not in any way the reality for most New Yorkers." As a child, he was often present on his mother's film sets, where he was loved by members of the film crews, who variously referred to him as "Z", "Zoru", "Fadoose", and "Nonstop Mamdani".

Mamdani attended the Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where he successfully ran as the independent candidate in a middle school mock election, adopting a platform of "equal rights, anti-war [policy] that proposed spending money on education rather than the military". In 2003, he returned to Kampala for a year and attended school during his father's sabbatical there; his paternal grandparents and aunt still live there and helped take care of him while his father was working on the book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.

In 2010, Mamdani graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in Kingsbridge Heights, where he co-founded the school's first cricket team and unsuccessfully ran for student body vice president. He also played soccer with the West Side Soccer League. Mamdani then attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he co-founded the school's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. He was a regular contributor for campus newspaper The Bowdoin Orient, covering politics, culture, and sports via his column titled Kwame's Kolumnalu. In January 2014, he co-authored an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News, urging Bowdoin to join the American Studies Association's boycott of Israel and criticizing college president Barry Mills. He graduated in 2014 with a bachelor's degree with a major in Africana studies.

Before running for office, Mamdani worked as a foreclosure prevention and housing counselor. There, he assisted lower-income immigrant homeowners in Queens with eviction notices and efforts to remain in their homes. He said the experience motivated him to run for office to address the housing and affordability crisis.

Music and film

Mamdani is a fan of hip-hop and has composed and produced rap music. In 2016, under the moniker Young Cardamom, he collaborated with Ugandan rapper HAB on an EP titled Sidda Mukyaalo, which is Luganda for "No going back to the village". The duo performed at that year's Nyege Nyege festival in Jinja, Uganda. They first started working together in 2015, and their first song was "Kanda [Chap Chap]", about chapati, an Indian food that has been adopted as a Ugandan staple. Both rap in English and Luganda. [d] Mamdani said the "lyrics and choice of language are rebuttals of what Ugandan society expects of us—that someone with some South Sudanese roots is forever 'Nubi' and that Indian Ugandans are actually just Indians in Uganda". He also credits Ugandan producer Hannz Tactiq, who provided the beat and would "record, mix [and] master" for them, and in whose studio they worked until late at night.

In 2019, Mamdani released a single titled "Nani" under the moniker Mr. Cardamom, an homage to his maternal grandmother, whom he described as "a source of joy, wisdom, and love". Cookbook author and actress Madhur Jaffrey plays his grandmother in the single's music video.

Mamdani also curated and produced the soundtrack for his mother Mira Nair's 2016 film Queen of Katwe. As the film's music supervisor, he was nominated in the 2017 Guild of Music Supervisors Awards. He was also the film's third assistant director and played a minor role as a "Bookie Student"

Early political involvement (2015–2019)

Mamdani entered New York City politics as a volunteer for Ali Najmi's campaign in the 2015 special election for the 23rd district of the City Council. Mamdani was inspired to join Najmi's campaign after learning that he was supported by Heems, a New York rapper of Indian descent and co-founder of alternative hip hop group Das Racist. Specifically, Mamdani attributes his involvement in local politics to a 2015 The Village Voice article about Najmi and Heems, whom he described as one of his favorite rappers.

In 2017, Mamdani joined the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and worked for the campaign of New York City Council candidate Khader El-Yateem, a Palestinian Lutheran minister and democratic socialist from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Part of Mamdani's motivation for joining the DSA was due to the organization's pro-Palestine stance aligning with his own prior activism. Mamdani served as the campaign manager for Ross Barkan's 2018 unsuccessful bid for the New York State Senate and was also a field organizer for fellow democratic socialist Tiffany Cabán's close-run but also unsuccessful 2019 campaign for Queens County District Attorney.

New York State Assembly (2020–present)

In October 2019, Mamdani announced his campaign to represent New York's 36th State Assembly district, which encompasses Astoria and Long Island City in Queens. He was endorsed by the DSA, running on a platform of housing reform, police and prison reform, and public ownership of utilities. Mamdani's June 2020 primary victory over five-term Democratic incumbent Aravella Simotas took almost a month to call, and he won the general election with no Republican opposition in November. Mamdani was reelected without opposition in 2022 and 2024.

Mamdani is a member of the DSA's nine-member "State Socialists in Office" bloc in New York and a member of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York. Mamdani was the keynote speaker at the 2023 DSA convention, saying, "We are special as DSA electeds not because of ourselves; we are special because of our organization".

As of January 2025, Mamdani was a member of nine Assembly committees: the Committee on Aging; the Committee on Cities; the Committee on Election Law; the Committee on Energy; the Committee on Real Property Taxation; the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus; the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force; the Asian Pacific American Task Force; and the Task Force on New Americans.

As of May 2025, Mamdani had been the primary sponsor of 20 bills in the Assembly—three of which became law—and the co-sponsor of 238 bills. As a member of the Assembly, Mamdani helped to launch a successful fare-free bus pilot program and participated in a hunger strike alongside taxi drivers.

