For high rents and for free buses: Charismatic Mamdani is the hope of dissatisfied New Yorkers

It started at this messy intersection, right in front of the red halal food truck of Hassan Akhatar. A few days after the election of Donald Trump in November, the young, unknown, local politician Zohran Mamdani (33) appeared here in Queens with a camera and a large black microphone. To hear from voters why this district of New York had voted on Trump in much larger numbers than before. And to launch his own campaign to become the mayor of the city.

Distrust in the political system, cynicism about the Democratic party, anger about Gaza and especially the pricelessness of life in the richest city in the world made New Yorkers dissatisfied. “People have two or three jobs. The rent is too high. The price of food and the bills are rising,” a passer -by summarized the malaise. It journalistic video The fact that Mamdani put online went viral, just like the dozens of campaign videos that he has made since: almost always in a suit, usually in conversation with voters, often funny, sometimes in a language that he is barely powerful.

Against all polls and expectations in the self-proclaimed socialist at the end of June, the well-known former governor Andrew Cuomo (67) defeated the democratic primaries for mayorhood. Partly thanks to left-populistic proposals on the same economic frustrations that Trump won, but does not make a policy. With his charisma and a sophisticated social media campaign, he knows how to forge a new, young, ethnically diverse voter coalition. The established order within his democratic party has no idea what to do with Mamdani-Mania. Some see him as a new Barack Obama and his victory as a sign that the party must turn left. The party leadership in Washington sees it mainly as confirmation that New York is different from the rest of the country and keeps a distance.

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In the meantime, Trump threatens to arrest the “communist madman”. Republicans call the president on Mamdani, a Muslim with Indian roots who came to the US from Uganda at the age of seven, to denaturalize and deport. Whether he will actually become mayor in November is still uncertain. But his pre -election alone is a shock for the political establishment.

Hiss

Akhatar (43) has met Mamdani a few times. “He comes to eat here when he is in the area, usually chicken with rice.” And he is a fan. “I agree with everything he says: about high rents, inflation, how heavy it is currently for small entrepreneurs, for immigrants. We all suffer here. He doesn’t bother anyone and gives no one. He is fighting for us. I have never seen that a politician doing that.”

Originally Moroccan fast food seller wipes his right hand to his black apron and steps out of his food truck to make himself more understandable between the noise of hissing meat and chaotic traffic. There he is almost driven off his socks by an incorrectly parking car. Hillside Avenue is a busy shopping street full of Asian, Arabic, Latin American and African-American companies, eateries and street vendors. The skyline and wealth of Manhattan are far away. The extensive metro network of New York goes only one stop further east and then ends in the residential area with small terraced houses and low, outdated apartment buildings.

But metropolitan problems such as piled -up waste, homeless and auto -breaches give residents an unsafe feeling, they say. In addition, they hardly come around. Akhatar earns around 15 dollars per hour, he says, while the apartment with one bedroom where he lives with his wife and two children costs $ 1,800 a month.

Voters such as Akhatar are sensitive to proposals to make childcare and buses for free, forcing landlords to freeze their rental prices and introduce a billionaire tax. The mayor is not about taxes nor about public transport.

White progressives

Mamdani scored everywhere in New York above expectations. Only among the richest, under Jewish and under African-American New Yorkers, Cuomo did better. In Queens, Mamdani also won white progressives in veryuping neighborhoods such as Ridgewood. There, software developer Amanda Abelson (35) tells her sunglasses with turquoise glasses how she and her friends “worry that we can’t afford to have children in this city”.

Mamdani also scored under Asian and Latino voters in Astoria, the rap expensive working -class neighborhood where he himself lives. There student Victoria Hernandez (19), who is in a strapless black dress behind her laptop in her parents’ Mexican restaurant, that she fears that she “will never be able to live on myself here, is almost impossible to find an affordable home.”

It is refreshing to see a Democrat who talks about the values ​​he stands for instead of just what he is against

Their voice for Mamdani, both say, was not only out of pessimism about the circumstances in New York, but also from optimism about a possible new direction for the Democratic Party. “I am happy that there are democrats who now have the extreme right in Washington all the power to really go into it ideologically,” says Hernandez. “We need fresh blood and a more progressive course.” Abelson: “I hesitated about Mamdani because he is so inexperienced, but it is refreshing to see a democrat talking about the values ​​he stands for instead of just what he is against.”

Democratic voters are hardly talking about how their voice on Mamdani is a voice against President Trump. Much more they ventilate dissatisfaction with politicians in their own camp. About the corruption of current mayor Eric Adams, who closed a pact with Trump and merges as an independent candidate for a second term. About Andrew Cuomo, who became very popular during the Corona Pandemie, but, under pressure from accusations of sexual misconduct, resigned as a governor and put a lot of money in a negative campaign to accuse Mamdani of anti -Semitism. And about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, whose campaign was far away from the daily worries of ordinary people and was far too aimed at none of the hair. About members of the congress who do not have sufficient opposition. They crave a new generation. “I have never seen so many young people enthusiastically about a politician as about Mamdani. Everyone my age voted for him,” said Hernandez.

Learning from campaign

The question is whether Mamdani can distribute that energy nationally in its battered party, or whether it becomes further distributed. Perhaps his views do not all catch on in Wisconsin or North-Carolina, but the party can at least learn a lot from how he campaigned. The influential New York Times-Columnist and Podcaster Ezra Klein has suggested that Democrats have to stop selecting candidates who can bring in the most money with fundraising among rich donors, as Harris did, and herself must focus on candidates who can attract the most attentionsuch as Mamdani – and Trump. “And being able to create things that fit in with the place where they (elections) participate.”

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Amit Singh Bagga (39), former civil servant and informal adviser of Mamdani, sees the recent, local pre-election as “first and foremost a wake-up call” for the Democrats. “Voters give a clear signal here that they vote for those who take their personal care seriously. Mamdani succeeds literally and figuratively speaking the language of voters who do not feel represented. He listens, is approachable,” says Bagga. That does not necessarily mean that the future of the party is as left as Mamdani sketches, but that the selection of candidates and campaigning must be radically different. “If the party does not learn from that, it will continue to lose and will be threatened with extinction.”

Radical air castles

Mamdani has won new, young voters in New York, but the Democrats have lost a lot in recent years that do not just come back. James Fornaro (67) is sitting on a bench on a bench in a park near the Food Truck of Hassan Akhatar (67), with a sun visor by the New York Yankees. He grew up with the idea that Democrats are better people, “but did not vote for Trump for years. “Because of those radical castles of Mamdani, I now feel forced to vote for Adams,” the current mayor. “It might be corrupt, but not in a way that ordinary people suffer from, just like Trump.” (Adams is accused of accepting Turkish bribes.)

I have never seen so many young people enthusiastically about a politician like about Mamdani. Everyone my age voted for him

Nevertheless, Mamdani also has to win votes from people who are not registered as a democrat or stayed at home in the primaries. Like Akhatar. He has been able to vote in the US for a few years, but has never done so. Not even on the politician who sometimes orders eating from him. But the morning after Mamdani’s victory, Akhatar was called by several family members in Morocco: “Hassan, you voted for this man, he was great,” they said. They had seen his videos. ” He has promised the home front that he will still vote for Mamdani in November. “Perhaps he is the umpteenth politician who promises something, but does not live up to anything. But at least we have to try to change something about our own situation.”

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