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November 6, 2025 15 mins

You might have seen a man named Zohran Mamdani all over your social media feeds recently. As of this week, he is the new mayor of New York City. 

Now, as an Australian publication and podcast, it’s rare that we would cover such a local election in a country on the other side of the world. But the campaign run by Zohran Mamdani has captured the world’s attention. 

On today’s podcast, we’ll explain everything you need to know about why everyone is talking about the new NYC mayor.

Hosts: Billi FitzSimons and Sam Koslowski
Producer: Orla Maher

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily os.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to
the Daily Oz. It's Friday, the seventh of November. I'm
Billy fitz.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Simon's I'm Samowski.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
You might have seen a man named Zorn Mumdani all
over your social media feeds recently. As of this week,
he is the new mayor of New York City. Now
as an Australian publication and podcast, it is rare that
we would cover such a local election in a country
on the other side of the world, but the campaign
run by Zorn mum Dani has captured the world's attention.

(00:43):
On today's podcast, well explain everything you need to know
about why everyone is talking about the new New York
City mayor.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Now, Billy, I actually want to tell you how I
discovered Mamdani. I didn't try to find him out of
personally in a civil society. I stumbled across him in
the very early days of his campaign on a graphic
design and politics blog that I read, and the blog
was talking about how incredible his branding was and the

(01:16):
vibrant blue and orange branding that he used. Fast forward,
probably a year, he's now the new mayor, And you're right,
we wouldn't normally cover a local election in the US.
Why do you think it is that people outside of
New York have been so invested in this race? Besides
the branding?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
I love it. You're like one of those people who
discovers an indie artist and then they've become really big,
and then you claim forever that you found them first.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
When in fact I only discovered them because I liked
their album cover, but actually the songs they made.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, okay. So there are two main reasons why I
think this really has captured the world's attention. The first
is that New York is obviously a global city. It
is one of the most famous cities in the world.
It is the biggest city in the US, which is
of course one of the most influential countries in the world.
So being mayor of New York is a huge position,

(02:09):
and that role being quite high profile is nothing new.
There have been many high profile mayors of New York before.
There's Rudy Giuliani, for example, and also Michael Bloomberg. They
have both been previous mayors of New York City, and
the current President of the United States, Donald Trump was
also a high profile New Yorker before his entry into politics,

(02:30):
so this is his hometown. But the other reason is
I think Mumdani himself is a huge reason why people
have been so invested in this with the way that
he has been able to capture and inspire young people
and other people who maybe traditionally wouldn't be inclined to
go to the elections in the US vote also remembering

(02:53):
that in the US voting isn't compulsory like it is
here in Australia. And everyone knows that after Trump won
the election last year exactly one year ago actually this week,
the Democrats who had such a seismic loss at that election,
they have been in a real soul searching era to
figure out how to get votes in this era of

(03:16):
Trump politics. And I think left leaning progressive people and
politicians are seeing mum Dani's approach to politics as a
possible blueprint for getting ahead in the political era of Trump.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
And it wasn't just on the democratic side of global
politics really that people were paying attention. It was also
on the right wing.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah. I think for those on the other side of politics,
they have paid close attention to mum Dani's campaign because
he represents a very different left wing opponent than the
traditional Democratic front runners, and he's more aligned with hardline
left wing views like those of Bernie sand and also

(04:01):
Alexandria Kazia Cortez. I don't know if you remember her,
but she's also a very high profile Democrat who is
much further to the left than the traditional Democrat. And
so I think for the Republicans this election was really
important because A they got to see how Mumdani would
be received by the voting public, as it turns out

(04:23):
quite well. But b it allows them to categorize their
opponents on the left as progressively becoming more extreme in
their views, which I think is something that they want
to do.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Sure, so it's kind of being used by the Republicans
as this is the way that things are going and
that's why you should stay with us. Yes, that is
a pretty standard political response. But I want to go
back and focus on Mamdani himself. Give me a sense
of who this man is.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Okay, I'll give you a quick bio. So Mumdani was
born in Uganda to Indian parents. He is thirty four
years old. He was previously a member of New York
State's lower House, and before he entered politics, he was
a housing counselor, and he also had a short stint.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
As a rapper very Brooklyn, very New Yes.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Now, he identifies politically as a democratic socialist, which means
that he believes in establishing socialist policies through traditional political systems.
So essentially, he believes in taxing the wealthy more and
then using that tax money to redistribute some of the
wealth to lower socioeconomic classes. You will hear some of

(05:36):
his opponents say that he is a communist, but that
is not how he himself identifies. He says that he
is a democratic socialist.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
One of the interesting ways I heard democratic socialism and
communism separated through his campaign is that democratic socialists have
the same ideas as communists. Communists want to dismantle the system,
and democratic socialists want to use the system to achieve
those ideas. I thought that was a pretty easy way
to understand something that takes like, you know, yes, tens

(06:05):
of decades to try and figure out. But I know
that's oversimplifying, but it gives you a sense of like
he wants to play in the game.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yes, the only other thing I would add is that
communism would be further to it would be more extreme
than socialism.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Well, it's not about believing in the systems that are there. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Now, in this election, he was the Democratic Party's nominee
and he campaigned on cost of living relief. Now, if
you know anything about New York, you probably know that
it is one of the most expensive cities in the
world to live in, So that was a big focus
of his campaign. Things that he included in his campaign
was things like rent freezers, free public buses was a

(06:43):
big thing, and he also wants to significantly lower the
cost of childcare. Now, another thing that came up a
lot during the campaign was that mum Doney was also
open about his support for Palestine during the campaign. Now,
some Jewish groups did accuse him of Semitism, but he
consistently said that he believes Israel has a right to exist.

