On a baking stretch of concrete in Jackson Heights’ Diversity Plaza three days before the election, Zohran Mamdani’s earliest endorsers huddled around the ascendant Democratic mayoral candidate for one final rally. 

Supporters held up signs that read “Freeze the Rent” and “Cuomo hearts Trump” in Chinese, as well as others in Bangla, Nepalese and Spanish. The crowd of around 100 people included supporters and members – young and old – of those early endorsers: Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM Beats), CAAAV Voice, the political arm of the tenant union that works in working-class Asian American communities, and New York Communities for Change.

Those groups made up part of Mamdani’s canvassing corps that knocked on more than 1.5 million doors on behalf of the once longshot mayoral candidate. “When we first started doing this kind of outreach, what I would say at the door is that we have until June to win a citywide rent freeze,” recalled Alina Shen, organizing director at CAAAV. “And that would usually get someone to pause.”

Those early supporters helped to get Mamdani in the Chinese and Bangla press, while other volunteers went to mosques and Muslim centers around Eid, or canvassed at senior centers, Shen said. While canvassing with CAAAV Voice, she said, they always led with the fact that they’re a tenant union. “We know what it’s like to distrust and be disillusioned by establishment politicians. And even we think that think that this is an opportunity to change the conditions of what it means to organize in this city.”

Mamdani, who toppled ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary last week, aimed to assemble a new coalition of South Asian and Muslim voters to pull off that feat. On Tuesday, he accomplished much more than that.

Multilingual, culturally competent and exhaustive

The 33-year-old democratic socialist Assembly member defeated Cuomo in first-choice votes with a 7-point lead – close enough to insurmountable that Cuomo called Mamdani to concede on Tuesday night. By racial demographics, Mamdani bested Cuomo in majority white and majority Hispanic election precincts – with 5- and 6-point margins, respectively, according to a New York Times analysis. But his strongest margin was in majority Asian precincts, where he carried a 15-point lead over Cuomo. 

Mamdani, the son of Indian and Indian-Ugandan parents who was raised from childhood in New York City, could be the city’s first Asian American and first Muslim mayor, particularly if the Democratic establishment continues to line up behind him in November’s general election. Though his supporters turned out in greatest force in more progressive western Queens and north Brooklyn neighborhoods, Mamdani’s success in engaging Asian communities in New York City is a key part of his winning coalition and is part of what gave him such a commanding lead over Cuomo on election night. 

Mamdani’s appeal resonated in Lower Manhattan’s Chinatown, across the East River to southern Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, Dyker Heights and parts of Bensonhurst. His reach extended to swaths of the world’s borough, including Elmhurst, which boasts its own Chinatown, to the Indo-Carribbean community in Ozone Park, and in Bangladeshi neighborhoods along the Hillside Avenue corridor, including Jamaica Hills, one of the neighborhoods where Mamdani performed best by vote share. In Flushing, a stronghold of Asian American power in New York City, Cuomo ran up the score and narrowly edged out Mamdani in some precincts, while Mamdani got the better of the ex-governor in others. 

In a handful of the election districts in the Bronx’s Parkchester, which has a South Asian enclave, Mamdani bested Cuomo.

As Democratic strategist Amit Singh Bagga documented on X, turnout in some of the districts with South Asian populations surged more than 150% from 2021 levels. Little Yemen in the East Bronx, along with Jackson Heights and Jamaica Hills in Queens all had election districts that went for Mayor Eric Adams in the last cycle and for Mamdani this year.  

Only 186 election precincts out of more than 4,300 across the city are majority Asian, though more are plurality Asian and not counted in the Times’ analysis. When looking at other precincts that have large, if not always majority Asian populations, there are ones that Cuomo won too, including some in Bensonhurst in southern Brooklyn and parts of northeast Queens. Election precinct level data also doesn’t account for who exactly in those precincts turned out to vote, and so may not capture if turnout was driven by Asian American residents or others in those districts. 

But even observers who note that caveat credit the multilingual, culturally competent and exhaustive on-the-ground outreach by Mamdani’s campaign that in particular electrified younger voters, and younger Asian American voters among them. 

And just as important, admirers and skeptics alike credit Mamdani’s relentless focus on his message of affordability that resonated across communities. “When you think about Zohran Mamdani talking about freezing the rent for rent-stabilized tenants, fighting to make food more affordable … and providing universal child care … you’re speaking directly to the things that New Yorkers care most about,” Bagga said.

