Zohran Mamdani, a socialist New York State Assembly member from Queens, will announce on Wednesday that he is entering the race to unseat Mayor Eric Adams, who is facing growing doubts over his political future.
Mr. Mamdani is the fifth prominent Democrat to challenge Mr. Adams, who was indicted last month on federal corruption charges. His administration has fallen into crisis, and many of his top aides have resigned.
Mr. Mamdani, who has called on Mr. Adams to resign, said in an interview that the mayor had failed New Yorkers. He said that he would focus his campaign on addressing the city’s affordability crisis.
“City Hall is engulfed in corruption, but it is the outrageous cost of living that most people are talking about,” he said. “New Yorkers are being crushed by rent and child care. Working people are getting pushed out of the city they built.”
In his campaign kickoff video, Mr. Mamdani proposes freezing rents on rent-stabilized apartments and targets both Mr. Adams and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who is considering running in the Democratic primary next June.
“Life in this city doesn’t need to be this hard, but politicians like Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo want it to be this way,” he says in the video. “They care about their donors, they care about themselves. They don’t care about you — the working class who keep this city running.”
Mr. Mamdani, 33, whose background includes a stint as a self-described B- or C-list rapper, said he viewed the campaign as running “against a disgraced New York executive, whether it’s the current mayor or the former governor.”
Mr. Mamdani’s campaign video makes no mention of his strong ties to the Democratic Socialists of America, whose New York City chapter recently endorsed him for mayor. He has been an outspoken critic of Israel and has called for raising taxes on the wealthy.
Mr. Mamdani’s firm leftward stance puts him in contrast to Mayor Adams, a centrist. The assemblyman is also to the left of the four other declared candidates in the race, all of whom are considered progressive Democrats.
Mr. Mamdani introduced legislation, called the “Not on Our Dime” Act, last year to curtail financial support for Israeli settlements. The bill, which received support from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, did not pass.
Mr. Mamdani said in the interview that he was proud to be a socialist and that while his campaign would focus on a local “economic agenda,” he would also speak to the “tremendous anger and alienation” that many voters feel over “our tax dollars going to fund a genocide in Palestine.”
He formed a campaign committee on Monday and will have to move quickly to raise money for the race and to introduce himself to New Yorkers beyond his district, which overlaps with parts of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s district and is sometimes jokingly called “the People’s Republic of Astoria.”
Mr. Mamdani’s video mentions several proposals to help working-class New Yorkers, including making all buses “fast and free.” He has focused in Albany on improving bus service and sponsored legislation that created a pilot program that made one bus route in each borough free last fall.
Michael Gianaris, the deputy majority leader of the State Senate who worked with Mr. Mamdani on the bus program, called him a “very smart and very hard-working” lawmaker.
“When you agree, he’s a very strong and good ally to have,” he said. “When you don’t agree, he’s very upfront about his beliefs and wears them on his sleeve.”
Mr. Mamdani said he was open to cross-endorsing other progressive candidates under the city’s relatively new ranked-choice voting system, which allows voters to choose up to five candidates in order of preference. Rather than splitting the vote, he argued that multiple campaigns could “speak to the breadth of the city” while highlighting different proposals to address inequality.
Amanda Septimo, an assemblywoman from the Bronx who was first elected to the State Legislature the same year as Mr. Mamdani, said they did not agree on everything but had found common ground on transit issues and helping taxi drivers.
“He has a really unique ability to boil very complex policy ideas and solutions down to plain English, which is a superpower that you need in this day and age to get regular New Yorkers to buy into why policies matter to them,” she said.
Mr. Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, and raised in New York City. He was elected in 2020 as part of a progressive wave of victories in state races and became the third Muslim to serve in the Assembly. If elected, Mr. Mamdani would be the first Muslim mayor of New York.
When he was a rapper, he went by Mr. Cardamom and released music honoring his grandmother and the greasy splendor of Ugandan-style chapati. He said that “strangely enough,” his music career had prepared him well for politics.
“Once you’ve tried to sell your mixtape to people who are just trying to get on the bus to go home, you’re well prepared to get rejected when you’re trying to get New Yorkers to sign your petition to get on the ballot at 6 a.m. at the subway station,” he said.
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