Contextualizing Zohran Mamdani's election win in America's toxic political climate

By Shabbir Rizvi

On November 4, 2025, New York City Mayoral Candidate, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, emerged victorious after a highly controversial but competitive election season.

Mamdani brings a rare combination of identities to the mayor's office - a Muslim immigrant of Indian descent with a rebellious, witty attitude to match his youthful 34 years. His father is an Indian-Ugandan-American professor at Columbia University, while his mother is a renowned Indian film producer.

There are many "firsts" for a New York Mayor - and in the American liberal brandishing of identity politics, Mamdani checks the boxes.

He first stunned the political world by toppling establishment and dynastic candidate Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York, in the June Democratic primary.

Then, on November 4, he did it again, crushing Cuomo's independent comeback bid, while also dispatching Republican Curtis Sliwa in the general election.

Mamdani won by almost 9 percent over Cuomo, while Sliwa garnered less than 10 percent of the total votes - ensuring that Cuomo finally takes “no” for an answer.

Tapping in and tapping out

Mamdani's win was propelled by a youth vote that is bearing the brunt of a crumbling American society.

According to CNN exit polls, age groups 18-29 and 30-44 overwhelmingly threw their support behind Mamdani—a testament to decades of neoliberal policies that have left millennials and "Gen Z" voters with little to show financially.

This age group has little savings, if any at all, virtually no property ownership, and faces the threat of unemployment due to the rise of artificial intelligence - all packaged together with debt from rising secondary education costs.

His campaign called for a property freeze on rents and affordable education, transportation, and groceries, which are popular demands in a city with runaway costs, where renters are being squeezed each year.

Furthermore, Mamdani gained widespread support for his solidarity with Palestine and opposition to the genocide, which is an unorthodox election topic for any other cycle - but due to the level of barbarity of the Zionist regime's crimes in Gaza, and the refusal of "establishment" politicians to denounce them, Zohran was able to hold his ground and unlock an untapped voter base - supporters of the Palestinian cause disillusioned with the run-of-the-mill ultra- Zionist candidates.

However, Zohran's solidarity with Palestine was significantly diluted and often took significant steps back.

Although Mamdani vowed to arrest Israeli regime premier Benjamin Netanyahu if he set foot in New York City, has a history of attending pro-Palestine rallies and even connecting the brutality of the Zionist regime forces to the New York City Police Department, who are trained by Zionist forces - he is also seen as a normalizer who supports Israel’s so-called “right to exist” and has in the past condemned the Palestinian resistance.

Zohran has gone as far as condemning the October 7, 2023, Operation Al Aqsa Flood operation - which ironically created the voter base he needed to amass votes from progressive circles.

He quietly walked back some of his previously militant takes as well, vowing to work with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is an ardent Zionist and is responsible for the heavy repression against pro-Palestine student encampments at Columbia University.

The walk-backs aren’t an accident. Drawing on the frustrations of disenfranchised voters then siphoning them into the same party that kicked off the Gaza genocide is a way to normalize, once again, the system of exploitation that brought voters to this destitute point in the first place.

Concessions, containment, and capitalism

In January 2026, Mamdani will have the keys to City Hall. In American electoral culture, promises are always made, but delivery remains an issue when in office - either through unwillingness to pursue promises or the struggle of uniting key forces to enact and execute legislation.

With this reality in mind, elections can be a way to siphon energy from revolutionary movements, rally that energy around a candidate, only to fall flat and enact nothing substantial when a candidate is in power.

Considering the strong electoral limitations working against an already capitulating candidate, can Mamdani's victory really be a victory of the people, or is it more like an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez victory in 2018 - progressive promises, only to capitulate and tow the imperialist line later on?

To temper expectations and brace for a reality check, we must contextualize Zohran Mamdani's victory within the political terrain in which it was secured.

The American political arena is an arena of dulling demands, selling concessions, and managing growing discontent.

Conditions are indeed bleak for the American working class, especially in New York City. This city starkly divides the workers who dwell in the congested streets from the multi-billionaire elites who reside in the penthouses above.

As Mamdani noted, rent is unaffordable, grocery prices are skyrocketing, and the quality of transportation is deteriorating. These are not opinions - they are observable realities.

The solutions offered by Mamdani - which thousands have embraced - are ultimately reformist policies that do not grapple root causes of the rupture in living conditions.

Calling for a tax on a ruling elite that grows richer by the day ensures that New Yorkers can stay in their homes, purchase food, and ride the subway for another day. However, these policies can all be trampled on and revoked by the next mayor.

This is not to dissuade people from embracing them, or even having a respite. It is simply addressing systemic issues that cannot be addressed by a patch. And the ruling class would ultimately be happy to offer a concession in the form of an increased tax, as long as it keeps the masses content and disinterested in their criminal exploits.

