Mamdani’s Bid to Be New York’s First Muslim Mayor Tests Limits Of Identity Politics
NEW YORK — By positioning himself as an unabashedly Muslim, progressive and anti-establishment candidate in New York City's mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani has become a lightning rod in one of the nation’s most volatile political climates — and perhaps one of the most emblematic figures of the tensions pulling at the Democratic Party’s coalition.
While many mayoral candidates build campaigns around centrist policies and mainstream appeals, Mamdani is testing a radically different theory of change: Ideological clarity and moral conviction — even when polarizing — can be a political asset. But that strategy can come at a cost, especially when identity and geopolitics collide.
Mamdani’s visibility as a Muslim candidate is not incidental, but a deliberate part of his campaign. For example, His presence at Eid prayers across the city, his teal kurta at the pulpit of a Bronx mosque and his invocations of safety and dignity for Muslim New Yorkers are powerful signals to a community that is often underrepresented or ignored as a voting bloc.
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations has reported that more than 350,000 of New York’s roughly one million Muslims are registered to vote, but only about 12 percent cast ballots in the last mayoral election.
Mamdani, 33, was born in Kampala, Uganda, into an Indian family. They immigrated to South Africa when he was five years old and then to the United States when he was seven, settling in New York City.
While Mamdani is proud of his faith (he has received death threats as a result), he is also navigating an ideological minefield. His criticisms of Israel's military actions in Gaza — including labeling them a “genocide” and backing divestment — have made him a target of both the political right and the center-left.
Paradoxically, it’s not only pro-Israel critics who are challenging him. At a town hall this past summer, protesters accused Mamdani of not going far enough, lambasting his support for Israel’s right to exist and questioning his Muslim credentials.
This dual attack — from both those who see him as anti-Israel and those who see him as insufficiently anti-Zionist — reveals the trap many candidates have fallen into since the Oct. 6, 2023, attacks and its aftermath.
Mamdani’s experience can also be seen as a case study of the double standard Muslim candidates in the U.S. often face. While Jewish, Christian and secular politicians are rarely asked to prove the orthodoxy of their beliefs, Mamdani has been asked to explain his stance on Hamas and terrorism.
“To call into question how I consider myself Muslim,” he told The New York Times in June, “is a step too far.”
Facing challenges from all sides
But Mamdani also faces challenges within his own community: Reconciling his politcally socialist platform with the cultural conservatism of some Muslim voters. While many appreciate his advocacy for Muslim visibility and safety, others don’t agree with his support for LGBTQ rights and other progressive causes.
Critics said Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian stance and his embrace of socialism are proof that the political left have embraced being anti-Israel.
In a July column for The Wall Street Journal, Sadanand Dhume, a senior fellow in Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, said while Mamdani “isn’t going to establish a caliphate on the Hudson, we shouldn’t be dismissive of Mr. Mamdani’s unhealthy obsession with Israel. It is an indication of how radical Islam is gaining acceptance on the left.”
While Republicans across the country have labeled Mamdani as someone to fear, Dhume noted, “Nowhere has the candidate hinted at imposing Shariah, or Islamic law. Mr. Mamdani’s wife, a Syrian-American artist, doesn’t wear the hijab. He wants to make New York an ‘LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city’ and once tweeted: ‘Queer liberation means defund the police.’ It’s hard to think of an idea less likely to resonate with the Muslim Brotherhood or the mullahs in Iran.”
Despite the fixation by Mamdani’s opponents on his views about Israel and Gaza, the candidate’s core campaign focus lies elsewhere: Affordable housing, free buses, city-owned grocery stores and stronger rent protections, regardless of race or religion.
On his campaign website, Mamdani doesn’t mention foreign policy on his platform. He does use it, however, to tell voters that he would “Trump-proof” New York by ensuring that “our immigrant New Yorkers are protected by strengthening our sanctuary city apparatus: Getting ICE out of all City facilities and ending any cooperation, increasing legal support and protecting all personal data.”
Courting the Jewish vote
In a city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel, and amid an election cycle where international conflict has bled into local politics for decades — especially post-9/11 — Mamdani's positions on what’s been going on in the Middle East have overshadowed most everything else.
His sharpest critics, like opponents Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, have all taken shots at Mamdani, currently the frontrunner heading into the Nov. 4 election. Eric Adams, the city’s current mayor, dropped out of the race on Sunday.
A new Marist poll has Mamdani up 20 points on his nearest rival Cuomo, with the Democrat gaining favor with Hispanics and Asians. At the same time, Mamdani’s use of the the incendiary phrase “Globalize the Intifada” hasn’t helped him with most Jewish voters. Nonetheless, Mamdani and Cuomo are tied among Jewish voters at 35%, ahead of both Sliwa and Adams.
Jay De Dapper, director of strategy for the Marist Poll, said “younger Jewish voters are more likely to support Mamdani than older Jewish voters. The cause of that? I think a lot of people can speculate about, but that is what we’re seeing.”
Last week, Mamdani visited a Brooklyn synagogue for Rosh Hashana services for the very first time — the start of what The New York Times called “a high-profile election-season test of his relationship with a group of New Yorkers that is split passionately for and against his candidacy.”
In a video posted to X, Mamdani said: “It is a tradition we could all do well to emulate: to build a city that feels sweet and learns from what did not work in the past, where we are not afraid to admit our failings and grow accordingly,” he said. “And where, above all, every New Yorker is safe and cherished by the city they love.”
“Shana Tova, New York,” he concluded, which is Hebrew for “Good year.”
But can a candidate from a minority faith group lead a city while maintaining controversial geopolitical positions? For now, the polls say he can. Whether he will ultimately win in a crowded four-man race remains to be seen.
For now, Mamdani's candidacy offers a lens into the future of American urban politics — one that is both multicultural and deeply polarizing. It’s also a referendum on whether a candidate can be unapologetically Muslim, unflinchingly progressive and still viable as a leader in America’s largest city.
Clemente Lisi is executive editor at Religion Unplugged.