Zohran Mamdani has been elected mayor of New York City, delivering a decisive win in a three-way race that divided and in many cases distressed the city’s Jews.
Mamdani received a significant enough majority of votes that major news agencies declared the election less than 40 minutes after polls closed in the city, following the highest turnout in more than half a century.
The results mean that Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who ran on a platform of affordability, will now have a chance to turn his vision into reality as the leader of the country’s largest city. It also means that the city with the largest Jewish population in the United States will now be led by a longtime anti-Israel activist.
The first Muslim to be elected mayor, Mamdani has cemented his position at the vanguard of the progressive movement at a time when more Democrats have begun to subscribe to his harshly critical views about Israel.
A concerted effort by many in the Jewish establishment to halt Mamdani’s march to City Hall fell short. In recent weeks, prominent Jewish voices in the city pressed to direct votes to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary. It was not enough: Cuomo came in second in the general election, too, followed in distant third by a Republican, Curtis Sliwa.
Many Jews opposed Mamdani because of his long-held, strong pro-Palestinian views and commitment to the movement to boycott Israel. Polls showed his support among Jewish voters ranging widely but always lower than his overall support among New Yorkers, even as some Jews in the city supported him in spite of or because of his pro-Palestinian views.
While Mamdani captured the imagination of young voters and energized progressives nationwide, his past and present stances on Israel — including proposals to divest city funds from Israel, vowing to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, refusing to condemn Hamas, and commenting that the NYPD had its “boots laced by the IDF” — were a regular source of frustration and fear for many Jews.
Mamdani pledged on the campaign trail to confront antisemitism in the city and be a mayor for all New Yorkers.
Related: What Mamdani has actually said about Jews, antisemitism and Israel | Our Q&A with Mamdani
Jewish leaders in the city shifted into post-election mode in statements outlining how they planned to advocate for Jewish New Yorkers with a mayor they had openly not preferred.
“New Yorkers have spoken, electing Zohran Mamdani as the next Mayor of New York City. We recognize that voters are animated by a range of issues, but we cannot ignore that the Mayor-elect holds core beliefs fundamentally at odds with our community’s deepest convictions and most cherished values,” UJA-Federation of New York said in a statement. “As we have done for over a century, we will continue to work across every level of government to ensure that our city remains a place where our Jewish community, and all communities, feel safe and respected.”
