Five Takeaways From the Magazine’s Profile of Zohran Mamdani

Since Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory in the Democratic primary for the New York City mayoral race, I’ve been on a mission to better understand the factors that led to his win — the charismatic candidate, the electorate that rallied behind him and the changing city he may soon lead.

Over five months of following the campaign, including two interviews with Mamdani and conversations with about 40 other people close to the race and its reverberations among national Democrats, I learned that Mamdani has taken great pains to prepare himself for this moment — and for what comes next. While this story may feel like an only-in-New York political fairy tale, there are several lessons for understanding America’s changing political landscape.

Here are five takeaways from my Times magazine profile of Mamdani:

Mamdani has spent the summer and fall on a charm offensive.

Since his primary win in June, Mamdani, a 33-year-old avowed Democratic Socialist, has worked to woo New York City’s business and finance leaders and other skeptics. He has met with a legion of city bureaucrats as well as pro-business liberal megadonors like Sally Susman and Robert Wolf. His efforts have expanded his coalition and stand in stark contrast to previous Democratic nominees for mayor, including progressives like Bill de Blasio.

He has used the meetings to reframe previous positions, softening some of his political language and policies. He says he wants to support renters, not punish landlords. He supports Palestinian rights; he’s not anti-Zionist. He is even open to compromise on his proposed millionaires’ tax.

“I want to emphasize how unprecedented this is — the first nominee in memory that has made a concerted effort to reach out to people who were against him in the primary,” Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president and Democratic nominee for comptroller, told me.

One of Mamdani’s most significant shifts is on policing.

Mamdani has continued to distance himself from his previous calls to “defund the police” throughout the mayor’s race. And I learned that he recently met with more than two dozen rank-and-file police officers in a closed-door listening session about officer retention and public safety. In that meeting, he also explicitly apologized for a June 2020 tweet in which he called the New York Police Department “racist” and “anti-queer.”