As early voting kicked off in the hotly contested New York City mayoral race on October 25, 2025, the campaign took a sharp turn into a debate over faith, identity, and post-9/11 America. At the center of the storm stood Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist frontrunner, whose emotional speech about his family's Muslim experience drew both empathy and scorn from political rivals and national figures alike.
On October 24, outside the Islamic Cultural Center of The Bronx, Mamdani addressed a crowd of supporters and press, his voice breaking as he recounted how the September 11, 2001 attacks had reshaped life for his family and countless other Muslim New Yorkers. "I want to speak to the memory of my aunt. Who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab," Mamdani said, according to OK! and AFP. He continued, "I want to speak to every child who grows up here marked as the other, who is randomly selected in a way that never quite feels random, who feels that they carry a stain that can never be cleaned. Growing up in the shadow of 9/11, I have known what it means to live with an undercurrent of suspicion in this city."
Mamdani, a 34-year-old Queens Assemblyman and the son of acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair and academic Mahmood Mamdani, has made his Muslim identity a cornerstone of his campaign. He urged over one million Muslims in New York to "step into the light," declaring, "No more. I will not change who I am, how I eat, or the faith that I’m proud to call my own. But there is one thing that I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light." (GB News, OK!)
But the speech, intended to rally a marginalized community, quickly became a lightning rod for criticism. U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a Republican, took to X (formerly Twitter) on October 25 to mock Mamdani’s remarks. Sharing a clip of the speech, Vance wrote, "According to Zohran the real victim of 9/11 was his auntie who got some (allegedly) bad looks," as reported by The New York Post, OK!, and AFP. The Vice President’s post was widely shared, injecting national attention—and controversy—into the local race.
Mamdani’s mayoral opponents, former Governor Andrew Cuomo (running as an independent) and Republican Curtis Sliwa, seized on the moment. Both had previously accused Mamdani of antisemitism and of holding extremist sympathies. During an October 23 radio interview with conservative host Sid Rosenberg, Cuomo was asked if Mamdani would "be cheering" if "another 9/11" happened. Cuomo chuckled and replied, "That’s another problem. But could you imagine that?" (Fox News, OK!, The New York Post).
Mamdani responded forcefully, labeling Cuomo’s comments as Islamophobic. "Yes, I believe that they were," Mamdani said at a subsequent campaign event. "We’re speaking about a former governor who, in his final moments in public life, is engaging in rhetoric that is not only Islamophobic, not only racist, it’s also disgusting." (OK!, The New York Post) He accused both Cuomo and Sliwa of stoking "bipartisan Islamophobia" and painted city politics as hostile to Muslims. "To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity," he declared, adding, "More than 1 million Muslims in this city existing all while being made to feel as if we are guests in our own home."
The attacks didn’t stop there. Sliwa accused Mamdani of supporting "global jihad," and some critics pointed to a photo of Mamdani campaigning with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an imam linked by federal authorities to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other extremist activities (as reported by AFP). Mamdani, however, has consistently rejected any association with extremism, instead focusing his campaign on progressive policies: expanding rent control, providing free daycare and bus services, and establishing city-run neighborhood grocery stores.
The rhetoric on all sides has grown increasingly heated as the November 7 election approaches. Mayor Eric Adams, endorsing Cuomo’s independent bid, made remarks about Islamic extremism in Europe, comments that Mamdani and his supporters denounced as further evidence of anti-Muslim bias in city politics (The New York Post).
Mamdani’s campaign, while centered on economic justice and affordability, has become a flashpoint for broader debates about identity and belonging in New York. His story is unique: born in Uganda to Indian heritage, he immigrated to the United States at age seven, attended the Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College, and briefly performed as a rapper before entering politics. After his election to the State Assembly in 2018, he quickly became a voice for Queens’ diverse, working-class communities.
His outspokenness on issues like Palestine—he has called Israel an "apartheid regime" and the war in Gaza a "genocide"—has drawn sharp criticism from some Jewish groups and political opponents, who accuse him of crossing the line from advocacy to antisemitism. Mamdani, for his part, insists he is fighting for the dignity of all New Yorkers, regardless of faith or background.
As early voting began, the stakes were clear. If elected, Mamdani would become the first Muslim mayor of New York City, a symbolic milestone for a city with more than a million Muslim residents. But as the campaign’s closing days unfold, the debate over who belongs—and who gets to define the city’s identity—shows no sign of cooling off.
With passions running high and the nation watching, New Yorkers now face a stark choice about the future of their city and the values it will champion in the years ahead.