New York City mayoral campaign (2024–2025)

Main articles: 2025 New York City Democratic mayoral primary and 2025 New York City mayoral election

On October 23, 2024, Mamdani announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City. His platform includes support for free city buses and a rent freeze in rent-stabilized housing. Mamdani also wants the city government to operate five grocery stores—one in each borough—to drive down grocery prices. His platform includes support for universal child care and for the construction of 200,000 new affordable housing units. He also supports public safety reform and a $30 minimum wage by 2030. His platform calls for tax increases on corporations and those earning above $1 million annually.

For most of the primary campaign, Mamdani trailed former New York governor Andrew Cuomo in polling. He and Cuomo raised similar amounts of money, but his donor base was considerably larger than Cuomo's. A poll taken shortly before the June 24, 2025, primary election showed that Mamdani had caught up to Cuomo. First-choice results on election night showed Mamdani had a large lead over Cuomo, who conceded the race that evening. His polling margin was increased by rank choice voting, particularly because he and third-favored candidate Brad Lander cross-endorsed each other prior to the primary by asking their voters to rank the other candidate second. On July 1, after the New York City Board of Elections released its ranked-choice ballot tabulation, the Associated Press announced Mamdani had won the primary. It was considered a major upset. A July 2025 poll indicated a shift in Jewish American political attitudes, with 43% of Jewish New Yorkers and 67% of Jewish voters under 44 planning to support Mamdani—levels of support suggesting waning attachment to traditional pro-Israel politics. Many Jewish leaders and voters, however, remained critical of Mamdani.

Mamdani's campaign was supported by the New Yorkers for Lower Costs super PAC, which spent approximately $1.3 million supporting him and opposing Cuomo before the primary and raised an additional $1 million afterward. The super PAC received $100,000 in contributions from the Unity and Justice Fund in May and June 2025. Cuomo accused Mamdani of accepting "dirty money", saying the Unity and Justice Fund was tied to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

In early November, President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw federal funding for New York City should Mamdani be elected mayor.

Mamdani was elected mayor on November 4, 2025. He will be the city's youngest mayor since 1892, as well as the city's first Indian American and Muslim mayor. Mamdani’s campaign launch also drew media attention for its use of Bollywood songs and cultural references to engage younger and immigrant voters.

Political positions

Mamdani identifies as a democratic socialist and member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Described as a progressive and left-wing populist, his policies have been characterized as left-wing or center-left. His economic platform centers on equity and affordability—supporting debt relief for taxi medallion owners, stronger rent control, tenant protections, and a Social Housing Development Agency to build 200,000 affordable units. He advocates raising the minimum wage to $30 by 2030, higher taxes on corporations and high-income earners to fund free CUNY and SUNY tuition, universal childcare, and free public transit, while cutting taxes for outer borough homeowners and reforming New York’s property tax system.

Mamdani has condemned dictatorships in Venezuela and Cuba while criticizing U.S. sanctions. He has denounced Indian prime minister Narendra Modi as a “war criminal” and remains a strong critic of Israel and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, describing its policies as apartheid and supporting the BDS movement. He co-sponsored the “Not on our dime!” bill to stop New York charities from funding Israeli settler violence. After the October 7 attacks, Mamdani mourned all victims, condemned Hamas’s attacks as war crimes, and called for both sides to disarm while advocating for a ceasefire and the end of Israeli occupation.

Mamdani supports Proposal 1 banning discrimination based on ethnicity, gender identity, disability, and reproductive rights, and backs single-payer healthcare through the New York Health Act. He argues that “dignified work, economic stability, and well-resourced neighborhoods” prevent harm better than policing, proposing a civilian Department of Community Safety to handle mental-health crises and community outreach. While he once supported defunding the NYPD, as mayoral candidate he emphasized working with police on violent crime prevention and later apologized for calling the NYPD racist.

Mamdani connects environmental justice to social equity. He opposed the Astoria gas plant expansion, supports the All-Electric Buildings Act and congestion pricing, and proposed a “Green Schools for a Healthier New York City” plan to retrofit schools with solar panels, create green schoolyards, and establish resilience hubs. His platform includes universal pre-K, baby baskets for new families, taxing elite universities to fund CUNY, defending Hasidic yeshivas’ autonomy, expanding sanctuary protections for immigrants, making NYC an LGBTQ+ sanctuary city with an Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, and eliminating bus fares through expanded MTA funding and free transit initiatives.

Personal life

Mamdani is a dual citizen of Uganda and the United States; he was naturalized in the latter country in 2018. He is Shia Muslim and identifies with the Twelver branch.

In 2021, Mamdani met animator and illustrator Rama Duwaji on the dating application Hinge. They became engaged in October 2024, held a private nikah ceremony two months later, and were married in February 2025 in a civil ceremony at New York City Hall; they also had a ceremony in Uganda in July 2025. The couple reside in Astoria, Queens, near Steinway Street.

Besides English, Mamdani can speak at least five other languages with varying degrees of proficiency: Hindi, Bengali, Spanish, Luganda, and Arabic. He is an Arsenal fan, but also enjoys watching cricket, All Elite Wrestling, and the New York Knicks, whose games he has attended as part of past campaigns. Since 2012 he has been a shareholder of Real Oviedo, when he bought a share in the capital increase launched by the club to avoid disappearing

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