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Washington: New Yorkers have emphatically elected Zohran Mamdani, a left-wing Muslim immigrant who vows to increase taxes on corporations and the top 1 per cent to fund popular services, as their next mayor.
The state assemblyman, 34, will become the second-youngest mayor of New York, the first Muslim and only the second democratic socialist to run the largest and most important city in the United States, and the global centre of capitalism.
Zohran Mamdani, pictured casting his ballot, has been elected mayor of New York City.Credit: Bloomberg
The Associated Press called the race for Mamdani at 9.34pm local time (1.34pm Wednesday AEDT), less than an hour after polls closed.
Mamdani, the Democratic candidate, defeated former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who ran as an independent after losing the party primary to Mamdani in June.
With 80 per cent of the estimated vote counted, Mamdani was ahead with an absolute majority of 50.6 per cent to Cuomo’s 41.2 per cent, AP reported.
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The win, though expected based on opinion polls, sets up a mighty battle between Mamdani and US President Donald Trump, who describes the mayor-elect as a communist and “radical left lunatic” who will destroy New York.
Trump had instructed his followers to vote for Cuomo rather than the Republican Curtis Sliwa, who was not a viable candidate and polled under 10 per cent.
Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican congresswoman from New York, told CNN: “The story tonight is that the socialist party is taking over the Democrat party … they catered to the radical left. We’re going to learn the hard way in New York City what socialism is.”
The Democrats were also celebrating major victories in elections held elsewhere in the US on Tuesday, with moderate candidates Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill claiming victory as governor of Virginia and in the gubernatorial race in New Jersey respectively.
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New York congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, said the results should send a message to the Trump administration and Republicans that they needed to do better on cost-of-living.
“The American people are saying, ‘You have failed us’,” he said on CNN. “Affordability was on the ballot today and Democrats have won all across the country.”
Mamdani campaigned chiefly on addressing New York’s affordability problems, particularly for working-class New Yorkers. He plans to build social housing, freeze rents on rent-stabilised apartments, make buses free and introduce universal free childcare for all children under five.
Mamdani pledged to pay for his promises by levying a 2 per cent city income tax on anyone earning more than $US1 million a year ($1.5 million), raising a predicted $US4 billion a year, and raising the top corporate tax rate from 7.5 per cent to 11.5 per cent – the same as neighbouring New Jersey.
His critics had drawn attention to his past support for the “defund the police” movement, and queried his commitment to keeping the city safe. They had also pointed to his remarks about Israel and refusal to condemn the phrase “globalise the intifada”.
Mamdani walked back from those positions in the campaign, and said he intended to retain the city’s hardline police commissioner, Jessica Tisch.
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