As the city's first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani is pushing for greater Islamic influence in New York's government. In addition to being critical of Israel and advocating for Palestinian rights, he is closely affiliated with left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker, who has said that "America deserved 9/11."
He has also backed Aber Kawas, a Democratic candidate for the New York state Senate who has made similar comments suggesting the deadly terror attacks were deserved.
Meanwhile, Mamdani continues to impose his socialist economic policies on the city, including pushing for rent controls, publicly funded services, wealth redistribution, higher taxes on corporations and high earners, and greater government involvement in housing and transportation.
Despite positive overall approval ratings, Mamdani is facing growing backlash from New Yorkers, including the Jewish community and some voters who regret voting for him.
Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer says he was "glad to see" Staten Island loudly boo the mayor off stage at an NYPD National Night Out last week after less than a minute.
"But Staten Island is the most conservative part of New York City, and they didn't vote for him to start with," Spencer notes. "I would have been surprised if he had gotten a welcoming reaction, but it's good to see that the people in Staten Island are still aware of what's at stake here and of how dangerous somebody like Mamdani really is."
Still, he knows the Left champions Mamdani's intention to move forward with plans to open Soviet-like city-owned grocery stores in 2027. He fully expects leftist leaders will move the goalposts: if the stores lose money, they'll subsidize them; if they survive because of those subsidies, they'll call that a victory for socialism.
"They're going to want to do everything they can to prop him up and make sure that he doesn't meet with the spectacular failure that the grocery stores would be on their own," Spencer says. "I suspect that we're going to see them working. They're not going to really be working; it's all going to be financed by somebody behind the scenes, but it's going to be trumpeted as a great success of socialism."
Though Mamdani is not on the ballot in November, three congressional races involving candidates he backed in the June Democratic primaries could be read as tests of his popularity and influence. A large November victory for Darializa Avila Chevalier, for example, would give Mamdani's allies a strong argument that the primary was not just an unusual Democratic primary result and that the electorate genuinely supports the movement's direction.
Spencer, however, hopes Staten Island — which has backed Republican presidential candidates and borough leaders and generally resists the city's broader Democratic political trends with strong support for law enforcement, high rates of homeownership, and suburban-style neighborhoods — will influence the other boroughs.
