The state of New York has agreed to pay $450,000 to settle a lawsuit from an ex-aide to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo who alleged he sexually harassed and groped her while he was in office.
The former aide, Brittany Commisso, had sued Cuomo and the state, alleging sexual harassment from the then-governor and retaliation against her after reporting the incidents. The allegations were part of a barrage of similar misconduct claims that forced Cuomo to resign as governor in 2021.
Commisso’s lawyers said that the settlement announced Friday “is a complete vindication of her claims” and that she is “glad to be able to move forward with her life.”
The settlement came as Cuomo is in the midst of a so-far bruising political comeback with a run for mayor of New York City. Cuomo lost the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani by more than 12 percentage points, and this week he relaunched his campaign to run in the general election as an independent candidate, beginning a potentially uphill battle in a heavily Democratic city where support is coalescing behind Mamdani.
Cuomo, who has denied wrongdoing, has been dogged by the scandal during his campaign for mayor.
“The settlement is not a vindication, it is capitulation to avoid the truth,” Cuomo’s lawyers said Friday in a statement in which they called Commisso’s allegations false.
The attorneys, Rita Glavin and Theresa Trzaskoma, added that they “oppose the dismissal of Ms. Commisso’s lawsuit.”
“Until the truth is revealed, the lawsuit should not be dismissed,” they said in the statement.
Cuomo resigned as governor after a report from the state attorney general determined that he had sexually harassed at least 11 women, with some alleging unwanted kissing and touching, as well as remarks about their appearances and sex lives.
Commisso filed her lawsuit in late 2023, just before the expiration of the Adult Survivors Act, a special law that created a yearlong suspension of the usual time limit to sue over an alleged sexual assault.
She later filed a criminal complaint accusing Cuomo of groping her but a local district attorney declined to prosecute, citing lack of sufficient evidence.
The Associated Press doesn’t identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they decide to tell their stories publicly, as Commisso has done.
Anthony Hogrebe, a spokesperson for current Gov. Kathy Hochul, said Friday that the state “is pleased to have settled this matter in a way that allows us to minimize further costs to taxpayers.”
July 17 (UPI) — California Democratic congressional lawmaker Ro Khanna announced on Fox & Friends Thursday morning that he will endorse Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York.
“He spent a lot of time talking about the cost of living in New York, in this country, and how we address it,” Khanna said. He said Mamdani is a “very charismatic, relatable person.”
Host Lawrence B. Jones asked Khanna if he agrees with Mamdani’s views on Israel. Mamdani has said that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to New York, he’d have him arrested.
He answered that he doesn’t agree with Mamdani on every issue. He argued that the Democratic party should focus more on the working class. It should work to raise wages and have a more economically populist agenda.
Since Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor, he’s been seeking endorsements from higher-ranking progressives. Khanna fits that bill.
The endorsement came after a breakfast meeting in New York hosted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., where Mamdani met with a variety of Democratic representatives.
Former Mayor Eric Adams announced last month that he will also run as an independent.
Mamdani is expected to meet soon with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., The Hill reported.
New York City, the US: Swinging around a tree mimicking the signature open-arm lean of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, Zohran Mamdani asks, “Hey! Have you ever voted before?” An enthusiastic group of Hindi/Urdu-speaking New Yorkers respond: “Yes!”
In the June 4 video posted on X, the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist member of the New York State Assembly then explains ranked choice voting using mango lassi, a yoghurt-based drink from the Punjab region of India, amid clips from popular Bollywood films and scores.
This is just one example of the kinds of videos populating Mamdani’s social media leading up to his 56 percent win in the New York City mayoral Democratic primary on July 1.
Mamdani was relatively unknown before the primary election, polling as low as one percent in an Emerson College survey in February 2025. But his grassroots campaign mobilised a multicultural coalition of voters, in part, by speaking directly to them — in their native tongue.
The government of New York state estimates that New Yorkers speak more than 800 languages, and as many as 2.5 million struggle with communicating in English. Experts, however, say Mamdani successfully used his skills in multiple languages to appeal to voters who often are not targeted by mainstream election campaigns, highlighting policy proposals targeting voters’ biggest concerns, like affordability.
Moments after ranked-choice voting totals were finalised, Mamdani’s team posted a campaign message garnering more than 5.7 million views on X alone, explaining a five-point breakdown of “What We Won on Election Day”: Trump voters, Adams voters, new voters, coalitions and turnout.
“Most campaigns focus on ‘triple primes’ – New Yorkers who voted in the last three primaries,” said Mamdani. “But this strategy ignored most of our city. We knew we could turn them out if they saw themselves in our policies.”
Speaking between clips of himself using Hindi, Urdu and Spanish, Mamdani explained, “We ran a campaign that tried to talk to every New Yorker, whether I could speak their language or simply tried. And the coalition that came out on Tuesday reflected the mosaic of these five boroughs.”
Among the areas Mamdani won by large margins were South Asian neighbourhoods such as City Line, Ozone Park and Jamaica Hills; Latino neighbourhoods including Corona, Washington Heights, Pelham Bay and Woodhaven; and Chinese communities in Flushing, Chinatown and Bensonhurst.
A Ugandan-born South Asian Muslim immigrant himself, Mamdani speaks both Hindi and Urdu – a fluency that allowed him to extend his reach to voters through social media videos.
Soniya Munshi, associate professor in urban studies and adviser to Asian-American community studies at Queens College, told Al Jazeera that these types of videos worked as conversation starters through Bollywood references that span the decades – from the 1970s onwards – recognisable to many South Asian diasporas of different ages and with different pathways to the US.
“I saw his Hindi/Urdu video move from Instagram to text chats among second-generation South Asians to WhatsApp family threads to discussions about Zohran’s platform for an affordable NYC,” said Munshi, who herself is a second-generation South Asian New Yorker. “These videos opened up a bigger conversation with friends, families and communities about our experiences, our conditions, our own hopes for the city we call home, and they also moved voters to come out for Mamdani.”
Cultural references and direct messaging
More than half of New York City’s South Asian population is of Indian descent, but Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities have seen the most growth over the past two decades. South Asians now make up 22.5 percent of the city’s Asian population, most of them immigrants. Mamdani’s campaign materials – in Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Bengali and other languages – spoke directly to immigrant New Yorkers about the material issues affecting their lives.
“It’s critical to note the significance of Mamdani’s videos in Hindi/Urdu and Bangla,” said Munshi. “These two communities are among those with the highest levels of limited English proficiency households, essential workers, and poverty rates of all immigrant groups in NYC … Ultimately, what made these South Asian language videos so powerful was the culturally relevant references combined with the direct message of his vision and platform.”
Chowdury Md Moshin, 68, a native of Bangladesh who now lives in Jackson Heights, sat in Travers Park on a warm late June day reading a newspaper, his stark white hair and shirt contrasting with the bright green of the swaying trees around him.
A speaker of Bengali or Bangla himself, Moshin appreciated hearing from a mayoral candidate speaking a language he understands.
“I think he will be a good mayor and will make New York City cleaner,” said Moshin. “I love him.”
In one of the videos posted during the final push before the Democratic primary election, Mamdani demonstrated ranked-choice voting with Council Member Shahana Hanif’s 39th New York City Council District, using a plate of mishti doi, a sweet yoghurt dessert from the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent.
“His Bangla-language video with Shahana Hanif, the first Bangladeshi Muslim woman to serve as city councilperson in NYC, was also significant,” said Munshi. “Bangla is not a South Asian language Mamdani is fluent in, and we see him making a good effort to speak with Hanif about the election.”
The digital agency behind this content, as well as Mamdani’s first viral video with over 3.5 million views on X, is called Melted Solids. The Brooklyn-based collective, founded in 2019 by Anthony DiMieri and Debbie Saslaw, has worked with Mamdani on various campaigns since as early as 2021.
In an interview with Adweek, Saslaw spoke to the 2025 primary, saying, “I’m [a] marketer and storyteller, and what I thought was necessary and needed in the political space was the ability to speak to regular New Yorkers, like using advertising … as a vessel to hear their concerns.”
Mara Einstein, digital marketing critic and author of Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults, told Al Jazeera that, “They [Melted Solids] know him, which is why they could produce content that conveyed his specific voice.”
“They are also not a traditional agency,” added Einstein. “What Melted Solids did that was different is get rid of the red, white, and blue colour scheme that has dominated political campaigns. Purple and yellow/gold [colours used by Mamdani’s campaign for flyers, signs and branding] is striking and unexpected. The typography harkens back to grocery store signs, giving it a neighbourhood-y, everyman feel.”
Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s digital marketing agency used purple and gold to brand his campaign, breaking away from traditional red and blue colours [File: Richard Drew/AP]
‘I like how he talks’
For a campaign run on affordability and reaching every New Yorker, this analysis bodes well. But ultimately, experts say that Mamdani’s social media engagement performed well because his vision and platform were at the core of all of his content.
“The social media content was delightful to watch, well-produced, and engaging, but what was most important was that it had substance,” said Munshi. “It gave us something to talk about that was bigger than Mamdani as an individual or even his campaign. It activated something at a collective level.”
Outside the polls in Woodside on election day, Munshi asked an older Spanish-speaking Latina woman whom she planned to vote for. The woman reached into her purse, pulled out a worn Working Families Party flyer, and pointed to Mamdani’s face. “Him,” she said. “I like how he talks.”
“To me, this indicated that Mamdani’s communication wasn’t just about the language he is speaking in,” said Munshi. “But how he used language – clear, simple, focused, relatable to New Yorkers who are concerned with their everyday needs in this city.”
With five months until the general election, Mamdani and Melted Solids still have work to do as they face off against incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is backed by US President Donald Trump.
But if former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s failed 2025 mayoral bid – backed by $25m raised by the super PAC Fix the City – is any indication, Einstein said, “No marketing, no matter how good it is, can sell a bad product. Cuomo is evidence of that.”
US Republican president slams Zohran Mamdani as a ‘communist’, says Andrew Cuomo has a ‘good shot of winning’.
Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has backed former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to run as an independent in the New York City mayoral race, renewing his attack against Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani.
Asked about Cuomo’s decision to stay in the contest after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, Trump said on Tuesday that the former governor can still win in the general election in November.
“I think he should stay. I think he has a shot,” Trump told reporters.
The former governor, 67, announced on Monday his intention to run as an independent after handily losing the Democratic contest to Mamdani last month.
But Cuomo has a mountain to climb in the overwhelmingly Democratic city, especially given that he will be competing for the anti-Mamdani vote with incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is also running as an independent, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
In an early sign of the challenges he is facing, Cuomo’s announcement on X received a flood of negative responses, with many citing his sexual harassment scandals.
Cuomo resigned as New York governor in 2021 after facing mounting sexual harassment allegations, which he has denied.
On Tuesday, Trump, a native New Yorker who moved to Florida after his first term as president in 2021, stopped short of fully endorsing Cuomo.
Asked whether he prefers Cuomo to win, Trump said: “I don’t want to say. I’m a Republican; he’s a democrat or an independent.”
“I think Andrew would have a good shot of winning. He’s got to run a tough campaign. You know, he’s running against a communist,” he added, referring to Mamdani.
The US president has been increasingly critical of Mamdani, 33, a left-wing state legislator who has made affordability the key component of his campaign.
Accusing Democrats of being communists or communist sympathisers is a frequent, misleading attack line by some Republicans. Analysts have told Al Jazeera that Mamdani’s platform does not contain the key tenets of communism, such as government takeover of industry and private property.
Last week, Trump suggested that he could use the “tremendous power” of the White House to take over New York City if Mamdani wins.
“As President of the United States, I’m not going to let this Communist Lunatic destroy New York,” Trump wrote in a social media post earlier this month.
“Rest assured, I hold all the levers, and have all the cards. I’ll save New York City, and make it ‘Hot’ and ‘Great’ again, just like I did with the Good Ol’ USA!”
Many of the president’s close allies, including several members of Congress, have deployed overtly Islamophobic language to attack Mamadani, who is of South Asian descent.
Last month, the White House said that baseless allegations that Mamdani has supported “terrorism” in the past “should be investigated”, with the intent of revoking his US citizenship.
Some close Trump allies, including billionaire Bill Ackman, backed Cuomo during the primaries.
The race to lead the largest US city has been capturing national and international headlines, in part due to the attacks on Mamdani over his support for Palestinian rights.
On Tuesday, Mamdani’s campaign sarcastically congratulated Cuomo on winning Trump’s backing.
“Obviously, this triumph speaks for itself. The question now is whether Cuomo will embrace Trump’s support publicly or continue to just accept it in private,” the campaign said in a statement.
Thunderstorms triggered flash floods in New York City and New Jersey on Monday, stranding commuters and motorists. The downpour was the city’s second-wettest hour in history, with more than two inches of rain. Authorities say two people were killed in New Jersey when their vehicle was swept away.
If he wins the general election in November, Zohran Mamdani could become New York City’s first South Asian mayor and the first of Indian origin.
But the same identity that makes him a trailblazer in United States politics has also exposed him to public outcry in India and within its diaspora.
Ever since Mamdani achieved a thumping win in the Democratic mayoral primary on June 24, his campaign has weathered a flood of vitriol – some of it coming from the Hindu right.
Experts say the attacks are a reflection of the tensions that have arisen between supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and critics of the human rights abuses under his leadership, particularly against religious minorities.
A number of those attacks have fixated on Mamdani’s religion: The 33-year-old is Muslim. Some commenters have accused the mayoral hopeful of being a “jihadi” and “Islamist”. Others have called him anti-Hindu and anti-India.
Kayla Bassett, the director of research at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), a Washington-based think tank, believes the attacks against Mamdani are a vehicle to attack the Muslim community more broadly.
“This isn’t just about one individual,” she said. “It’s about promoting a narrative that casts Muslims as inherently suspect or un-American.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced criticism for the treatment of religious minorities in India [Jermaine Cruickshank/AP Photo]
Backlash from Modi’s party
That narrative could potentially have consequences for Mamdani’s campaign, as he works to increase his support among New York voters.
Mamdani will face competition in November from more established names in politics. He is expected to face incumbent mayor Eric Adams in the final vote. His rival in the Democratic primary, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has also not yet ruled out an independent run.
The mayoral hopeful has vocally denounced human rights abuses, including in places like Gaza and India.
That unabashed stance has not only earned him criticism from his rival candidates but also from overseas.
Members of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for example, have been among the voices slamming Mamdani’s remarks and questioning his fitness for the mayor’s seat.
BJP Member of Parliament Kangana Ranaut posted on social media, for example, that Mamdani “sounds more Pakistani than Indian”.
“Whatever happened to his Hindu identity or bloodline,” she asked, pointing to the Hindu roots of his mother, director Mira Nair. “Now he is ready to wipe out Hinduism.”
Soon after Mamdani’s primary win, a prominent pro-BJP news channel in India, Aaj Tak, also aired a segment claiming that he had received funding from organisations that promote an “anti-India” agenda.
It also warned of a growing Muslim population in New York City, an assertion it coupled with footage of women wearing hijabs.
But some of the backlash has come from sources closer to home.
A New Jersey-based group named Indian Americans for Cuomo spent $3,570 for a plane to fly a banner over New York City with the message: “Save NYC from Global Intifada. Reject Mamdani.”
Mayoral candidates Andrew Cuomo, Michael Blake, Zohran Mamdani and Whitney Tilson participate in a Democratic mayoral primary debate on June 4 in New York [Yuki Iwamura/AP Photo]
A critic of human rights abuses
Much of the pushback can be linked to Mamdani’s vocal criticism of Hindu nationalism and Modi in particular.
In 2020, Mamdani participated in a Times Square demonstration against a temple built on the site of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya that was destroyed by Hindu extremists in 1992. He called out the BJP’s participation in and normalisation of that violence.
“I am here today to protest against the BJP government in India and the demolition of the Babri masjid,” he said.
Then, in 2023, Mamdani read aloud notes from an imprisoned Indian activist ahead of Modi’s visit to New York City.
That activist, Umar Khalid, has been imprisoned since 2020 without trial on terrorism charges after making speeches criticising Modi’s government.
More recently, during a town hall for mayoral candidates in May, Mamdani was asked if he would meet with Modi if the prime minister were to visit the city again. Mamdani said he wouldn’t.
“This is a war criminal,” he replied.
Mamdani pointed to Modi’s leadership in the Indian state of Gujarat during a period of religious riots in 2002. Modi has been criticised for turning a blind eye to the violence, which killed more than a thousand people, many of them Muslim.
In the aftermath, Modi was denied a US visa for “severe violations of religious freedom”.
