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Zohran Kwame Mamdani is set to be this fall to be the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, after beating former Governor Andrew Cuomo in Tuesday’s Democratic Party primary.

The landslide victory has put the 33-year-old state assemblyman in line to likely become the city's first Muslim mayor.

Mamdani, an American politician, has served as a member of the New York State Assembly from the 36th district, based in Queens, since 2021.

"Tonight, we made history," Mamdani told ecstatic supporters just over an hour after Cuomo's shock concession. "We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford, a city where they can do more than just struggle, where those who toil in the night can enjoy the fruits of their labor in the day, where hard work is repaid with a stable life."

If victorious, Mamdani would be one of the youngest mayors in the city's history as well as the first Muslim one.

Who is Mamdani?

Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, in 1991 to Indian-origin parents. His mother Mira Nair is an Oscar-nominated Indian American filmmaker, and his father Mahmood Mamdani, an Indian-born Ugandan, is now a professor at New York’s Columbia University.

Mamdani spent his early years in Cape Town, South Africa before moving to New York at the age of 7.

He is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and holds a degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College in Maine.

Mamdani became a US citizen in 2018 and was elected to the State Assembly in 2020.

He is married to Rama Duwaji, a Syrian artist based in Brooklyn.

Mamdani's politics

Mamdani calls himself a democratic socialist, with his politics seen as progressive.

He was first elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020 and has since been reelected without opposition, with legislative priorities including transportation, housing reform, and energy.

On his website, Mamdani says he is running for mayor to lower the cost of living for working-class New Yorkers.

He has vowed to immediately freeze rent for all "stabilized tenants, and use every available resource to build the housing New Yorkers need and bring down the rent."

He has also pledged to "permanently eliminate the fare on every city bus – and make them faster by rapidly building priority lanes, expanding bus queue jump signals, and dedicated loading zones to keep double parkers out of the way."

Mamdani says he will implement free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years, ensuring high-quality programming for all families.

The left-wing candidate promised to create a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low.

He also vowed to offer permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes, constructing 200,000 new units over the next 10 years.

Views on Israel and Palestine

Mamdani has been a strong supporter of Palestine and a staunch critic of Israel and its deadly military attacks.

In 2020, he wrote on X that he had co-founded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at his alma mater, Bowdoin, saying: "I know firsthand the furious opposition students can provoke by standing up for our Palestinian brothers & sisters."

In 2023, he joined a hunger strike outside the White House calling for a cease-fire.

Mamdani has faced criticism for defending the phrase “globalize the intifada" during a podcast interview.

He said: “To me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights. The very word (intifada) has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the (1943) Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means struggle.”

Mamdani has also been a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, promoting economic sanctions on Israel over its mistreatment of Palestinians, and has been accused of antisemitism by several groups.

In an interview with Politico, he said he is against continued US funding to Israel, saying that “what is incumbent to do is to stop subsidizing a genocide.”

Asked about a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine issue, he said: “What I would hope to see there, as would hope to see anywhere in the world, is adherence to international law and equal rights for all involved. And I think it’s important to lead with those principles and that adherence, rather than being overly prescriptive about a political solution.”

Last year, he said he would arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – currently wanted under an International Criminal Court warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza – if he sets foot in New York.

Mamdani's family members are also supporters of the Palestinian cause.

In 2013, Mamdani's mother, Nair, rejected an invitation to attend the Haifa International Film Festival, saying she would only visit Israel "when the walls come down," according to Britain’s The Guardian.

His wife, Duwaji, an illustrator and animator, shared an image on Instagram last month with the words: "As I was making this, Israel has been bombing Gaza nonstop with consecutive airstrikes. Keep your eyes on Gaza ..."

For his election campaign, he has already received endorsement from a pro-Palestinian Jewish group, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, as well as pro-Palestinian supporters such as Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The New York mayoral election is scheduled to be held on Nov. 4.

The city leans Democratic, but has elected Republican mayors as late as 2005, with Michael Bloomberg, who later became an independent.