Zohran Kwame Mamdani (born 18 October 1991) is an American politician who has been Mayor of New York City since 1 January 2026. A democratic socialist, he is the city’s first Muslim mayor, its first of South Asian descent and its youngest in more than a century. He is the son of the film-maker Mira Nair and the scholar Mahmood Mamdani.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Zohran Kwame Mamdani |
| Born | 18 October 1991, Kampala, Uganda |
| Age | 35 |
| Nationality | American (naturalised 2018) |
| Indian roots | Mother from India; father a Ugandan of Gujarati origin |
| Education | Bronx High School of Science; Bowdoin College (B.A., 2014) |
| Party | Democratic; member of the Democratic Socialists of America |
| Offices | Mayor of New York City (since 2026); Member of the New York State Assembly (2021–2025) |
| Spouse | Rama Duwaji (m. 2025) |
Early Life
He was born in Kampala. His mother, Mira Nair, born in Rourkela in Odisha, is the director of Salaam Bombay!, Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, was born in Bombay and grew up in Uganda in a family of Gujarati Muslim origin; he was among the Asians expelled by Idi Amin in 1972. His middle name honours Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana.
The family lived for a time in Cape Town and moved to New York when he was seven.
Education
He attended the Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College in Maine, where he took a degree in Africana studies in 2014 and helped found a campus group in support of Palestinian rights.
Before Politics
He worked as a housing counsellor in Queens, helping low-income families of colour to avoid eviction, an experience he says led him into politics. He also made music as a rapper under the name Mr Cardamom.
Career
State Assembly
In 2020 he defeated a long-serving member to win the Democratic nomination for a State Assembly seat covering Astoria in Queens, and served from 2021. He joined a hunger strike with taxi drivers seeking relief from debt and sponsored a pilot scheme for free buses.
The 2025 campaign
He entered the race for mayor as a little-known outsider. His campaign, built on short videos and an army of volunteers, concentrated on the cost of living.
- a freeze on rents in rent-stabilised flats
- free city buses
- universal childcare
- city-owned grocery shops
- higher taxes on the richest residents and on companies to pay for it
In June 2025 he defeated the former governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, one of the biggest upsets in the city’s recent politics. He beat Cuomo, running as an independent, again in the general election on 4 November.
Mayor
He was sworn in just after midnight on 1 January 2026 in a disused subway station beneath City Hall. In his first months he signed orders on tenants’ rights, announced a childcare expansion with the Governor of New York State and appointed new members to the board that sets rents. His critics, who include business leaders and some supporters of Israel, question whether his programme can be paid for.
Personal Life
He married Rama Duwaji, a Syrian-American illustrator, in 2025; the couple met on a dating app. He is a Shia Muslim and speaks Hindi-Urdu, which he used in campaign videos full of references to Hindi cinema.
Featured image: Zohran Mamdani in New York City, May 2025. Photo by Dmitryshein, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