“Narendra Modi helped to orchestrate what was a mass slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat, to the extent that we don’t even believe that there are Gujarati Muslims any more,” Mamdani told the town hall. “When I tell someone that I am, it’s a shock to them that that’s even the case.”
Protesters in 2014 gather to mark the anniversary of the violence in the Indian state of Gujarat [File: Ajit Solanki/AP Photo]
Barriers of class and religion
It’s that “fearless” and consistent criticism of Modi that has made Mamdani the target of outrage from the Hindu right, according to Rohit Chopra, a communications professor at Santa Clara University.
“Among the Hindu right, there is a project of the political management of the memory of 2002. There’s this silence around Modi being denied a visa to enter the US,” said Chopra.
The professor also said class fragmentation among Hindu Americans may also fuel scepticism towards Mamdani.
Hindu Americans are a relatively privileged minority in terms of socioeconomic status: The Pew Research Center estimates that 44 percent Asian American Hindus enjoy a family income of more than $150,000, and six in 10 have obtained postgraduate degrees.
That relative prosperity, Chopra said, can translate into social barriers.
“They don’t necessarily even identify with other Hindu Americans who may come from very different kinds of class backgrounds – people who might be working as cab drivers, or dishwashers, or other blue-collar jobs,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Suchitra Vijayan, a New York City-based writer and the founder of the digital magazine Polis Project, has noticed that many lines of attack against Mamdani centre on his identity.
“Mamdani is an elected leader who is unabashedly Muslim,” she said.
She pointed out that other Muslim politicians, including US Congress members Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, have sparked similar backlash for reproaching Modi over the Gujarat violence.
But Mamdani’s family ties to the region make the scrutiny all the more intense.
“In Mamdani’s case, he’s Muslim, he’s African, but also his father is of Gujarati descent and has openly spoken about the pogrom in Gujarat,” Vijayan said.
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani waves to supporters at an event on July 2 [David ‘Dee’ Delgado/Reuters]
A ‘seismic’ victory
Despite the online backlash, experts and local organisers believe Mamdani’s campaign can mobilise Indian American voters and other members of the South Asian diaspora who traditionally lean Democratic.
The Pew Research Center estimates that there are 710,000 Indians and Indian Americans living in the New York City area, the most of any metropolitan centre in the US.
Preliminary results from June’s mayoral primary show that Mamdani scored big in neighbourhoods with strong Asian populations, like Little Bangladesh, Jackson Heights and Parkchester.
A final tally of the ranked-choice ballots was released earlier this week, on July 1, showing Mamdani trounced his closest rival, Cuomo, 56 percent to 44.
“I’ve heard his win described as ‘seismic’,” said Arvind Rajagopal, a professor of media studies at New York University. “He can speak not only Spanish but Hindi, Urdu, and passable Bangla. A candidate with this level of depth and breadth is rare in recent times.”
Rajagopal added that Mamdani’s decision to own his Muslim identity became an asset for him on the campaign trail, particularly in the current political climate.
With President Donald Trump in office for a second term, many voters are bracing for the anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies that accompanied his first four years in the White House.
Back then, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”, saying they represented an “influx of hatred” and “danger”.
“The moment of Trump is something that Mamdani answers perfectly,” Rajagopal said. He called Mamdani’s success “a big reality check for the Hindu right”.
Whatever backlash Mamdani is facing from Hindu groups, Jagpreet Singh is sceptical about its influence over New York City.
“I can assure you – it’s not coming from within the city,” said Singh, the political director of DRUM Beats, a sister organisation to the social justice organisation Desis Rising Up and Moving.
That group was among the first in the city to endorse Mamdani’s candidacy for mayor.
Since early in his campaign, Singh pointed out that Mamdani has reached out to Hindu working-class communities “in an authentic way”.
This included visiting the Durga Temple and Nepalese Cultural Center in Ridgewood and speaking at events in the Guyanese and Trinidadian Hindu communities, Singh pointed out. During his time as a state assembly member, Mamdani also pushed for legislation that would recognise Diwali – the Hindu festival of lights – as a state holiday.
At a Diwali celebration last year, Singh said Mamdani “took part in lighting of the diyas, spoke on stage, and talked about his mother’s background as being somebody who is of Hindu faith”.
To Singh, the message was clear. South Asian groups in New York City, including Hindu Americans, “have adopted him as their own”.
NEW YORK — Natasha Cloud scored 11 of her 23 points in the third quarter and sparked a huge run to lead the New York Liberty to an 89-79 victory over the Sparks on Thursday night.
Breanna Stewart added 17 points and 14 rebounds and Sabrina Ionescu had 20 points for New York (12-5).
The defending champion Liberty trailed 53-42 midway through the third before Cloud and Ionescu got going. Cloud’s three-point play sparked a 13-0 run and then Ionescu scored 10 straight points for New York to give the Liberty a 63-59 advantage.
New York extended its lead to 69-59 by the end of the period. The Sparks (5-13) cut it to five with 3:30 left before Leonie Fiebich hit a three-pointer to seal the win.
Dearica Hamby scored 25 points to lead the Sparks, who got a boost with the return of Rae Burrell. She saw her first action since injuring her knee in the opener. She checked in late in the first quarter and played 12 minutes, finishing with five points.
The game also marked the debut of Julie Vanloo, whom the Sparks picked up off waivers two hours before tip-off. She came in early in the second quarter and played two minutes.
New York was still missing star forward Jonquel Jones, who has been sidelined with a sprained ankle. Jones told reporters Wednesday that she’s progressing well, but didn’t want to put a timetable on her return. The Liberty welcomed back Fiebich, who had been playing for Germany in the EuroBasket tournament over the last few weeks.
The Sparks built a 41-37 halftime lead behind 10 points from Hamby. Stewart had 11 points and seven rebounds.
Liberty guard Marine Johannes had two standout plays in the first half. She hit a three-pointer off one foot as the shot clock ran out, and later made a no-look, behind-the-back pass to Stewart for a layup.
NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani has won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, a new vote count confirmed Tuesday, cementing his stunning upset of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and sending him to the general election.
The Associated Press called the race after the results of the city’s ranked choice voting tabulation were released and showed Mamdani trouncing Cuomo by 12 percentage points.
In a statement, Mamdani said he was humbled by the support he received in the primary and started turning his attention to the general election.
“Last Tuesday, Democrats spoke in a clear voice, delivering a mandate for an affordable city, a politics of the future, and a leader unafraid to fight back against rising authoritarianism,” he said. “I am humbled by the support of more than 545,000 New Yorkers who voted for our campaign and am excited to expand this coalition even further as we defeat Eric Adams and win a city government that puts working people first.”
Mamdani’s win had been widely expected since he took a commanding lead after the polls closed a week ago, falling just short of the 50% of the vote needed to avoid another count under the city’s ranked choice voting model. The system allows voters’ other preferences to be counted if their top candidate falls out of the running.
Mamdani, who declared victory the night of the June 24 primary, will face a general election field that includes incumbent Mayor Eric Adams as well as independent candidate Jim Walden and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
The former governor, down but not out
Cuomo conceded defeat just hours after the polls closed last week but is contemplating whether to run in the general election on an independent ballot line. After the release of Tuesday’s vote count, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said, “We’ll be continuing conversations with people from all across the city while determining next steps.”
“Extremism, division and empty promises are not the answer to this city’s problems, and while this was a look at what motivates a slice of our primary electorate, it does not represent the majority,” Azzopardi said. “The financial instability of our families is the priority here, which is why actionable solutions, results and outcomes matter so much.”
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and member of the state Assembly, was virtually unknown when he launched his candidacy centered on a bold slate of populist ideas. But he built an energetic campaign that ran circles around Cuomo as the older, more moderate Democrat tried to come back from the sexual harassment scandal that led to his resignation four years ago.
The results, even before they were finalized, sent a shockwave through the political world.
Democratic support?
Mamdani’s campaign, which was focused on lowering the cost of living, claims it has found a new blueprint for Democrats who have at times appeared rudderless during President Trump’s climb back to power.
The Democratic establishment has approached Mamdani with caution. Many of its big players applauded his campaign but don’t seem ready to throw their full support behind the young progressive, whose past criticisms of law enforcement, use of the word “genocide” to describe the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and “democratic socialist” label amount to landmines for some in the party.
If elected, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim mayor and its first of Indian American decent. He would also be one of its youngest.
Opposition mounts
For Republicans, Mamdani has already provided a new angle for attack. Trump and others in the GOP have begun to launch broadsides at him, moving to cast Mamdani as the epitome of leftist excess ahead of consequential elections elsewhere this year and next.