Voting for Mamdani - Right or wrong?

Is this to say that people were wrong to vote for Mamdani? Of course not. People are hungry and facing homelessness. This does not absolve anyone from refusing to understand the structure of the system that caused them to face those conditions in the first place.

Mamdani's victory is not alone a testament to popular demands succeeding - it is the containment of increasingly sharpening contradictions within American society.

The last thing the American capitalist elite needs is discontented masses of people divorcing from a political system that solidifies the rule of capital. The alternative to that system would be a revolutionary organization and mobilization that challenges the power structures of capital and empire.

The defeat of Cuomo - a bland, "establishment" politician - demonstrates that the people want change. That change will now be managed, just enough to ensure buy-in from the worker into the system that keeps them from looking for alternatives, or looking too closely at who the system itself serves.

If Americans invest too much into this solution, and reject or push off building entirely separate avenues of power, free from establishment interference, the revolutionary blade will be dulled. Concessions will also be revoked.

Management of popular demands by an establishment party, such as the Democrats, not only legitimizes the electoral process but also legitimizes the Democratic party, which, hand in hand with the Republican party, ensures business as usual for the US capitalist class.

Mamdani may be an outlier within his own party, and he may be cold-shouldered by his colleagues, but he is a sign that the terrain has changed. The old guard is not capable of managing the sharpening contradictions as American hegemony declines. Despite this change in terrain, the cycle of pulling revolutionary energy and growing discontent into electoral politics alone remains intact.

The fact that a progressive candidate now runs city hall in the global finance capital of the world does not change the fact that it is the global finance capital of the world. The system remains but is given a new face.

This is not to say that Mamdani is not authentic. His authenticity is tied to the survival of an electoral process that manages the affairs of the ruling elite.

It is just a matter of reading the writing on the wall: Americans are alienated, the system is functioning as intended for the elite, and its functions must be marketed as fair for the alienated as well.

We can take Mamdani at his word: he’s interested in alleviating the suffering of New Yorkers facing harsh conditions. And at the same time, he's a Democrat - a party that helps maintain, or rather manage - these very conditions.

Mamdani and the pitfalls of Democratic politics

But some things - even for an "outlier" like Mamdani - cannot be sacrificed. This is, indeed, where the Democratic party line is towed.

As Venezuela faces a potential Iraq-style aggression from the United States and as the same imperialists further strangle Cuba, Mamdani had no hesitation in towing the imperialist line and dismissing the socialist projects as "dictatorships," manufacturing much-needed consent for unpopular aggression against the Caribbean countries.

Furthermore, as the Zionist regime faces record disdain in the United States - on top of walking back his comments on the Zionist occupation, Mamdani asserted he believes in Israel's "right to exist" - which is an ideological retreat given the political developments of the last two years for those embracing the Palestinian cause.

And who can leave out that Mamdani now has the NYPD at his fingertips—officers and training within the occupation entity—and was considered by former NYC Mayor Bloomberg to be an army? He has already walked back his comments that he made on defunding the police at the height of the George Floyd rebellion in 2020, maneuvering the political terrain in a manner that will win him votes and endorsements.

Again, while condemning the symptoms of the imperialist order he lives under - and is a part of - Mamdani does not actually solve the issue at its core. No candidate within the political machine can. He can't call for its overthrow. And why would he? He is an American politician serving American interests.

The current American mass consciousness is not advanced enough to understand the mechanisms of exploitation. Yes, he takes jabs at the capitalist order, addressing systemic inequality and the excesses of capitalist plunder and exploitation -which is a good thing. But the electoral pathway, as far as long term goals go, will not be enough to solve these issues.

Mamdani's victory is simply a sign of the times. To maintain the imperialist structure, concessions will be made.

Faith in the system that exploits the workers of the imperial core - and hyperexploits the global south- must be maintained for the ruling elite to exploit another day.

The masses need to believe in a system to participate in it, as a revolutionary struggle will create a structural crisis within capitalist society, which will give way to the rise of fascism - a muscle the capitalist will not use unless it understands it's in total danger. The success of revolutionary struggle is the only guarantee for true pathways to secure housing, food, healthcare, and dignity.

Much like the "No Kings" protests in October, Mandani’s election is a victory for "progressive" Democrats and a reaction to sharpening contradictions that if not resolved threatens the lifeline of exploitation.

The system itself is adapting while preserving the primary functions of exploitation and unending repression both domestically and internationally.

As long as confidence is bolstered within a system built for global exploitation, people will settle for crumbs rather than loaves. We must keep our eyes on the prize: dismantling the exploitative imperialist-capitalist order itself.

Shabbir Rizvi is an American writer, researcher, political commentator and anti-war organizer

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir