{"id":187440,"date":"2025-08-30T14:35:29","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T14:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/187440\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T14:35:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T14:35:29","slug":"new-york-mayoral-candidate-zohran-mamdani-is-working-to-woo-black-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/187440\/","title":{"rendered":"New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is working to woo Black voters"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani<\/a> seemed at ease as he made his way from a high-rise apartment building to a street festival in the historic Black neighborhood of Harlem on a recent Sunday.<\/p>\n

His reason for being there was clear: While he won the Democratic primary<\/a> in June and secured the party’s nomination for the November general election,<\/a> Mamdani underperformed in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Now he’s trying to better connect with their skeptical older generation.<\/p>\n

Black New Yorkers make up about 22% of the city\u2019s 8.8 million people and stand as one of its most influential voting groups.<\/p>\n

Mamdani and his supporters hope to harness the energy that connects him with young progressives to grow his trust among older Black New Yorkers. A major hurdle for the 33-year-old Queens assemblymember is the fact that his two leading opponents \u2014 former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams \u2014 have spent long political careers making allies in Black neighborhoods and churches, as well as cultivating mentors in the community.<\/p>\n

Mamdani is banking on his No. 1 issue \u2014 making the city more affordable \u2014 to connect across demographics. And it may work. According to AP VoteCast, about 6 in 10 Black voters in New York in the 2024 election said they were \u201cvery concerned\u201d about their personal housing costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve heard from Black voters across the five boroughs is that the affordability crisis is one that is pushing them out of this city,\u201d Mamdani told The Associated Press. \u201cI\u2019ve spoken to the older generation of Black voters about how affordability is something that has to be applied across the board. It\u2019s not just a struggle for tenants,<\/a> it\u2019s also a struggle of homeowners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerrell Gray, a 26-year-old born to parents who immigrated from the Caribbean, has a master\u2019s degree from New York University and works as an assistant director of a public health nonprofit. But he still lives with his mother in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood because rents are too high for him to afford his own place.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of my friends who are so talented, the people that I grew up with, end up leaving New York City because they can\u2019t afford it, or they feel like the city doesn\u2019t have anything for them,\u201d said Gray, a Mamdani supporter.<\/p>\n

Even as Mamdani has attracted younger Black progressives, his opponents have a slight advantage with their parents and grandparents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was asking a pastor \u2014 who had endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the primary many months ago \u2014 \u2018why?\u2019\u201d Mamdani recalled. \u201cAnd he told me, \u2018I endorsed Mario\u2019s son. It was because Mario was good to me,\u2019\u201d Mamdani said, referencing Cuomo\u2019s father, Mario Cuomo<\/a>, who himself served three terms in the state’s top office.<\/p>\n

An AP analysis shows exactly how short Mamdani came up with Black voters in the primary. He won only eight out of the city’s 33 majority-Black neighborhoods in June, while Cuomo came out on top in 25 of them. By comparison, Adams won all 33 majority-Black neighborhoods four years ago.<\/p>\n

Some older Black voters say their support for Cuomo stems from his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a>, when he projected a sense of control amid widespread uncertainty and economic turmoil. They also recall the decades Andrew Cuomo spent speaking in Black churches and appearing at community events, dating back to when his dad was governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuomo, I feel like, was somebody that was in office before and he got us during the pandemic, and that made me comfortable and safe,\u201d said Brooklyn native Nerissa Robinson, 58, who is leaning toward voting for Cuomo despite the sexual harassment scandal<\/a> that led him to resign the governor’s office in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoters understand what Andrew Cuomo\u2019s done for them,\u201d said Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi. \u201cAnd they understand that Andrew Cuomo\u2019s going to fight for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams, New York’s second Black mayor, dropped out of the Democratic primary after he was indicted on bribery charges. He then outraged liberal voters by cultivating a warm relationship<\/a> with President Donald Trump as his lawyers successfully lobbied the Justice Department to drop the bribery case. Now, like Cuomo, he’s running as an independent in November.<\/p>\n

Adams’ spokesperson, Todd Shapiro, noted that the Democratic primary results don\u2019t tell the full story. Any candidate could sway the mayoral race, he said.<\/p>\n

In fact, polls do not capture all of New York\u2019s unaffiliated registered voters, who make up 23.9% of the electorate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of this city know who fights for them every single day \u2014 and that\u2019s why Eric Adams will rise in the polls and win,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani’s choice of audience for his first public remarks<\/a> after winning the primary shows the importance of Black voters to his campaign: He addressed the Rev. Al Sharpton\u2019s National Action Network at a civil rights rally in Harlem.<\/p>\n

More than two months later, the candidate has been endorsed by several prominent New York politicians. Some see his primary win as what Columbia University professor and political analyst Basil Smikle describes as \u201ca desire for some kind of disruptive politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those now backing Mamdani is Brooklyn Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who supported Adams in his first mayoral run and later fell into Andrew Cuomo’s camp leading up to the 2025 Democratic primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all want the same thing, and it\u2019s affordability,\u201d Bichotte Hermelyn said of her constituents in the Flatbush, Midwood and Ditmas Park neighborhoods, many of whom share her Caribbean roots.<\/p>\n

But Mamdani’s message may not be enough to lure voters who are skeptical about his level of experience. The Democratic nominee has only served as a state assemblymember since 2021.<\/p>\n

Political analyst Darius Jones said many older Black voters want leaders who don\u2019t just speak emotionally about their issues, but who have a proven ability to turn that concern into real policy change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re old enough to have heard people come in and use the campaigns largely to virtue signal and to say things which appeal to the desires of vulnerable people,\u201d said Jones, executive director of the National Black Empowerment Action Fund.<\/p>\n

Mamdani said he remains confident that affordability is the winning issue for Black voters of all backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw the population of Black children and teenagers drop precipitously from 2010 to 2019, and that is a function of the inability of the city leadership to reckon with the most pressing crisis at hand, which is ensuring this is a city that everyone can afford,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP writers Maya Sweedler in Washington, D.C.; Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida; and Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York contributed. ___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press receives financial support from the Sony Global Social Justice Fund to expand certain coverage areas. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani seemed at ease as he made his way…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":187441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[105023,5229,347,20148,90,57,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,2068,61,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-187440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-105023","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-black-experience","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-race-and-ethnicity","22":"tag-u-s-news","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa","29":"tag-voting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115118219283592326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}