“If I’m a Republican, I want this guy to win,” said Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University. “Because I want to be able to compare and contrast my campaign as a Republican, in a national election, to the idea of, ‘This is where the Democratic Party is.’”
New York City’s ranked choice voting model allows voters to list up to five candidates on their ballots in order of preference. If a single candidate is the first choice of more than 50% of voters, then that person wins the race outright. Since no candidate cleared that bar on the night of the primary, the ranked choice voting process kicked in. The board is scheduled to certify the election on July 15.
Mamdani has been a member of the state Assembly since 2021, and has characterized his inexperience as a potential asset. His campaign promised free city buses, free child care, a rent freeze for people living in rent-stabilized apartments, government-run grocery stores and more, all paid for with taxes on the wealthy. Critics have slammed his agenda as politically unrealistic.
Cuomo ran a campaign centered on his extensive experience, casting himself as the only candidate capable of saving a city he said had spun out of control. During the campaign, he focused heavily on combating antisemitism and leaned on his name recognition and juggernaut fundraising operation rather than mingling with voters.
Confronted with the sexual harassment allegations that ended his tenure as governor, he denied wrongdoing, maintaining that the scandal was driven by politics and that voters were ready to move on.
Cuomo did not remove his name from the November ballot last week, ahead of a procedural deadline to do so, and has said he is still considering whether to mount an actual campaign for the office.
Adams, while still a Democrat, is running in the November election as an independent. He dropped out of the Democratic primary in April after he was severely wounded by his now-dismissed federal bribery case. Though he had done little in the way of campaigning since then, he reignited his reelection operation in the days after Mamdani declared victory, calling it a choice between a candidate with a “blue collar” and one with a “silver spoon.”
Chinese coffee chain retailer Luckin Coffee entered the U.S. market Monday with two locations in New York City. The coffee chain, which is cashless and uses a mobile app, charges an average of 30% less than Starbucks for its coffee. File Photo by Wu Hong/EPA-EFE
July 1 (UPI) — Starbucks got some heated competition Monday as China’s largest coffee chain Luckin Coffee opened its first two locations in the United States.
Luckin Coffee, which has more than 22,000 locations in China and Singapore, opened both U.S. stores in New York City, with one in Greenwich Village and the other in NoMad. No word on whether the Xiamen, China-based chain, plans to expand to more U.S. locations.
Luckin, which was founded in 2017, features cashless payments and takeout booths for its coffee and other beverages that average about 30% cheaper than its competitor Starbucks. Within two years of serving up brew, Luckins overtook Starbucks in China.
In New York City, Luckin may have to make some changes to comply with the city’s cashless business ban, as well as U.S. coffee tastes. According to its website, it serves up single-origin espresso, signature lattes, matcha and fruity Americanos.
The Chinese chain also touts its affordability and efficiency with a mobile app that is “completely changing the traditional coffee business mode.”
Luckin celebrated its venture into the United States on Monday with a $1.99 first drink for New Yorkers, who used the app, and a social media post with animated Luckin coffee cups as they take over dozens of New York yellow cabs.
For years, Muslim New Yorkers have gathered at Washington Square Park on the Eid holidays for prayer services, putting the city’s religious and ethnic diversity on display.
But this year, right-wing influencers have been sharing footage of the gatherings, presenting them as a nefarious “invasion” tied to Muslim American New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
“The fear-mongering is insane,” said Asad Dandia, a local historian and Muslim American activist who supports Mamdani’s campaign. “I think the community and our leadership know that we’re on the radar now.”
Muslim Americans in New York and across the United States said the country is seeing a spike in Islamophobic rhetoric in response to Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primaries.
Advocates said the wave of hateful comments shows that Islamophobia remains a tolerated form of bigotry in the US despite appearing to have receded in recent years.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Dandia said.
‘Islam is not a religion’
It is not just anonymous internet users and online anti-Muslim figures attacking Mamdani and his identity. A flood of politicians, including some in the orbit of President Donald Trump, have joined in.
Congressman Randy Fine went as far as to suggest without evidence that Mamdani will install a “caliphate” in New York City if elected while Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a cartoon of the Statue of Liberty in a burqa on X.
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn attacked the mayoral candidate, arguing that Islam is a political ideology and “not a religion”.
Others, like conservative activist Charlie Kirk invoked the 9/11 attacks and called Mamdani a “Muslim Maoist” while right-wing commentator Angie Wong told CNN that people in New York are “concerned about their safety, living here with a Muslim mayor”.
Far-right activist Laura Loomer, a Trump confidant, referred to the mayoral candidate as a “jihadist Muslim”, baselessly alleging that he has ties to both Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.
And Republican Representative Andy Ogles sent a letter to the Department of Justice, calling for Mamdani’s citizenship to be revoked and for him to be deported.
On Sunday, Congressman Brandon Gill posted a video of Mamdani eating biryani with his hand and called on him “to go back to the Third World”, saying that “civilized people” in the US “don’t eat like this”.
Zohran Mamdani gestures as he speaks during a watch party for his primary election, which includes his bid to become the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor in the upcoming November 2025 election, in New York City, US, June 25, 2025. [David ‘Dee’ Delgado/Reuters]
Calls for condemnation
“I’m getting flashbacks from after 9/11,” New York City Council member Shahana Hanif said. “I was a kid then, and still the bigotry and Islamophobia were horrifying as a child.”
Hanif, who represents a district in Brooklyn, comfortably won re-election last week in a race that focused on her advocacy for Palestinian rights and calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
She told Al Jazeera that the anti-Muslim rhetoric in response to Mamdani’s win aims to distract and derail the progressive energy that defeated the establishment to secure the Democratic nomination for him.
Hanif said Islamophobic comments should be condemned across the political spectrum, stressing that there is “so much more work to do” to undo racism in the US.
While several Democrats have denounced the campaign against Mamdani, leading figures in the party – including many in New York – have not released formal statements on the issue.
“We should all be disgusted by the flood of anti-Muslim remarks spewed in the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the NYC mayoral primary – some blatant, others latent,” US Senator Chris Van Hollen said in a statement.
“Shame on the members of Congress who have engaged in such bigotry and anyone who doesn’t challenge it.”
Our joint statement on the vile, anti-Muslim, racist attacks on Zohran Mamdani: pic.twitter.com/QRGOvh0jdG
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) June 27, 2025
Trump and Muslim voters
At the same time, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who represents New York, has been accused of fuelling bigotry against Mamdani. Last week, she falsely accused Mamdani of making “references to global jihad”.
Her office later told US media outlets that she “misspoke” and was raising concerns over Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase “globalise the intifada”, a call for activism using the Arabic word for uprising.
Critics of the chant claimed that it makes Jews feel unsafe because it invokes the Palestinian uprisings of the late 1980s and early 2000s, which saw both peaceful opposition and armed struggle against the Israeli occupation.
While Mamdani, who is of South Asian descent, focused his campaign on making New York affordable, his support for Palestinian rights took centre stage in the criticism against him. Since the election, the attacks – particularly on the right – appear to have shifted to his Muslim identity.
That backlash comes after Trump and his allies courted Muslim voters during his bid for the presidency last year. In fact, the US president has nominated two Muslim mayors from Michigan as ambassadors to Tunisia and Kuwait.
In the lead-up to the elections, Trump called Muslim Americans “smart” and “good people”.
The Republican Party seemed to tone down the anti-Muslim language as it sought the socially conservative community’s votes.
But Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Islamophobia goes in cycles.
“Islamophobia is sort of baked into American society,” Saylor told Al Jazeera.
“It wasn’t front and centre, but all it required was something to flip the switch right back on, and I would say, we’re seeing that once again.”
Islamophobia ‘industry’
Negative portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in the US media, pop culture and political discourse have persisted for decades.
That trend intensified after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 by al-Qaeda. In subsequent years, right-wing activists started to warn about what they said were plans to implement Islamic religious law in the West.
Muslims were also the subjects of conspiracy theories warning against the “Islamisation” of the US through immigration.
The early 2000s saw the rise of provocateurs, “counterterrorism experts” and think tanks dedicated to bashing Islam and drumming up fear against the religion in a loosely connected network that community advocates have described as an “industry”.
That atmosphere regularly seeped into mainstream political conversations. For example, then-candidate Trump called in 2015 for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.
Even in liberal New York, where the 9/11 attacks killed more than 2,600 people at the World Trade Center in 2001, the Muslim community endured a backlash.
