New York City’s mayor is elected every four years in early November, directly following the presidential election year. After the vote in 2010, the maximum number of consecutive terms the New York City mayor could serve was reduced from three to two. The Associated Press called the November 4, 2025, New York City mayoral election, and Zohran Mamdani, the progressive Democrat candidate, officially won the race for New York City Mayor. Mamdani will be sworn into office on January 1, 2026.
Mamdani was born in Uganda and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, until he moved to New York City at seven years old. He served three terms as New York’s state assemblyman and entered the mayoral race for the first time this election. By winning the election, 34-year-old Mamdani has become the first Muslim and person of East Asian descent to hold the office of Mayor of New York City, as well as the youngest mayor of New York City in over a century, according to the Associated Press.
The current mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, is a Democrat, but he ran for a second term as an independent to bypass the primaries; however, he dropped out in late September. The Republican candidate was Curtis Sliwa, but he was not predicted to win, and only received 7.1 percent of the votes as of November 5, according to CNN. Mamdani’s main competition was 67-year-old Democrat Andrew Cuomo, whose father was a three-time New York Governor, and Cuomo himself held the governor position from 2011-2021, but Cuomo lost to Mamdani in the democratic primaries. After his loss, Cuomo ran as an independent and based his platform on opposition to Mamdani, but fell short in the election, only receiving 41.6 percent of the vote compared to Mamdani’s 50.4 percent.
Mamdani’s campaign heavily utilized social media, resulting in a historic high for young voters. In both the general election and the primaries, voters aged 25-34 had the largest age group turnout, and early voter turnout was five times the turnout in the last New York City mayoral election in 2021, according to the Gothamist. Mamdani posted dozens of videos on his social media platforms to generate support from the younger generations, a strategy that clearly paid off. 32-year-old Syrian-American Brookynite Dani Darwish told NPR, “It was very emotional for all of us to see a candidate on the ballot who represents us.”
Mamdani’s critics, including Cuomo, argued that he was too young and inexperienced to be the mayor of New York City, and his campaign promises were nearly impossible to fulfill. President Trump incorrectly labeled Mamdani as a communist and threatened to cut New York City’s federal funding if he were elected. After his loss, Cuomo said, ”And this campaign was necessary… a caution flag, that we are heading down a dangerous, dangerous road,” in a speech to his supporters. Mamdani addressed his supporters and New York City in his victory speech, saying, “New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”
