It’s not every mayoral candidate that can count writer and chef Alison Roman’s four-month-old baby among his supporters, but Zohran Mamdani isn’t your typical would-be mayor. Previously, he was known for helping to defeat a proposed fracked gas power plant in Astoria, introducing a fare-free bus pilot program, and embarking on a two-week hunger strike alongside the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Now, the 33-year-old New York State Assembly member and Queens local is becoming something of a rallying figure for the city’s progressive glitterati.
“This is his first party,” Roman said of her alert, orange onesie-clad son at a packed, free “friendraiser”—a concept Mamdani’s campaign pivoted to after hitting the fundraising limit set by the Campaign Finance Board—in Cobble Hill on Friday. Roman came across Mamdani’s campaign on Instagram and quickly became a fan, describing this political moment as “the first time there’s been a mayoral candidate who’s reflective of myself and everyone I know and spend time with.”
That milieu was well evidenced on Friday, sipping natural wine, nibbling pita chips, and, in some cases, pocketing prerolls from queer cannabis company Flamer at the home of artist and organizer Sarah Sophie Flicker (who told the crowd of her excitement at the prospect of helping to elect a “sexy young mayor”). Young children ran in and out of the room as Mamdani took part in a Q&A with writer Aminatou Sow, discussing the importance of “childcare you can afford and a life where you can do more than just struggle.”
While Mamdani hasn’t shied away from taking aim at Andrew Cuomo and outgoing mayor Eric Adams on the campaign trail (“That’s how I feel when Andrew Cuomo speaks,” Mamdani joked when a child at the event began to cry during one of his answers), what sets his campaign apart is the sense of optimism it’s inspiring among a stratum of New Yorkers. “This reminds me of the early Obama years,” actor Lizzy Caplan said, gesturing around at the scrum of Zohran fans filling Flicker’s home.
Mamdani is tapping into a well of energetic support among young voters in particular, thanks in no small part to his stance on issues such as the Israel/Gaza conflict and trans rights. (Indeed, Mamdani was the only mayoral candidate to appear at a recent rally held to protest the Trump administration’s attacks on the trans community.) To hear him talk about his proposals for a rent freeze, or patiently walk the audience through the often-stymying process of ranked-choice voting, can feel somewhat like getting a friendly intro spiel from the cool RA for your college hall.
There’s at least one sixty-something mini-demographic he’s handily won over, however: his mother, filmmaker Mira Nair, who now volunteers weekly as a canvasser for her son’s campaign. (Mamdani’s campaign has, he says, “knocked on more doors than every other candidate combined.”) Nair doesn’t immediately reveal her identity to prospective voters: “If they say they’re voting for me, she’ll lean in and whisper: I’m his mother,” Mamdani reports.
Born in Kampala and raised for a time in Cape Town, Mamdani later settled with Nair and his father, academic and writer Mahmood Mamdani, in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of New York. A graduate of Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College, Mamdani would be the first Muslim mayor of New York City if elected. (This past Eid, he went iftar-hopping with one of the New York taxi drivers with whom he went on hunger strike in 2021.)
His rapid rise has now put Mamdani in second place for the most powerful position in city politics—still behind Cuomo, but ahead of more traditional Democratic candidates like Scott Stringer, Brad Lander, and Zellnor Myrie. But he remains, in presentation, the same self-effacing “regular guy” he’s been since he first entered politics in 2017, as a volunteer for Democratic socialist and Palestinian Lutheran minister Khader El-Yateem’s campaign for Bay Ridge city council.
Mamdani seemed at ease in front of the glamorous crowd on Friday, making jokes about being terrified of losing his hair, doing an impression of an NYPD officer who stopped him on the street to compliment his recent interview with The Kid Mero, and recounting a recent rare day off, spent at the movies with friends. (He saw Sinners and accidentally spilled popcorn on another patron, who later posted on social media about the experience.)
There is, of course, something slightly ironic about a self-professed socialist mayoral candidate surrounding himself with a who’s-who of trendy and upwardly mobile New Yorkers. Perhaps the night’s medley of sensibilities was best encapsulated by a particular wall in Flicker’s kitchen, where a giant framed poster for François Truffaut’s 1962 film Jules et Jim hung next to a campaign sign for Danish Social Democrat Thorvald Stauning’s 1935 reelection campaign.
Yet for Flicker, opening her spacious and beautifully appointed home to the campaign felt directly in keeping with Mamdani’s political message: “How can you have all this and not share it?”