After the attacks, the New York Police Department established a network of undercover informants to surveil the Muslim community’s mosques, businesses and student associations.
The programme was disbanded in 2014, and a few years later, the city reached a legal settlement with the Muslim community, agreeing to implement stronger oversight on police investigations to prevent abuse.
In 2010, the city’s Muslim community burst into the national spotlight again after plans for a Muslim community centre in lower Manhattan faced intense opposition due to its proximity to the destroyed World Trade Center.
While many Republicans whipped up conspiracy theories against the community centre, several Democrats as well as the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent pro-Israel group, joined them in opposing the project, which was eventually scrapped.
‘We are above this’
Now New York Muslims find themselves once again in the eye of an Islamophobia storm. This time, however, advocates said their communities are more resilient than ever.
“We feel more confident in our community’s voice and our institutional power and in the support that we will have from allies,” Dandia said.
“Yes, we’re dealing with this Islamophobic backlash, but I don’t want to make it seem like we’re just victims because we are able to now fight back. The fact that this was the largest Muslim voter mobilisation in American history is a testament to that.”
Hanif echoed his comments.
“Over the last 25 years, we’ve built a strong coalition that includes our Jewish communities, that includes Asian, Latino, Black communities, to be able to say like we are above this and we will care for one another,” she told Al Jazeera.
June 29 (UPI) — A 20-year-old woman was likely bitten by a juvenile sand tiger shark while swimming off a New York beach, officials said.
The unidentified woman was waist-deep in the surf at the Central Mall beachfront of Jones Beach State Park when at about 4:15 p.m. EDT Wednesday she reported being bitten by an unknown marine wildlife, the state’s Park, Recreation and Historic Preservation office said in a statement on Friday.
Officials said the woman suffered non-life-threatening laceration injuries to her left foot and leg and was transported to Nassau County University Medical Center Hospital for treatment.
As she did not observe what exactly attacked her, an investigation ensued with biologists concluding that it was “most likely” a juvenile sand tiger shark, though “without direct observation of the animal that caused the bites a full expert consensus was not reached,” park officials said.
Swimming resumed at the beach on Thursday, after park staff and police used drones to search the area and lifeguards scanned the water from the shore.
NEW YORK — In choosing Zohran Mamdani as their candidate for mayor, Democrats in America’s most Jewish city have nominated an outspoken critic of Israel, alarming some in New York’s Jewish community and signaling a sea change in the priorities of one of the party’s most loyal voting groups.
The 33-year-old democratic socialist’s surprisingly strong performance against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo makes clear that taking a stance against Israel is no longer disqualifying in a Democratic primary. The state Assembly member has declined to support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, refused to denounce the term “global intifada” and supports an organized effort to put economic pressure on Israel through boycotts and other tactics.
Yet he excelled in the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, and with the support of many Jewish voters.
Mamdani’s success reflects the ideological realignment of many American Jews since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel that led to Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip. Many Democratic voters, including Jews, have grown dismayed by Israel’s conduct in the war and are deeply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That is especially true among younger, more progressive voters, many of whom have rejected the once-broadly accepted notion that anti-Israel sentiment is inherently antisemitic.
For others, Mamdani’s showing has spurred new fears about safety and the waning influence of Jewish voters in a city where anti-Jewish hate crime has surged. Last year, Jews were the target of more than half of the hate crimes in the city.
“Definitely people are concerned,” said Rabbi Shimon Hecht, of Congregation B’nai Jacob in Brooklyn, who said he has heard from congregants in recent days who hope Mamdani will be defeated in the November general election, where he will face Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and possibly Cuomo if he stays in the race.
“I think like every upsetting election, it’s a wake-up call for people,” Hecht said. “I strongly believe that he will not be elected as our next mayor, but it’s going to take a lot of uniting among the Jewish people and others who are concerned about these issues. We have to unify.”
Veteran New York Democratic political strategist Hank Sheinkopf put it more bluntly, predicting a hasty exodus of religious Jews from the city and a decline in long-standing Jewish influence that would be replicated elsewhere.
“It’s the end of Jewish New York as we know it,” he said, adding: “New York is a petri dish for national Democratic politics. And what happened here is what will likely happen in cities across the country.”
Israel was a key campaign issue
Mamdani’s top Democratic rival, the former governor, had called antisemitism and support for Israel “the most important issue” of the campaign.
Mamdani’s backers repeatedly accused Cuomo of trying to weaponize the issue. Many drew parallels to the way President Trump has cast any criticism of Israel’s actions as antisemitic, claiming Jews who vote for Democrats “hate Israel” and their own religion.
For some Mamdani supporters, the election results signaled a rejection by voters of one of Cuomo’s arguments: that an upstart socialist with pro-Palestinian views posed a threat to New York’s Jewish community.
Many were focused on issues such as affordability in a notoriously expensive city, or were flat-out opposed to Cuomo, who was forced to resign amid sexual harassment allegations.
Aiyana Leong Knauer, a 35-year-old Brooklyn bartender who is Jewish and backed Mamdani, said the vote represented “New Yorkers, many of them Jewish, saying we care more about having an affordable city than sowing division.”
“Many of us take really deep offense to our history being weaponized against us,” she said. “Jewish people all over the world have well-founded fears for their safety, but Jews in New York are safe overall.”
Others agreed with Mamdani’s views on Israel.
Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, a progressive anti-Zionist group that worked on Mamdani’s behalf, said the candidate “was actually pretty popular among a lot of Jewish voters.”
“That is not in spite of his support for Palestinian rights. That is because of his support for Palestinian rights,” she said. “There has been a massive rupture within the Jewish community, and more and more Jews of all generations, but especially younger generations,” now refuse to be tied to what they see as a rogue government committing atrocities against civilians, she said.
Polls show support for Israel has declined since the war began. Overall, a slight majority of Americans now express a “somewhat” or “very” unfavorable opinion of Israel, according to a March Pew Research Center poll, compared with 42% in 2022. Democrats’ views are particularly negative, with nearly 70% holding an unfavorable opinion versus less than 40% of Republicans.
Beyond the mayoral race
Mamdani’s wasn’t the only race where Israel was on voters’ minds.
In Brooklyn, City Councilwoman Shahana Hanif, who represents Park Slope and surrounding areas, drew criticism for her Palestinian advocacy. Some said she had failed to respond forcefully to antisemitic incidents in the district.
Yet Hanif, the first Muslim woman elected to the City Council, easily beat her top challenger, Maya Kornberg, who is Jewish, despite an influx of money from wealthy pro-Israel groups and donors.
That outcome dismayed Ramon Maislen, a developer who launched Brooklyn BridgeBuilders to oppose Hanif’s reelection and said antisemitism did not seem to resonate with voters.
“We were very disappointed with our neighbors’ response,” he said.
While campaigning against Hanif, he said he was routinely screamed at by residents and accused of supporting genocide.
“I think that those of us in the Jewish community that are attuned to that are cognizant that there’s been some kind of cultural sea change that’s occurring,” he said. “What we’re seeing is a legitimatization of hatred that isn’t happening in any other liberal or progressive space.”
Mamdani’s record and rhetoric
Mamdani has repeatedly pledged to fight antisemitism, including during an appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” where he was asked about his stance. He was joined on the show by city comptroller and fellow candidate Brad Lander, the city’s highest-ranking Jewish official, who had cross-endorsed him. He has also said he would increase funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800%.
But many of his comments have angered Jewish groups and officials, most notably his refusal to disavow the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been used as a slogan in recent protests. Many Jews see it as a call to violence against Israeli civilians. In a podcast interview, Mamdani said the phrase captured a “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”
Given another opportunity to condemn the phrase, Mamdani on Sunday told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it was not his role to police speech and pledged to be a mayor who “protects Jewish New Yorkers and lives up to that commitment through the work that I do.”
Mamdani also supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to pressure governments, schools and other institutions to boycott Israeli products, divest from companies that support the country, and impose sanctions. The Anti-Defamation League calls it antisemitic and part of a broader campaign to “delegitimize and isolate the state of Israel.”
Mamdani has also said that, as mayor, he would have Netanyahu arrested if the Israeli leader tried to enter the city.
The ADL in a statement Thursday warned candidates and their supporters not to use “language playing into dangerous antisemitic canards that time and time again have been used to incite hatred and violence against Jews.”
In his victory speech, Mamdani alluded to the criticism he’d received and said he would not abandon his beliefs. But he also said he would “reach further to understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree and to wrestle deeply with those disagreements.”
