New York City – For Zohran Mamdani, it begins and ends in Astoria, the Queens neighborhood he has represented as a state assemblyman for five years and where he made his first public speech since his shock victory in the June Democratic primary for mayor.
On Monday, the 34-year-old made his final appearance before Tuesday’s election day, standing on a playground in the evening, children laughing in the background.
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His message to him An army of volunteersWhich the campaign says is made up of more than 100,000: “Leave everything on the field”.
“These are the hands that have brought us to this point of making history in this city”, he said, “making history to show that when you focus and fight for working people, you can remake the politics of the place we call home”.
Although U.S. President Donald Trump rode out a serious upset over the country’s affordability crisis to win the 2024 presidential vote, Mamdani has argued that only he and his mayoral campaign can overcome those challenges in the largest city in the United States.
Indeed, Trump was looming large on Monday as Mamdani stood before a crowd of cheering canvassers, some wearing the campaign’s ubiquitous yellow stripes, and an equally large crowd of local, national and international media.
A few hours ago, the President of the United States Dr expressly approved Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New Yorkers should choose “evil democrats” over “communists,” a false label he has repeatedly applied to Democratic Socialists.
Soon after, billionaire Elon Musk also threw his support behind Cuomo, a Democrat running as an independent after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary.
Recent polls have shown Mamdani maintaining a narrow lead over Cuomo. The former governor has received recognition of late clearly stated Jump ship from the Republican candidate on the conservative Curtis Sliwa And supporting him instead, could further destabilize an already volatile race.
Still, Mamdani’s supporters said Monday they hoped their candidate’s speech would be a coda to the campaign. Considered as a protest to the entrenched, donor-dominated Democratic establishment that Cuomo appears to represent.
“I feel amazing right now,” said Tasnuwa Khan, who was at Canvassers on Monday and the race revealed both. Power of Muslim voters and the city’s rapidly growing Bangladeshi community.
Mamdani would be the first Muslim, the first person of South Asian descent, and the first African-born person to lead the city.
“But I’m trying to be balanced. What wins elections are votes. As long as we stay focused and reach out to our community members, campaign, knock on doors, I think we can definitely deliver,” she told Al Jazeera.
But Shabnam Salehzadehi, a dentist in Long Island City, Queens, and a Mamdani supporter, said she feared the mayoral candidate’s real challenges would begin after the election.
She noted that winning is very little, but Mamdani makes a lot of it Sweeping Pledge He needs to win buy-in from a coalition of both state and city legislators — with free buses, universal child care, a rent freeze for large swaths of city apartments, higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
“I’m really worried — not so much whether he’ll win,” said Salehzadehi, who added that she was first drawn to Mamdani for his staunch support of Palestinian rights, a break from the traditional democratic mainstream.
“I really hope we have the authority to show that Johran Mamdani is the candidate,” she said.
Election days have dawned
Cuomo spent the final day of the race across the city, visiting the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn.
In the Bronx’s Fordham neighborhood, a community representative of some of the minority-dominated working-class areas Cuomo carried in the primary, the former governor stood on a park bench looking out at nearby street vendors.
If Mamdani wins, New York will become a “socialist city,” he criticized.
“Socialism didn’t work in Venezuela. Socialism didn’t work in Cuba. Socialism won’t work in New York City,” he said, becoming a mantra in the final days of the race.
At a subsequent stop in Washington Heights, Manhattan, he responded to a question about Trump’s endorsement, which Cuomo has already faced scrutiny for sharing with several billionaire donors as Republican president.
“He called me a bad Democrat. First of all, I’m a good Democrat and a proud Democrat and I’m going to be a proud Democrat. Mamdani is not a communist,” Cuomo said. “He’s a socialist. But we don’t need a socialist mayor either.”
But for Gwendolyn Paige, a 69-year-old special education teacher in the Bronx, the “socialist label” isn’t stopping her from voting for Mamdani.
Instead, she pointed to the Cuomo legacy. Cuomo’s father, Mario Cuomo, also served as the state’s governor. The younger Cuomo left office in 2021 amid sexual misconduct allegations.
“Cuomo is the only person who will stand up to the Trump administration,” Paige told Al Jazeera in the Fordham neighborhood, although she denied endorsing Trump.
“Listen, tomorrow Trump will say something else,” she said. “So, I don’t put much stock in it”.
At least 735,000 voters have already cast ballots in early voting, just a fraction of the city’s 4.7 million registered voters.
Voting will be open from 6am to 9pm on Tuesday (11:00 GMT, Tuesday to 02:00 GMT, Wednesday), with the winner expected to emerge within hours. The winner will take over in January.
With only a few hours left until Election Day, some votes are still to be cast.
Retired Army veteran Lisa Gonzalez pointed to the critical timing for low-income Americans with restrictions on food assistance benefits (SNAP) contained in a bill passed by Trump and Republicans earlier this year.
Trump has further threatened to cut federal funding for New York City and deploy the National Guard if Mamdani is elected.
“I’m still deciding. The stakes feel really high,” she said. “So I will be very careful when voting tomorrow”.