New York (AFP) – Donald Trump had decisively won the US presidential election last November and very few people outside New York’s leftist circles knew Zohran Mamdani, who had just declared his longshot mayoral candidacy.
What a difference a year can make.
Crowds across the city chanted Mamdani’s name on Tuesday as champagne and tears flowed for the democratic socialist from Queens turned New York mayor-elect.
“Mamdaniiiiii,” one group exclaimed, substituting the 34-year-old’s name for the customary “cheese” as they posed for a photo at a Brooklyn bar watch party.
Voters gathered there in cautious optimism, sporting Mamdani merch as they anxiously awaited the evening’s results, classic songs such as Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” and edgier tracks from Lou Reed blasting from the speakers.
“It’s like, too scary to be hopeful,” Michelle Dimuzio told AFP with a nervous laugh before the polls closed.
However, Dimuzio’s trepidation proved unwarranted as early results began to roll in with Mamdani soundly in the lead.
The entire bar erupted in cheers and even a toddler joined in the applause, uttering a newly learned word that met the moment — “bravo!”
And when the race was called for New York’s first Muslim mayor, barely half an hour later, the excitement was palpable at bars across Brooklyn and Queens, where street parties raged, and in Manhattan, where the owner of a posh brasserie ordered celebratory glasses of champagne for everyone on the house.
It was a win by New Yorkers, for New Yorkers, Ben Parisi told AFP.
The 40-year-old said the night stood in stark contrast to Republican Trump’s election a year ago.
It was a “local victory” that offered a means of “resisting and pushing back” against the political establishment in Washington, Parisi said.
“A lot of us worked hard in one way or another to make this happen,” Parisi said, “and here we are… we get to celebrate.”
‘We are you’
Elsewhere in Brooklyn, a packed concert venue danced to Mamdani’s once-obscure, now-viral hip hop track “Nani”, which the young politician recorded years ago under his rap name “Mr. Cardamom.”
Supporters at Mamdani HQ greeted him with a deafening ovation as their incoming mayor walked onstage, flashing his megawatt smile that has lit up the city through his nonstop campaigning.
The once-improbable candidate claimed victory for his campaign but also for those who “made this movement their own” — his acknowledgements included Yemeni bodega owners, Mexican abuelas, and Uzbek nurses.
He also cited Eugene Debs, who at the turn of the 20th century was one of the best-known American socialists.
And he thanked young constituents who catapulted his candidacy, “the next generation of New Yorkers who refused to accept that the promise of a better future was a relic of the past.”
“We will fight for you,” Mamdani promised, “because we are you.”
He had criss-crossed the city again and again with his relentless ground game and, in his final days on the trail, Mamdani was seen traversing the Brooklyn bridge, doing tai chi with seniors and out at clubs till dawn.
Mamdani brought with him a message of affordability that 37-year-old Dimuzio said struck a chord with New Yorkers.
Dimuzio described living paycheck to paycheck despite a full-time job, and said Mamdani’s focus on making New York a more financially feasible place to live spoke to her in a way she said politicians on both sides of the aisle rarely do.
“He sticks to his message,” she said, and “he doesn’t just give the political tossed salad.”
Mamdani repeated that message Tuesday night, leading a raucous call-and-response of his promises, which include freezing rent and institutionalizing universal child care.
“Our greatness will be anything but abstract,” Mamdani told the crowd. “If tonight teaches us anything, it is that convention has held us back.”