Colvin writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jake Offenhartz contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — The monthlong celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride reached its crescendo as New York and other major cities in the U.S. and around the world hosted parades and marches Sunday.
Pride celebrations are typically a daylong mix of jubilant street parties and political protest, but this year’s iterations took a more defiant stance as Republicans, led by President Trump, have sought to roll back LGBTQ+ rights.
The theme of the festivities in Manhattan was “Rise Up: Pride in Protest.” San Francisco’s Pride theme was “Queer Joy Is Resistance,” while Seattle’s was simply “Louder.”
Lance Brammer, a 56-year-old teacher from Ohio attending his first Pride parade in New York, said he felt “validated” as he marveled at the size of the city’s celebration, the nation’s oldest and largest.
“With the climate that we have politically, it just seems like they’re trying to do away with the whole LGBTQ community, especially the trans community,” he said, wearing a vivid, multicolored shirt. “And it just shows that they’ve got a fight ahead of them if they think that they’re going to do that with all of these people here and all of the support.”
Doriana Feliciano, who described herself as an LGBTQ+ ally, held up a sign saying, “Please don’t lose hope,” in support of friends she said couldn’t attend Sunday.
“We’re in a very progressive time, but there’s still hate out there, and I feel like this is a great way to raise awareness,” she said.
Manhattan’s parade wound its way down Fifth Avenue with more than 700 participating groups greeted by huge crowds. The rolling celebration will pass the Stonewall Inn, the famed Greenwich Village gay bar where a 1969 police raid triggered protests and energized the LGBTQ+ rights movement.
The site is now a national monument. The first Pride march was held in New York City in 1970 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall uprising.
Later Sunday, marchers in San Francisco, host to another of the world’s largest Pride events, planned to head down Market Street to concert stages set up at the Civic Center Plaza. San Francisco’s mammoth City Hall is among the venues hosting a post-march party.
Denver, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis and Toronto were among the other major North American cities hosting Pride parades on Sunday.
Several global cities including Tokyo, Paris and São Paulo held their events earlier this month, and others come later in the year, including London in July and Rio de Janeiro in November.
Since taking office in January, Trump has issued orders and implemented policies targeting transgender people, removing them from the military, preventing federal insurance programs from paying for gender-affirmation surgeries for young people and attempting to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ and women’s sports.
Peter McLaughlin said he’s lived in New York for years but had never attended the Pride parade. The 34-year-old Brooklyn resident said he felt compelled this year as a transgender man.
“A lot of people just don’t understand that letting people live doesn’t take away from their own experience, and right now it’s just important to show that we’re just people,” McLaughlin said.
Gabrielle Meighan, 23, of New Jersey, said she felt it was important to come out to this year’s celebrations because they come days after the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark June 26, 2015, ruling in Obergefell vs. Hodges that recognized same-sex marriage nationwide.
“It’s really important to vocalize our rights and state why it’s important for us to be included,” she said.
Manhattan on Sunday also hosted the Queer Liberation March, an activism-centered event launched in recent years amid criticism that the more mainstream parade had become too corporate.
Marchers holding signs that included “Gender affirming care saves lives” and “No Pride in apartheid” headed north from the city’s AIDS Memorial to Columbus Circle near Central Park.
Among the other headwinds faced by gay rights groups this year is the loss of corporate sponsorship. American companies have pulled back support of Pride events, reflecting a broader walking back of diversity and inclusion efforts amid shifting public sentiment.
NYC Pride said this month that about 20% of its corporate sponsors dropped or reduced support, including PepsiCo and Nissan. Organizers of San Francisco Pride said they lost the support of five major corporate donors, including Comcast and Anheuser-Busch.
Marcelo and Shaffrey write for the Associated Press.
The success of Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor is thrilling for Hari Kondabolu, a stand-up comedian who’s been friends with him for 15 years.
Mamdani stunned the political establishment when he declared victory in the primary on Tuesday, a ranked-choice election in which his strongest competition, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, conceded defeat.
When he launched his campaign, the democratic socialist ranked near the bottom of the pack. Now, the 33-year-old state assemblyman has a chance to be New York City’s first Asian American and Muslim mayor.
Mamdani’s family came to the United States when he was 7, and he became a citizen in 2018. He was born to Indian parents in Kampala, Uganda.
For Kondabolu, this moment is not just exciting, but emotional.
“I think so many of us have had those experiences in New York of being brown and in a city that has always been really diverse and feels like ours. But after 9/11, like you start to question it like, is this our city too?” Kondabolu said. “And 25 years later … it’s surreal, like this is the same city but it’s not because we’ve elected this person.”
Mamdani’s campaign has piqued the interest of many Indian, Pakistani and other South Asian Americans, as well as Muslims — even those who may not agree with Mamdani on many issues. Some see his rise as a sign of hope in a city where racism and xenophobia erupted following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Riveted by the primary election
Many of New York City’s more than 300,000 South Asian residents have been inspired by Mamdani’s extraordinary trajectory.
“My mom was texting her friends to vote for him. I’ve never seen my mother do that before,” Kondabolu said. “So the idea that it’s gotten our whole family activated in this way — this is, like, personal.”
Snigdha Sur, founder and chief executive of the Juggernaut, an online publication reporting on South Asians, has been fascinated by the response from some people in India and the diaspora.
“So many global South Asians … they’re like, ‘Oh, this guy is my mayor and I don’t live in New York City,’” Sur said.
At the same time, some are also concerned or angered by Mamdani’s past remarks about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he called a “war criminal.”
In 2005, Washington revoked Modi’s visa to the U.S., citing concerns that, as chief minister of the state of Gujarat, he did not act to stop communal violence during 2002 anti-Muslim riots that left more than 1,000 people dead. An investigation approved by the Indian Supreme Court later absolved Modi. Rights groups have accused Modi’s government of widespread attacks and discrimination against India’s Muslims and other minorities.
In Michigan, Thasin Sardar has been following Mamdani’s ascent online. When he first heard him, the candidate struck him as “genuine” and he felt “an instant connection,” he said.
“As a Muslim American, this victory puts my trust back in the people,” said Sardar, who was born and raised in India. “I am happy that there are people who value the candidate and his policies more than his personal religious beliefs and didn’t vote him down because of the color of his skin, or the fact that he was an immigrant with an uncommon name.”
New York voter Zainab Shabbir said family members in California and elsewhere have also excitedly taken note.
“My family in California, they were very much like, ‘Oh, it’s so nice to see a South Asian Muslim candidate be a mayor of a major city,’” she said. A brother told her Mamdani’s rise is a great example for his kids, she said.
But the 34-year-old — who donated, voted and canvassed for Mamdani — said it was his vision for New York City that was the draw for her. She and her husband briefly chatted with Mamdani at a fundraiser and she found him to be “very friendly and genuine.”
She suspects that for some who aren’t very politically active, Mamdani’s political ascent could make a difference.
“There’s a lot of Muslim communities like my parents’ generation who are focused a lot more on the politics back home and less on the politics here in America,” said Shabbir. “Seeing people like Zohran Mamdani be in office, it’ll really change that perspective in a lot of people.”
Embracing Indian and Muslim roots
Supporters and pundits agree that Mamdani’s campaign has demonstrated social media savvy and authenticity. He visited multiple mosques. In videos, he speaks in Hindi or gives a touch of Bollywood. Other South Asian American politicians such as Democratic Bay Area congressman Ro Khanna praised that.
“I love that he didn’t run away from his heritage. I mean, he did video clips with Amitabh Bachchan and Hindi movies,” said Khanna, referencing the Indian actor. “He shows that one can embrace their roots and their heritage and yet succeed in American politics.”
But his triumph also reflects “the urgency of the economic message, the challenge that people are facing in terms of rent, in terms of the cost of living, and how speaking to that is so powerful,” Khanna said.
Tanzeela Rahman, a daughter of Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, said she grew up “very low income” in New York.
“I felt seen by him in a way politicians have not seen me ever,” the 29-year-old financial systems analyst said. “I think very few people in government understand … how hard it is to survive in New York City.”
She found Mamdani to be “unabashedly Muslim” and also “a voice, who, literally, to me sounds like a New Yorker who’s stepping in and saying, ‘Hey, let’s reclaim our power,’” she said.
While Mamdani has been speaking to the working class, he had a somewhat privileged upbringing. His mother is filmmaker Mira Nair and his father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a professor at Columbia University.
