Good morning. We speak with our colleagues about Zohran Mamdani’s surge toward the New York City mayor’s office. We also have more news on the hostage-prisoner swap between Israelis and Palestinians, turmoil in Madagascar and the final episode of Marc Maron’s “WTF.”
Meet MamdaniWho is Zohran Mamdani, likely the next mayor of New York? Is he the future of the Democratic Party or a liability in an age when voters have veered right? Is he a pragmatist whose charisma will win over business leaders — or a doctrinaire socialist who will never recruit enough support for his agenda? Times journalists have spent much of this year reporting on those questions and more about Mamdani, a figure of fascination on the left and the right. A canny polMamdani has recalibrated his brand since his primary victory, tweaking the us-versus-them language of his democratic-socialist values to be a tad less punitive, writes Astead Herndon, author of a perceptive profile of Mamdani published in the Times Magazine today. Astead goes on: Mamdani understands that his goals — no-cost universal child care, free buses for all, a four-year rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments — will require a broad political coalition to achieve. So he set about crafting it. For months now, Mamdani has been meeting privately with former leaders in city government, business executives, heads of New York arts and cultural institutions and skeptical local Democrats. In these chats, he says he wants to support renters, not punish landlords. He wants to support public education, not take a hammer to specialized schools with elite admissions. He says he supports Palestinian rights; he’s not anti-Zionist. He made key concessions when it comes to policing. Importantly, he made clear that he was open to compromise when it came to his proposed millionaire tax. He is now open to keeping on a police chief whom progressives dislike. The effort began after Mamdani won the Democratic primary. His campaign compiled a list of the city’s top 25 business leaders and called each of them one by one, underscoring his desire to build coalitions and establish an open line of communication. His gifts at retail politics are evident on the stump, too. He loves a rope line as much as Joe Biden. Loves a selfie like Elizabeth Warren. And he stays until the end of a Black church service. Mamdani’s policy goals are ambitious, and he may not achieve them. But one surprising thing I learned in my reporting is that a hard-line backbencher from the State Assembly has already remade himself as a builder of consensus. As the Manhattan borough president told me: “I want to emphasize how unprecedented this is — the first nominee in memory that has made a concerted effort to reach out to people who were against him in the primary.” A sticking pointAs Mamdani’s campaign upends New York politics, no single stance has polarized New Yorkers as passionately as his pro-Palestinian activism and caustic criticism of Israel, writes Nicholas Fandos, who covers local politics: Mamdani has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and said the country should not exist as an officially Jewish state. (He has also denounced Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.) Those positions have cost him the support of some pro-Israel New Yorkers. Not long ago, they would have been unthinkable for a major New York mayoral candidate not long ago. How did he arrive at them? In many ways, Mamdani’s views track with those of other young Americans on the left. But in my reporting, I found roots tracing back much further — to Mamdani’s own family history with colonialism and his parents’ intellectual careers in India, Africa and New York. At Bowdoin College, he founded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, and his experience helped push him onto the leftward path that could end at City Hall. Read my story about the evolution of his anti-Zionism here. The question now, as Hamas and Israel wind down their conflict, is whether the temperature will also come down in the city Mamdani is trying to lead — and whom that might help just weeks before Election Day. His leading rival, Andrew Cuomo, is counting on Jewish New Yorkers angry at Mamdani to turn out in huge numbers. On the other hand, backlash against Israel has helped motivate Mamdani’s progressive base. Will this fight matter less as the war in Gaza ends? A model Democrat?At 33, Mamdani is calling for a new generation of leadership. Voices across the right and the left are already heralding Mamdani as a model for the future of the Democratic Party. Emma G. Fitzsimmons, the Times’s City Hall bureau chief, asks: Is he? Yes and no. Affordability, his animating issue, is something that moves most Americans. And Mamdani is truly native to social media. (Watch him interview Trump supporters about the high cost of living or enlist an actor from “The Gilded Age” for a dramatic reading.) That’s something other candidates could copy. It’s also possible that his populist quest for universal child care could take hold elsewhere. But Mamdani’s far-left views might not do as well in a swing state like Pennsylvania. He once called for defunding the police. He wants to freeze rent and bar immigration agents from New York City. President Trump calls him a communist, and even some New York Democrats are wary of his agenda and have not endorsed him. In many ways, Mamdani is unique. He has charisma that charms people who disagree with him. His biography as a Muslim immigrant appeals to New Yorkers in a city that is known for welcoming immigrants. But it might be less helpful elsewhere. He may someday seek higher office, but — because he is a naturalized citizen who was born in Uganda — he’s ineligible for the presidency.
Yesterday, Hamas and Israel took a significant step toward a truce, exchanging 20 living hostages in Gaza for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Trump claimed: “It’s peace in the Middle East.” The reality on the ground is a little more complicated. Our colleague Katrin Bennhold, host of our global newsletter The World, wanted to understand how close the hostage-prisoner exchange has brought the region to a lasting peace. (After all, we’ve seen something like this before.) So she called David Halbfinger, our Jerusalem bureau chief, to ask him. What are the potential sticking points in the next phase of this truce? Hamas has said it wants a full Israeli withdrawal. The Israelis are saying they’re not pulling out until they get everything that was in the Trump plan. So we have the ingredients for a standoff. Israel and Trump both want Gaza to be run by someone other than Hamas. But Hamas hasn’t agreed to lay down its weapons. So who steps into that breach? And yet some people describe this as the best hope for peace since the Oslo accords. The fact that you have so many countries in the Arab and Muslim world backing the U.S. and its push not just for a cease-fire, but for a greater peace, is enormously promising. So there’s reason to see this as a promising moment. It’s just, again, easier to see this running into great difficulty than it is to see it accelerating from here. Read more from their conversation. For more
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Like many Muslims in America, Zohran Mamdani is being asked to prove that he’s one of the “good” ones to be accepted, Meher Ahmad writes. Erin White used to make dinner for her family every night. Then she stopped. And everything is fine — maybe even better. “Now our time together is about everyone’s pleasure,” she writes, adding, “including mine.” Here’s a column by Michelle Goldberg on the politics of victimhood. New: The Times family subscription is here. One rate. Four individual logins. Savings for all. Now you and three others can enjoy unlimited access to The Times, while personalizing your own experience. Learn more.
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