“We did a lot of WeChat communication, but we did not do enough on the ground.”

Mamdani was expected to do well among South Asian and Muslim voters – the latter also includes Arab American voters – because of his direct engagement of those constituencies, particularly in Queens. His support and hunger strike for taxi medallion debt relief in 2021 also caught the attention of South Asian and other immigrant drivers who saw their livelihoods decimated by the debt crisis. His advocacy for Palestinian rights attracted Muslims and young people who disapprove of Israel’s devastating war in Gaza.

But it wasn’t just the South Asian neighborhoods that Mamdani won first-choice votes in, but significant sections of the city’s growing East Asian populations in parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, despite parts of that electorate that have leaned more right in recent elections or declined to turn out for Democrats. 

“It was not a guarantee that he would win East Asians,” said Democratic strategist Trip Yang of Mamdani. Most people in the political class, Yang said, expected that East Asian communities – which are heavily Chinese American in New York City – would be drawn to a tough-on-crime candidate like Cuomo. The ex-governor was also expected to benefit from a strong surrogate in Council Member Susan Zhuang, who is popular in her southern Brooklyn district and could get her supporters out for Cuomo. Instead, Mamdani won all but one majority Asian election precinct in southern Brooklyn. 

Overall, Mamdani won Zhuang’s district. “I did see a lot of young voter turnout in my area. I’ve never seen that before. And the Muslim community really got together and voted for him,” Zhuang said, adding that she also saw younger Chinese American voters turning out for Mamdani. As for the Cuomo campaign’s efforts to engage those communities, Zhuang said, “We did a lot of WeChat communication, but I believe we did not do enough on the ground.”

Mamdani also benefited from a handful of strong surrogates from the city’s Asian American strongholds – notably, state Sen. John Liu, the longtime elected official from Flushing, whose endorsement just a few weeks before the start of early voting came as a late surprise. That Liu then campaigned for Mamdani in those final weeks likely helped his showing in Flushing. 

While other candidates in this year’s mayoral race tried to make strides with Asian American voters and particularly Chinese American voters – perhaps in an effort to correct the Democratic Party’s recent failures with those communities – they didn’t come close to Mamdani’s operation. “It was good that other campaigns were reaching out to Asian communities. But to some extent, it was the same playbook,” Liu said. “The candidates didn’t project nearly this spirit and the optimism that Zohran Mamdani was able to project.”

Mamdani’s extensive canvassing, multilingual mail and viral social media videos – including one in which he explained ranked choice voting in Hindi, using mango lassi for a visual demonstration – went beyond any other candidates. “When you talk to people in the languages that they speak, literally and proverbially, about issues that they care about, they respond,” Bagga said. “And when you don’t, they don’t.”

About that rightward shift

Democrats have been losing support, or taking it for granted, in Asian American communities in several recent elections, including local legislative races in southern Brooklyn in the last few cycles. Some Democrats think the narrative about that “shift right” misses the point. “Clearly, in (the) primary, people did not shift to the right. In fact, quite the opposite,” Liu said. “I think it’s not about right or left. It’s about change, and people wanting to be seen. And Zohran saw our communities, he’s actually from our community, and that excited people.”

Mamdani’s focus on affordability also took attention off of issues that might have been less palatable to voters concerned about defunding the police or reforming specialized education – two issues that have driven some voters away from Democratic candidates in recent years. Though he proposed a new Department of Community Safety, Mamdani’s past criticism of the NYPD was not a central part of his pitch. He also moderated prior criticisms of the exam that admits entrance to New York City’s specialized high schools – a system targeted for reform by some Democrats given they admit few Black and Hispanic students. Mamdani said in an interview with The City that he supports keeping the test for the schools that currently use it. 

If Mamdani keeps this Asian American coalition on his side through November’s general election, they’ll be a key part of his success there too. But, Yang says, “The narrative is not complete.” The presence of both Mayor Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa as candidates in November – two candidates who have performed well with Chinese American voters in past elections – shouldn’t be ignored.

Yang still sees Mamdani as the overwhelming favorite, but adds that it’s not time to take his foot off the gas. “I would encourage him to spend time with Chinese American communities, especially older Chinese American voters (with whom) socialism can be a controversial term.”