He lived in Queens but attended the Bronx High School of Science. Even as a teen, he cared about social justice, recalled Kondabolu, his comedian friend.
His campaign messaging on issues such as affordable housing and free bus rides might not resonate with South Asian households in New York City who have income levels above the median. But his campaign and “great kind of sound bites” earned support from that demographic too, according to Sur.
“It was, I think, a surprise that he did so well among the wealthiest, including his own community,” Sur said.
Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinian causes and criticism of Israel and its military campaign in Gaza resonated with pro-Palestinian residents, including Muslims, but caused tension in the mayor’s race. Some of his positions and remarks on the charged issue have drawn recriminations from opponents and some Jewish groups, though he’s also been endorsed by some Jewish politicians and activists.
Racism and xenophobia
Mamdani’s success immediately elicited strong anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric from some high-profile conservatives on social media, including pro-Trump media personality Charlie Kirk, who posted that “legal immigration can ruin your country.” In response, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the youngest member of Congress, wrote on X: “For years they sold people the lie of ‘we have no problem if you come the right way!’”
Mamdani’s supporters aren’t concerned that racism and Islamophobia will distract from his campaign. Those feelings clearly weren’t “enough for him to lose” the primary, Kondabolu said.
“There’s a new generation that wants their voice heard, and that generation came out in full force, not just by voting, but by, like, getting all these other people to be emotionally invested in this candidate,” he said. “That’s extraordinary.”
Tang and Fam write for the Associated Press. AP writer Matt Brown in Washington contributed to this report.
Why everyone is talking about New York City’s new mayoral frontrunner.
Thirty-three years old, socialist, Muslim – and now, the likely Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City – Zohran Mamdani was barely known a few months ago. Today, he may be the most popular political voice of a generation. How did he get here – and could he be here to stay?
Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has bold plans for New York City. He wants to establish city-owned grocery stores, build more homes, make buses free and freeze rents for subsidised tenants.
But in the lead-up to the Democratic primary on Tuesday, his opponents and media outlets seemed more concerned by his views on the conflict between Israel and Palestine. He is a defender of Palestinian rights who has decried Israeli abuses and echoed the assessment of rights groups that Israel’s assault on Gaza is a genocide.
Mamdani did not back down from his positions, and he won, edging out former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had more institutional support and was backed by record spending.
Mamdani’s supporters say his victory could be an inflection point in United States politics that shows the electoral viability of left-wing policies and support for Palestinian rights.
“It’s monumental,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for the progressive group Justice Democrats.
“The sky is the limit for true progressives who are willing to unite the working class against billionaires and corporate super PACs while still refusing to compromise on issues as large as a genocide.”
While the official results are not yet final, Mamdani leads Cuomo by more than seven percentage points with nearly every vote counted, all but securing the nomination.
His lead is expected to grow with subsequent rounds of counting in the city’s ranked-choice voting system.
Cuomo has conceded defeat, and Mamdani has declared victory, putting him on the path to be the next mayor of the largest city in the US.
New York is overwhelmingly Democratic, so as the party’s nominee, he is likely to comfortably prevail in the general election in November — an outcome that seemed impossible when he was polling at 1 percent in February.
‘He refused to back down’
Savvy with digital media, charismatic and approachable, Mamdani — a 33-year-old state legislator — started to grow his base with viral videos and grassroots campaigning on the streets of New York.
After the presidential election in November of last year, Mamdani spoke to Donald Trump’s supporters and non-voters, who voiced frustration with status quo politics. He then presented them with his own platform. In a video segment he filmed, some of them said they would back him for mayor.
Mamdani’s supporters say he also excelled in amassing an army of thousands of volunteers, who knocked on doors to spread the word about his campaign.
Heba Gowayed, a sociology professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), said many young people were drawn to Mamdani and got involved in his campaign because of his opposition to Israeli policies.
“The fact that he refused to back down from his position on Palestine is huge,” Gowayed told Al Jazeera. “In an atmosphere where we’ve been told that holding that position is politically disqualifying, it was a movement that not only insisted on this position but was, in a sense, predicated on it.”
She added that, if Mamdani had flipped to appease critics, he would have lost the support and enthusiasm that put him over the finish line. But Mamdani’s support for Palestinian “likely bolstered his campaign”, she said.
Mamdani faced seemingly insurmountable odds in his campaign for the Democratic nomination. Not only did he lack funding early on, but his name recognition was also low. Few voters seemed to know who he was, compared with the candidate he was running against: Cuomo, a former governor from a political dynasty in New York.
Cuomo’s father had also served as governor, and in the lead-up to Tuesday’s race, he had amassed endorsements from key figures in the national Democratic Party, including former President Bill Clinton and lawmaker Jim Clyburn.
Mamdani, meanwhile, was endorsed by the local branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
That is what makes Mamdani’s win stunning for his supporters. It appeared to be a David and Goliath battle, a clash of the old guard and the new.
“The old guard personified was beaten by a democratic socialist, a young, pro-Palestinian brown Muslim kid who had 1 percent name recognition as of February,” Gowayed said. “It is absolutely phenomenal and remarkable.”
Born in Uganda to parents of Indian descent, Mamdani has been serving in the state assembly since 2021.
Many viewed the face-off between Cuomo and Mamdani as a reflection of the years-long arm-wrestling between progressives and centrists in the Democratic Party. The debate over Palestinian rights and the US’s unquestioning support for Israel has been a core issue in that fight.
Cuomo’s focus on Israel
As a state legislator, Mamdani had been vocal in his opposition to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 56,077 Palestinians. He even led a hunger strike outside the White House in November 2023 to demand an end to the war.
But as he launched his campaign for mayor, his focus was on local issues.
Still, Cuomo — who resigned as governor in 2021 over sexual harassment allegations — tried to make Mamdani’s position on Israel and Palestine a central issue in the campaign.
Earlier this month, the former governor suggested that calling out Israeli abuses contributes to attacks against Jewish Americans. The target of his message appeared to be Mamdani.
“Hate foments hate. The anti-Israel rhetoric of ‘genocide,’ ‘war criminals,’ and ‘murderers’ must stop. It is spreading like a cancer through the body politic,” Cuomo said in a social media post after a fire attack injured 15 people at a pro-Israel rally in Colorado.
The former governor is part of the defence team representing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes charges in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a weapon of war.
When Mamdani and some of his fellow candidates, including City Comptroller Brad Lander, campaigned jointly against Cuomo, the former governor invoked Israel.
“How does … a Brad Lander support Zohran Mamdani, support his positions on Israel, support his statements on Israel?” Cuomo said.
Lander, who is Jewish, went on to cross-endorse Mamdani, and the two candidates encouraged their supporters to rank them both highly on their ballots.
A pro-Cuomo election group, known as a super PAC, has also focused on Mamdani’s positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Dubbed Fix the City, the super PAC received $500,000 from pro-Israel billionaire and Trump supporter Bill Ackman. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, another staunch Israel supporter, contributed a whopping $8m to the group.
Media outlets also scrutinised Mamdani’s view on Israel. He was repeatedly asked about foreign policy, including whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and whether he would visit Israel as mayor.
‘A turning point’
Beth Miller, the political director of the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action, said Cuomo miscalculated by trying to make the race about Mamdani’s views on the Middle East conflict.
The Democratic base has been increasingly moving away from unconditional support for Israel, especially amid the atrocities in Gaza. A Pew Research Center survey in April showed that 69 percent of Democratic respondents indicated unfavourable views towards Israel.
“Cuomo is part of an old dinosaur way of thinking about politics,” Miller told Al Jazeera.
JVP Action endorsed Mamdani at the outset of his campaign. Miller said that, while his campaign was rooted in making New York affordable, his progressive politics are based on upholding the humanity of all people, including Palestinians.
“Cuomo was counting on the idea that Zohran’s support for Palestinian rights would be a liability for him, but what last night showed was that that’s not true,” Miller said.
“And in fact, what I witnessed and what I saw was that his support for Palestinian rights was an asset to his campaign. It mobilised young voters. It mobilised a lot of progressive Jewish voters and Muslim voters and many, many others.”
In recent years, pro-Israel groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), have poured record amounts of money into Democratic primaries to defeat progressives.
In the last election cycle, they managed to help oust two Democratic Congress members who were critical of Israel: Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush.
Progressive advocates say they hope that Mamdani’s win will help turn the tide in their favour.
