It’s Mango Lassi Mamdani morning in Big Apple

The TOI correspondent from Washington: New Yorkers streamed into polling stations on Tuesday morning with the remarkable prospect of the undisputed global capital of finance, skyscrapers, and immense wealth paradoxically electing a socialist mayor.

Turbocharged by a brilliant digital campaign, a raft of breathtaking promises, and a winning smile that launched a thousand quips, Zohran Mamdani, the Uganda-born Indian son of film-maker Mira Nair (born in Odisha) and academic Mahmood Mamdani (born in Mumbai), is all set to occupy the City Hall in the ground zero of capitalism, putative Muslim mayor of an iconic city that was attacked by Islamist terrorists on 9/11.Follow NYC mayoral elections 2025 live updatesAlthough the gap between Mamdani and his Democrat-turned-independent opponent Andrew Cuomo narrowed by Tuesday, the Indian-African New Yorker is expected to romp home comfortably despite President Trump coming out swinging at the prospect of a mayor who in his view is a communist and a “radical left lunatic.” On the eve of election day, Trump threw his weight behind Cuomo, a scandal-tarnished former Governor of New York, urging voters to even ditch Republican candidate Curtis Sliva (who is polling a distant third), saying “it is my strong conviction that New York City will be a Complete and Total Economic and Social Disaster should Mamdani win. I would much rather see a Democrat win than a Communist with no experience.”Trump also threatened to cut federal funds, “other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home,” saying the city has zero chances of success under a “communist,” kneecapping Mamdani even before he takes office.

The irony of the most capitalist city on the planet electing a Muslim socialist mayor will go into political folklore but the reasons are not hard to fathom. While NYC is arguably the richest city in the world, with more than 350,000 millionaires, it is also a megalopolis of brutal economic inequality, with crippling housing costs ($3000 per month rent for a studio in Manhattan), failing public transit, and deep-seated poverty in its outer neighborhoods.

The wealth that defines the city also creates the extreme, daily cost-of-living pressure for everyone else. Mamdani has tapped into this disaffection arising from what he calls the affordability crisis, promising, among other things, higher taxes on the wealthy, rent freeze, free city buses, city-run grocery stores and other sops that have some of its more affluent residents bolting the Big Apple fearing the incoming Mayor will demand a bigger slice of their pie. While non-hispanic whites form the single largest group of eligible voters at 42 percent in the Democratic-leaning city, the Mamdani surge is also powered by Hispanic/Latinos (24 percent), Black/African-American (19 percent), and Asian-American (15 percent). In fact, his campaign was evocative of the city’s diversity, with ads in Spanish and Hindi, including a liberal use of Bollywood song and dance and desi tropes like mango lassi.“When Americans fly in from across our land to JFK & LaGuardia and hear over the loudspeaker, ‘I am Mayor @ZohranKMamdani, welcome to NYC,’ they will look to their children filled with pride and say, ‘In NY any dream is still possible!’” Congressman Ro Khanna, an Indian-American representing SIlicon Valley in California, said, echoing the vision of American liberals. A Mamdani victory, which even Trump appeared to concede is a foregone conclusion, is also expected to weigh in on the ideological future of the Democratic Party, pushing it further left and powering progressives against the moderate and centrist establishment wing of the party. “Our time has come, New York. Our time is now,” Mamdani posted on X Tuesday morning as he headed out to vote with his wife, Rama Duwaji, a Syrian-American. While all eyes are on polling in NYC, there are also mayoral elections in Boston, Atlanta, Seattle, and Minneapolis and gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, offering a referendum of sorts on the ten months of Trump rule. In another closely watched election, voters in Virginia, abutting the capital, will be electing their first female governor, choosing between Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA agent and lawmaker, and Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the current Jamaica-born Lieutenant governor who served in the US Marines. Across the country, California is also voting on a statewide ballot measure called Proposition 50 designed to create up to five additional Democratic-leaning seats in the House of Representatives to offset the gains Republicans have made nationally through their own map redraws.