In a closely watched election, Zohran Mamdani has secured a definitive victory in the race for Mayor of New York City, triumphing over independent candidate Andrew Cuomo. According to projections by the Associated Press news agency, Mamdani is set to become the city's first Muslim mayor. Identifying himself as a democratic socialist, Mamdani successfully galvanized liberal voters with a platform centered on ambitious social programs, including proposals for free childcare, free bus transportation, and a rent freeze impacting approximately one million New Yorkers living in rent-regulated housing, reports The WP Times with reference to the Aljazeera.
The Democratic party's success extended beyond New York, with candidates also registering significant wins in other pivotal races, including the gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia. Furthermore, voters in California passed new congressional maps which possess the potential to shift up to five Republican-held House seats to Democratic control during the 2026 midterm elections. In the New York mayoral contest, Mamdani had amassed over one million votes with 91 percent of ballots counted, recording 1,036,051 votes, compared to approximately 850,000 votes for Andrew Cuomo.
Mamdani’s current vote count of 1,036,051 already represents the highest number of votes won by any New York mayoral candidate since 1965, when Republican John Lindsay secured 1,149,106 votes, according to official city records. It is noteworthy, however, that the total votes for the winning candidate in this election marks a decrease compared to the two preceding mayoral races. Democrat Robert F. Wagner, Jr. previously achieved over 1.2 million votes in 1961, and an all-time record of more than 1.5 million votes in 1957, winning the election on both occasions.
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