“We are finally seeing a turning point,” said Andrabi of Justice Democrats. “AIPAC likes to say supporting Israel is good policy and good politics. I think what has become extremely clear at this point is that supporting apartheid Israel is bad policy and bad politics.”
NEW YORK — New York City on Tuesday closed the arrival center for immigrants it had established at the Roosevelt Hotel, a once-grand Manhattan hotel that had become an emblem of the city’s fraught efforts to manage the flood of new migrants when it opened two years ago.
The midtown hotel, located blocks from Grand Central Terminal, served as the first stop for tens of thousands of immigrants arriving in the city seeking free shelter and services, with migrant families lining up and sometimes even sleeping on the street outside the hotel waiting for a bed.
Monday was the center’s last full day in operation, and the hotel was vacant as of Tuesday afternoon, according to Mayor Eric Adams’ office. Services provided at the Roosevelt, including registration, legal assistance and medical care, are now being offered to immigrants at other shelter locations, the office said.
Adams announced the city was winding down its operation at the Roosevelt and other migrant shelters in February as the surge of immigration from the U.S. border with Mexico waned.
The city is currently housing more than 37,000 migrants across 170 sites, down from a peak of nearly 70,000 last January, officials said Tuesday. During the height of the migrant wave, New York saw an average of 4,000 arrivals a week. That’s now down to less than 100 new immigrants in the week that ended June 22, according to Adams’ office.
The number of new immigrants has steadily dropped in large part to stricter immigration measures imposed during the end of former President Biden’s administration as well as a broader immigration crackdown since President Trump took office in January.
The Adams administration also placed limits on how long immigrants could remain in shelters run by the city, which is legally obligated to provide temporary housing to anyone who asks.
More than 237,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York since April 2022, with more than 173,000 of them registered at the Roosevelt, city officials have said.
In recent months, the hotel became a prime target for the Trump administration, which claimed the Roosevelt was a hotbed for gang activity. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, citing those concerns, clawed back $80 million meant to reimburse the city for costs related to housing immigrants.
The future of the storied hotel, which the city had leased from its longtime owners, Pakistan’s government-owned airline, remains unclear. Representatives for the property didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
The Roosevelt opened in 1924 and has more than 1,000 rooms. In its heyday, the hotel was known for its in-house band, which was led by jazz great Guy Lombardo. It also served as New York Gov. Thomas Dewey’s election-night headquarters during his failed 1948 presidential campaign.
New York Jets owner Woody Johnson has signed a “legally binding contract” to buy John Textor’s 43% stake in Crystal Palace in a deal believed to be worth close to £190m.
Palace confirmed the news in a statement on Monday, but it has yet to be announced whether it boosts the club’s fight to be cleared to play in next season’s Europa League.
Palace said the deal is pending approval from the Premier League and Women’s Super League.
“We do not envisage any issues and look forward to welcoming Woody as a partner and director of the club,” the south London club added.
“We would like to go on record to thank John Textor for his contribution over the past four years and wish him every success for the future.”
Eagle Football Holdings – the multi-club company owned by Textor – bought a stake in Palace in 2021 for around £90m.
Johnson, like any such major investor, will have to pass the Premier League’s owners’ and directors’ test.
It is understood that the American businessman indicated he can transfer the funds quickly.
This is believed to have been a crucial factor in why his offer was favoured ahead of two other interested parties, given the predicament in which Palace find themselves with European football’s governing body Uefa regarding their 2025-26 Europa League entry.
Palace could lose their spot in Europe, earned by winning last season’s FA Cup, on the basis of Textor’s perceived involvement at Selhurst Park.
Uefa has been considering whether Palace breach its rules about multiple teams under one multi-club ownership structure competing in the same European competition.
This is because Textor has a stake in French club Lyon, who also qualified for the Europa League.
Sitting in northern Europe, I shouldn’t care about the New York mayoral race.
Yet, despite all that is happening in the world, the contentious Democratic primary for the 2025 New York City mayoral election has found its way into conversations around me – and onto my social media feed.
This attention isn’t just another example of the New York-centric worldview famously skewered in Saul Steinberg’s 1976 New Yorker cover, View of the World from 9th Avenue. A genuine political struggle is under way, one that has the potential to reverberate far beyond the Hudson River. At its centre is the increasingly polarised contest between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani.
The name Cuomo may ring a bell. He resigned as New York’s governor in 2021 following multiple allegations of sexual harassment. While he expressed remorse at the time, his political comeback has been marked by defiance – suing one of his accusers and the state attorney general who found the accusations credible. He claims the scandal was a “political hit job”.
Cuomo’s record in office was far from unblemished. He diverted millions of dollars from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), jeopardising the financial health of New York’s essential public transit system. He formed the Moreland Commission to root out corruption but disbanded it abruptly when it began probing entities linked to his own campaign. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his administration was accused of undercounting nursing home deaths, allegedly to deflect criticism of policies that returned COVID-positive patients to those facilities.
Given that legacy, one might imagine Cuomo’s chances of becoming mayor would be slim. Yet, he currently leads in the polls.
Close behind him is Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and state assemblyman from Queens. When he entered the race in March, Cuomo led by 40 points. A recent poll now puts Mamdani within 8 points.
Born in Kampala and raised in New York, Mamdani is the first Muslim candidate to run for mayor of the city. But his significance extends beyond his identity. What distinguishes Mamdani is his unapologetically progressive platform – and his refusal to dilute it in the name of “electability”. His appeal rests on substance, charisma, sharp messaging, and a mass volunteer-led canvassing operation.
At the heart of Mamdani’s campaign is a vision of a city that works for working-class New Yorkers. He proposes freezing rents for all rent-stabilised apartments, building 200,000 affordable homes, creating publicly-owned grocery stores “focused on keeping prices low, not making profit”, and making buses free. He supports free childcare for children under five, better wages for childcare workers, and “baby baskets” containing essentials for new parents.
To fund these initiatives, Mamdani proposes increasing the corporate tax rate from 7.25 percent to 11.5 percent, and imposing a 2 percent income tax on New York City residents earning more than $1m annually.
He also wants to raise the minimum wage, regulate gig economy giants like DoorDash, and protect delivery workers. His plan to establish a Department of Community Safety would shift resources away from traditional policing towards mental health and violence prevention.
He further promises to “Trump-proof” New York by enhancing the city’s sanctuary status, removing ICE’s influence, expanding legal support for migrants, defending LGBTQ+ rights and protecting reproductive healthcare access.
But championing such bold policies – as a brown, Muslim candidate – has made Mamdani a lightning rod for hate. Recently, in a rare show of emotion, Mamdani teared up while recounting threats he has received: “I get messages that say the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. I get threats on my life … on the people that I love.”
The NYPD is investigating two voicemails from an unidentified caller, who labelled Mamdani a “terrorist”, threatened to bomb his car, and ominously warned: “Watch your f..king back every f..king second until you get the f..k out of America.”
Cuomo’s campaign has also played into Islamophobic tropes. A mailer targeting Jewish voters from a Cuomo-aligned super PAC doctored Mamdani’s photo – darkening and lengthening his beard – and declared that he “rejects NYPD, rejects Israel, rejects capitalism and rejects Jewish rights”.
Much of this centres on Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinian rights. He has been criticised for refusing to affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and for defending the slogan “globalise the intifada”, which he describes as “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights”. He also noted that the Arabic term intifada has been used by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to describe the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
Despite the attacks, Mamdani’s movement is surging. He has received endorsements from Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez, Attorney General Letitia James, the New York Working Families Party, United Auto Workers Region 9A, and Jewish Voice for Peace Action.
In contrast, Cuomo is backed by major real estate donors wary of Mamdani’s housing agenda. His campaign has received $1m from DoorDash, presumably in response to Mamdani’s proposed labour protections. Other prominent donors include Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman – both known for supporting Donald Trump.
Still, Mamdani’s grassroots campaign has continued to gain ground. Whether or not he wins the nomination, his candidacy has already achieved something vital: it has offered proof that an anti-corporate, anti-Trump, community-powered campaign – one rooted in progressive values and refusal to compromise – can resonate with American voters.
But the stakes extend far beyond New York. Across Europe, South America, South Asia and Africa, right-wing populists are gaining ground by exploiting economic precarity, stoking culture wars and vilifying minorities. Mamdani’s campaign offers a clear counter-narrative: one that marries economic justice with moral clarity, mobilises diverse communities and challenges the politics of fear. For progressives around the world, it is a rare and instructive blueprint – not just for resistance, but for rebuilding.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
