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The Mayor's story:
Zohran Mamdani was born in Kampala and grew up between Cape Town and New York, the son of filmmaker Mira Nair and scholar Mahmood Mamdani. After Bowdoin and a stint as a housing counsellor in Queens helping tenants fight foreclosure, he ran for the State Assembly in 2020 and won District 36 — Astoria, Ditmars, parts of Long Island City — as a democratic socialist. In Albany he pushed for fare-free buses, taxi-driver debt relief and tenant protections, and in 2025 became the Democratic nominee, and then Mayor-elect, of New York City. His days still look more like an organiser's than a politician's: constituent hours in Astoria diners, town halls in school gyms, evenings spent moving between the Bronx, Brooklyn and Jackson Heights.
The Mayor's day:
The Mayor's links:
Politics & civic life in NYC
- Office of the Mayor of New York City
- NYC City Council
- NY State Assembly — District 36
- NYC Department of City Planning
- Riders Alliance (transit advocacy)
- Met Council on Housing
- Working Families Party — NY
- NYC Open Data