Inside Zohran Mamdani’s Push To Unite Black Voters Around An Affordable New York

With just 12 days before the election for mayor of New York City, the Zohran Mamdani campaign hosted a roundtable for Black media in Queens at the Museum of the Moving Image.

Mamdani, who is a Democratic Socialist, is running on a make New York affordable platform, which includes a Free Rent Freeze that rifted in earlier polls, a generational difference between older and younger Black voters.

“I was introducing myself to older Black voters for the first time,” Mamdani said in response to the rift.

According to a Zenith and Public Progress NYC Mayoral General Election poll, the young candidate leads among Black voters with 65% of the vote ages 18-44. But Cuomo has a lead with Black voters ages 45 and up with 42% more likely to vote for the former governor.

In 2020, Mamdani tweeted, “We don’t need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.”

The candidate’s tweet had to do he said, in an interview with the New York Times, with the murder of Goerge Floyd. But later said he would apologize.

During the roundtable, he told ESSENCE, “Older Black voters have heard from many politicians, they’ve heard many promises, and they’ve also been disappointed quite a number of times—and with each disappointment comes an additional diminishing of faith in the ability of city government to deliver on an agenda of ambition.”

Cost of living—specifically housing and transportation are the two biggest concerns among Black voters in New York.

According to the poll, 51% Black women support Mamdani.

“We know that while Donald Trump is responsible for leading a federal government that has oscillated between actively pushing and doing nothing about the firing of more than 300,000 Black women across this country, we also have a reasonability here in New York city to Black women that we’re failing and has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It wasn’t Donald Trump that made Black Women nine times more likely to die from maternal mortality than white women that’s a reasonability in our own city,” he said.

Donald Trump refers to Mamdani as a communist. Shortly after current mayor Eric Adams suspended his candidacy for a second term, Trump took to Truth Social and wrote, “He (Mamdani) is going to have problems with Washington like no Mayor in the history of our once great City.”

The president warned New Yorkers against voting for Mamdani.

“Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises. He won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him?”

NEW YORK IS NOT FOR SALE

It teetered between the mid 50s and 60s in temperature on Sunday in the Forest Hills section of Queens where the New York is Not for Sale Rally was hosted shortly after 6 p.m.

Windbreakers and elbows mingled alongside signs that read “Mamdani for New York” in blue and mustard. When Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the podium, the crowd erupted.

“The very forces that Zohran is up against in this race mirrors what we are up against nationally. Both in authoritarian criminal presidency fueld by corruption and bigotry and an ascendant right-wing movement,” AOC said as the crowd booed.

She was one of Mamdani’s earliest endorsers.Senator Bernie Sanders would be next.“These are not normal times. This is not a normal election,” the Vermont senator said. “This election takes place in a moment in American history when we have a rigged economy with more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of our country.”Sanders said the New York mayoral election is one that the world is watching.“This election takes place in a time when the wealthiest people in our country have never had it so good when 60 percent of the people in our country are living paycheck to paycheck.”

Cheers and chants captivated the space as Mamdani took to the podium to close out the night. Mamdani’s voice didn’t falter.“No longer will we allow the Republican party, to be the one of ambition. No longer will we have to open a history book to read about Democrats leading with big ideas. My friends the world is changing,” he said to applause.  “Let us win a City Hall that works for those straining to buy groceries not those straining to buy our democracy,” he said as the crowd cheered.

On Friday, Mamdani received an endorsement from Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

“Zohran Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a Mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy,” Jeffries said. “As with any Mayor, there will be areas of agreement and areas of principled disagreement.”

Trump’s White House and administration lends itself to “existential stakes” per the statement from Jeffries.

“I welcome Leader Jeffries’ support and look forward to delivering a city government and building a Democratic Party, relentlessly committed to our affordability agenda — and to fighting Trump’s authoritarianism,” Mamdani said in response to the House leader’s endorsement.

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