Sarah Yenesel / EPA
Zohran Mamdani (l) with Senator Bernie Sanders (r) at a rally in Queens
New Yorkers will elect a new Mayor next Tuesday, after a campaign that captured attention far beyond the borders of the largest city in the United States — including that of North American President Donald Trump, who called the favorite, Zohran Mamdani, a “communist”.
The surprising candidate of the Democratic Party, Zohran Mamdania naturalized American Muslim who represents Queens in the New York state assembly, leads the polls ahead of the former governor Andrew Cuomoaccused of sexual assault and running for election after losing the Democratic primary.
Only in third place in the polls does the Republican Party candidate appear, Curtis Sliwa71, founder of the Guardian Angels vigilante group, prolific broadcaster and cat lover.
Quinnipiac University’s most recent poll, conducted October 23-27, attributes 43% of voting intentions to Mamdanifollowed by Cuomo, with 33%, and Sliwa, with 14%.
According to the AFP agency, the campaign has focused on rising cost of living in New York, in crime and in the different ways in which each candidate intends to deal with Trump, who threatened to withhold federal funds destined for the city.
“Mamdani is a unusual political figure and truly captures the spirit of the moment. This is a time when a strong voice against Trump in the largest city in the United States will attract a lot of attention,” he told AFP Lincoln Mitchellprofessor of Political Science at Columbia University.
“Frankly, a Muslim presidential candidate of the New York City Council It’s a huge story,” Mitchell added.
Com just 34 years oldMamdani has criticized his opponents for their rhetoric Islamophobic and defamatorypointing out to both Republicans and Democrats the “anti-Muslim sentiment that has become so endemic” in the city.
Data from the New York Election Commission indicates that around 275,000 registered Democratic voters have already voted, as well as 46,000 Republicans and 42,000 independents, in the first five days of early voting, which ended this Sunday.
A Mamdani’s rise highlighted the gap between the left and center-right sectors within the Democratic Party.
The governor of the State of New York, the centrist Kathy Hochulparticipated in a rally in Mamdani, on October 26, but his speech ended up being drowned out by slogans demanding “taxes for the rich”, reported an AFP journalist.
Before that, Hochul had criticized Mamdani 2% income for New Yorkers who earn more than one million dollars, around 930 thousand euros.
The unexpected rise of the almost unknown Zohran Mamdani, the pro-Palestinian socialist who Trump calls him a “communist”which in June triggered an earthquake in New York during the Democratic primaries, has been driven by young New Yorkers who campaign for him.
According to your team, around 90 thousand people they offered themselves as volunteers. “They are, in fact, people talking to other New Yorkers about the city we all love,” said Mamdani in an interview on The Daily Show.
The teenager Abid Mahdia native of Queens, told AFP that “when I think about Zohran, I think about what Bernie Sanders represented for many Americans in 2016 and 2020. He’s my Bernie Sanders in many ways,” he said.
Mamdani appeared alongside Sanders, the veteran senator and icon of the American left, at a rally in Queens on October 26.
“I’m 15 now, I will be an adult and pay taxes at 18it is not? Most laws will affect me within three years. So why should I start worry only later?,” Mahdi added.