(07:06):
He did, however, refuse to say it should exist as
a Jewish state.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
And the reason why that's important in context is that
New York has an extremely large Jewish population, one of
the biggest in the world. So in terms of getting
the votes you need, it is not surprising that it
came up as an issue. It comes up in most
New York elections, and social media was a huge reason
why he was so popular, right.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, the way he used social media throughout his campaign,
I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. I
think it will now be seen as a bit of
a blueprint for how political candidates can use social media
really effectively as a vehicle to win their campaigns. His
Instagram currently has seven million followers, although since I started

(07:52):
writing this script the other day, it's actually gone up
by two million. So he is on a rocket ship
of social media fame at the moment. And his videos
regularly went viral, not just that, but also videos that
other people made of him. There were so many fan accounts,
there are so many trending sounds on TikTok. He really

(08:13):
used all areas of the Internet for his campaign. And
I think one of the most amazing things about this
part of his campaign, which is a fun fact that
you taught me, Sam, is that his social media and
graphics were all done by a two person design studio
in Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Isn't that incredible in terms of the power of viral
growth and the limited resources at least until the last
kind of two months of the campaign where he received
huge donations. Yes, the first ground roots part of that
campaign was two guys in the flat in Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Amazing.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
And so why do you think his victory was historic?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, it marks several firsts. So he is the city's
first Muslim mayor, he is the city's first millennial mayor,
and he will be new youngest leader in more than
a century. He's also the first South Asian mayor of
New York. I also saw a headline just right before
we came into the studio from the New York Times
that said, he is New York's first bearded mayor since

(09:14):
nineteen thirteen. Remarkable, remarkable, many many first. Other reasons it
was historic was it was over really quick. So the
Associated Press declared Mamdani the winner of the race just
thirty five minutes after polls closed, which is just that
is crazy quick for an election. And lastly, another reason

(09:34):
why it was so historic was that more than two
million New Yorkers cast their ballots, which is nearly double
the number of people who voted for mayor four years ago,
and the most amount of votes in half a century.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
And we know how important that turnout call to action.
Then the turnout to vote is in American elections because
it's not mandatories, he said earlier. So getting people to
actually go physically to a ballot box is, you know,
most of the reason why someone could win. I saw
his victory being described in the media as improbable and

(10:08):
a massive surprise. Why was it seen as that with
so much social media support, so much kind of visible
support that you've been talking about, why was it still
categorized as unlikely.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, at the start of this year, not many people
knew who Mumdani was. He was very unknown, not just
in New York but obviously internationally, although that doesn't make
that much of a difference in a local election, but
he was just very unknown. So at the start of
this year, Mumdani was polling at one percent, So Poles
predicted that he would receive one percent of the vote
in this election. Now, as we know, he actually received

(10:42):
more than fifty percent of the vote, and that's why
he has now won. And in order to win, he
needed to beat someone like Andrew Cuomo, who is the
former state governor of New York. So he has an
established reputation and people are familiar with him. Although that
can sometime be a bad thing, which is I think
what we saw with Andrew Cuomo in this case. You know,

(11:05):
he has been surrounded by many controversies throughout his time,
and that was used against him consistently, and so I
think mum Danni was really seen as this change candidate,
which is something that often comes up in elections. You know,
who's going to bring the most change to whatever region
we're talking about, And so sometimes being a high profile
person can work in your favor, sometimes it doesn't. But

(11:28):
you're right that people did see mum Danny's election as improbable.
And after his victory, I wanted to read out a
quote from high profile Democrat Bernie Sanders, who you mentioned before,
because he is much further to the left than the
traditional Democrat, and Bernie Sanders said that mumdani quote pulled
off one of the great political upsets in modern American history.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
One of the turning points in the lead up to
the vote on Tuesday, I think was Donald Trump coming
out and endorsing his opponent Andrew Cuomo. Ma'm Danny talked
about that a lot, and interestingly, and similar to what
you were saying before, it almost worked against Cuomo because
of Trump's lack of popularity in New York. But tell

(12:12):
me about the relationship now between the current president of
the United States and the new mayor of New York.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Well, it's not great. You can probably tell from how
I've described mum Danny's politics that they are quite different
to Trump's politics. Some would say that they are on
complete opposite sides of the political spectrum. Here is what
mum Doney said directly to Trump during his victory speech.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by
Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city
that gave rise to him. So, Donald Trump, since I
know you're watching, four words for you, turn the volume up.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
In terms of what Trump has said about mum Dani,
he has been very critical of him throughout this entire campaign.
Like I said before, he is called mum Dani a
communist and he also threatened to cut off funding to
New York if mum Dani won. So I think essentially
not a great relationship at all.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
And speaking of the president, a lot of people, especially
on socials, have now said that Mamdani should be the
president of the United States one day, And this is
the future of US politics. But that can't actually happen, right.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
No, simply because of the US Constitution, it cannot happen.
So the US Constitution is very clear in saying that
the US President must be quote a natural born citizen.
And like I said before, mum Dani wasn't born in
the US, he was born in Uganda.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
I think it's always really interesting when US, as an
Australian audience, do take such an interest in a city
election on the other side of the world. But it's
clear from talking through this with you of why and
what he represents to a lot of younger audiences, especially
around the world. He's got a huge job ahead of
him now though there are three hundred thousand employees that

(14:09):
fall under his remit now in the city of New York,
which is just a gigantic task for a thirty four
year old Billy. Thank you for joining us and explaining
that all to us today. Thank you and thank you
for joining us on the daily OS. What a big
week of news has been. We really appreciate you tuning
in every day and getting us to explain the news
to you, which is what we love doing so much.

(14:30):
We'll be back in you is with the headlines. Until then,
have a good day. My name is Lily Maddon and
I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Kalkotin woman from Gadigol Country.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
The Daily os acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to
all Aboriginal and Torres Strait island and nations.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
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