Even before Zohran Mamdani claimed victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, he had become a target of racist attacks from the far right. Those attacks have only intensified in the wake of his commanding performance on Tuesday, with Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures accusing him of promoting Islamic law, supporting terrorism and posing a threat to the safety of New Yorkers, especially Jews.
There has been nothing subtle about it: Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, called Mr. Mamdani’s apparent win “the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration.” Representative Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee, accused Mr. Mamdani of supporting terrorists and asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to strip him of his citizenship and deport him.
Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, shared a photo of Mr. Mamdani preparing for an Eid service while dressed in a kurta, writing, “we sadly have forgotten” the Sept. 11 attacks, which occurred when Mr. Mamdani was 9 years old and living in Manhattan. And Charlie Kirk, the head of Turning Point USA, a leading group for conservative youth, sought to connect him to those attacks even more directly.
“24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11,” he wrote. “Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.”
The attacks on Mr. Mamdani, who would be the first Muslim mayor of New York City if elected, deal in well-worn Islamophobic and anti-immigrant tropes. To some, they carry echoes of the “birther” conspiracy theory Donald J. Trump stoked for years before he was elected president, when he falsely claimed that President Barack Obama was Muslim and born in Kenya.
Mr. Obama is Christian and was born in Hawaii; Mr. Mamdani is Muslim and was born to Indian parents in Uganda. But like the “birther” attacks, the vitriolic barbs being aimed at Mr. Mamdani seek to paint him as a shadowy, dangerous figure who bears no resemblance to the candidate himself.
The dark vision of Mr. Mamdani’s New York that his opponents describe is also deeply out of step with the coalition that powered his rise, which is young and multiethnic. He prevailed in neighborhoods with more higher-income and middle-income residents, more college graduates and more white, Asian and Hispanic residents.
But the success of Mr. Mamdani, the son of a celebrated filmmaker and an academic, was also fundamentally powered by the Democratic Party’s progressive wing.
That group is typically anchored by highly educated, wealthier white voters. Among the neighborhoods that propelled Mr. Mamdani toward victory are some with large populations of white liberals or gay residents, including Park Slope, Williamsburg and Hell’s Kitchen.
“As someone who grew up in the exact same micro-demographic as Zohran Mamdani — the secular, somewhat privileged Indian intelligentsia of NYC — it’s wild to see people typecast him” as an Islamist, Ishaan Tharoor, a columnist for The Washington Post, wrote online. “It’s alien both to his campaign pitch and upbringing.”
Mr. Mamdani, who has served as an assemblyman since 2021 and enjoyed a brief career as an occasionally shirtless rapper, prevailed on primary night after a hard-fought, monthslong campaign that was marked by a cheerful and optimistic tone as much as it was by the populist economic policies he advanced. He advocates increasing taxes on businesses and the wealthiest New Yorkers to pay for programs like free child care and free buses.
Brandon Mancilla, a regional director for the United Auto Workers, which endorsed Mr. Mamdani’s campaign, said union members were drawn to him because of his focus on the cost of living, as well as his “commitment to peace and dialogue and a politics of friendship.”
“We endorsed Zohran because we knew he could speak to everyday New Yorkers,” he said. “The attacks he has gotten are despicable and disappointing, but they are to be expected because that is the political climate in this country.”
Abed Ayoub, the national executive director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said he thought the racialized “panic” about Mr. Mamdani’s success “speaks to the threat he poses to the establishment on both sides.”
“It is not just Republicans who are freaking out — you see some in the center and on the left who are attacking Mamdani,” said Mr. Ayoub. He added that he was concerned for Mr. Mamdani’s safety.
“Now that we are heading into the general election, there is a real cause for concern about what these attacks could lead to,” he said.
The combination of Mr. Mamdani’s left-wing policies and sunny style, paired with a deep hunger for change among an electorate that had soured on his chief rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, earned him support from voters who are both geographically and demographically diverse, according to data compiled by The New York Times.
Results from the first round of counting show that Mr. Mamdani thoroughly dominated not only among well-off white liberals, but in neighborhoods that are racially diverse, quickly gentrifying and home to many young leftists, including Ridgewood, Queens (where he led Mr. Cuomo by 69 points); Bushwick, Brooklyn (66 points); Astoria, Queens (52 points); and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn (43 points). In Jamaica Hills, a Queens neighborhood that is home to a large South Asian population, voters chose him by a 52-point margin.
If elected, Mr. Mamdani would be the city’s first mayor of South Asian descent and the first mayor to have been born outside the United States since Abraham Beame, who was born in England and served as mayor from 1974 to 1977.
During the primary campaign, Mr. Mamdani sometimes shared recordings on social media of the slurs that were directed at him, including an expletive-laden voice mail he received from a caller who demanded that he “wash my European feet, boy.”
The attacks are part of a long history of Islamophobia in American politics, which has become especially acute since 2001, when the Sept. 11 attacks took place, said Corey Saylor, the research and advocacy director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
He pointed to past controversies like the proposed Park 51 community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan, which opponents rebranded “The Ground Zero Mosque.”
The project became a staple of conservative news media and a lightning rod in the 2010 midterm elections, when “the same kind of vile anti-Muslim commentary become part of a mainstream conversation,” said Mr. Saylor. It was eventually abandoned.
“What we are seeing now exactly parallels episodes we have seen over the last two decades,” said Mr. Saylor. “There is extremely normalized hatred of a minority, in this case Muslims.”
Earlier this month, Mr. Mamdani teared up on the campaign trail as he recalled the “dehumanizing language” he had been subjected to, including a message he had received that said “The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.”
And in an interview on a podcast aimed at Gen Z audiences hosted by The Bulwark, a conservative anti-Trump news site, he recalled how he had been forced to hire security after a pro-Trump heckler bit one of his campaign volunteers at a news conference.
“You have seen people use language to describe me that is more fitting for a beast than for a person — language like a monster, language such as being at the gates, language as it this is the end of the city and of civilization as we know it,” he said in the interview.
Then he referred to a controversy from earlier this month, when a proposed flier from a super PAC supporting Mr. Cuomo featured a photo that was apparently altered to make Mr. Mamdani’s beard look darker and thicker.
“To have that coupled with these Republican billionaire-funded mailers that lengthen my beard and darken it,” Mr. Mamdani said, “it very much feels like 2002 all over again.”
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.
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