"Our Time Is Now": Zohran Mamdani's Mayoral Campaign Inspires NYC's Working-Class South Asians

Tuesday is Election Day all over the country. Early voting just ended in New York's mayoral race this weekend, with 735,000 ballots cast. It's the highest early voter turnout in New York's history for a non-presidential race, something like four times the number of people who usually vote in early voting. As the three candidates for mayor—Democratic nominee Zoran Mamdani, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Lewa—closed out their campaigns, President

Trump told 60 Minutes he's not a fan of Cuomo, but would pick him over Mamdani, who he called a communist. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports former President Obama told Mamdani in a private phone conversation Saturday his campaign had been impressive and offered to be a sounding board. Zoran Mamdani's mayoral campaign has energized communities across New York City in unprecedented

ways, mobilizing nearly 100,000 volunteers for his campaign. Democracy Now!'s Anjali Khamat has been following a crucial, often overlooked portion of Mamdani's base, working-class South Asians.

It's Friday afternoon in a quiet neighborhood in Kensington, Brooklyn. These women are members of Drumbeats, an advocacy group for low-income South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities here in New York. And they're getting ready to canvas for Zoran Mamdani.

So half of the list is going to cover with them. Then they will find them.

They split up into groups and I followed them as they knocked on dozens of doors. Armed with colourful flyers about the campaign in Bengali and Urdu and dozens of Zoran pins, they explained why they thought Mamdani was the best candidate and reminded neighbours about early voting times and locations.

So November 4th is the final vote.

As-salamu alaykum.

Their enthusiasm was infectious, often bursting into Bengali chants of My Mayor, Your Mayor.

Our Mayor, Your Mayor. Our Mayor, Your Mayor. Our Mayor, Our Mayor.

And for the most part, it seemed to work. I spoke to Fahad Ahmed, who runs Drumbeats, which stands for Desis, or South Asians, Rising Up and Moving. Their organization was among the very first to endorse Zoran's run for mayor last year.

Many people will say that, oh, well, it's a South Asian descended candidate, and so it must be an identity thing. But we've had several South Asian or Indo-Caribbean candidates, but none of them elicit this response. And I think the fact that the campaign spoke to the very material issues of working-class people as first and foremost,

has really made a very significant difference.

I also spoke to Jagpreet Singh, Drumbeat's political director, who's in charge of endorsing political candidates and getting the vote out.

When Zoran had come to us to begin with, he said his base, the base he was looking at, were three planks. Number one was the leftist progressives. His second plank was rent-stabilized tents. And the third was Muslim and South Asian communities, communities that have not been previously galvanized,

have not been previously galvanized, have not been previously activated, usually have some of the lowest voter turnout rates. So from the get-go, our communities were going to be a big part of its base.

Kazi Fauzia moved to New York City from Bangladesh in 2008. Now she's DRUM's organizing director. The tireless campaigning by women like her was crucial to Zoran's victory in the primaries. In some neighborhoods, voter turnout among South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities

doubled.

Just 24-7 they are thinking how to win. Some of them work in the cafeteria in the school. Some of them also work in the retail store. Some of them are home health workers, take care of the patients. One of my leaders, actually, in the studentship, they are not only just volunteers. They build, actually, movement.

After a long evening of canvassing, they're back at the office, only to get ready for more of the same, the next day and every day after, until the elections.

These all tired people come together and creating movement to show the world how political campaign supposed to look like. Six, seven million voters.

In June, we won the primary because of historic numbers of new voters that turned out. We changed the electorate.

Earlier this month, Zoran Mamdani addressed an excited crowd of supporters at a Bangladeshi restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Zoran Mamdani! crowd of supporters at a Bangladeshi restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens. What we did in the primary is we increased the turnout of Muslims by 60 percent, the turnout of South Asians by 40 percent. And when I stood in front of the world and gave a speech that night. I'm made sure to remember the Bangladeshi aunties that knocked on the doors across this city. And people have asked me what will it mean to have a Muslim mayor. What my grandmother Kulsum taught me, that to be a good Muslim is to be a good person. It is to help those in need and to harm no one. The truth of this campaign, it is a truth that believes in each one of the people in this room and their possibility.

It is the truth that looks at the youngest among us and sees that they could be anything in this city. Anything they want.

At the Jackson Heights Farmers Market that weekend, the high school students who met Mamdani at the restaurant were still thinking about his words.

If I could run for mayor, I think I would have a lot of great ideas. Just like Zoran, making New York City affordable. I want to be able to live here without any worry about paying rent. I know I'm just 17, but I want to be able to move out next year and experience living in the city, because I know even for my family, it's really hard to pay the rent.

So, yeah.

Mohini Mehbooba is one of the youth members of Drum Beats.

A talented artist, Mohini was giving people henna tattoos that spelled Zoran. We work so hard, phone banking, canvassing, and I love doing it and I'm gonna do some more today hopefully and it's just a really good feeling to do something that will be able to change for us as well.

At the Drumbeats office in Jackson Heights that will be able to change for us as well. Thank you so much.

At the Drumbeats office in Jackson Heights, there's a different group of people phone banking every afternoon. They're reaching out to communities in a variety of South Asian languages, with volunteers making calls in Nepali, Urdu and Bengali. A group of high school students are also making calls, in between joking around.

Hi, my name is Sami and I am a high school volunteer for Zoran Mamdani's campaign. Have you ever heard about Zoran Mamdani? Are you planning to vote for him on the election day, November 4th?

High school student Miftahun Mohona explains why she's passionate about campaigning for Zoran Mamdani.

Even though I'm not at the age to vote, not yet, I still care about people above 18, for them to vote for Zoran. Because the thing is, if they vote for the right person, that also benefits me. Because I live in a world where it's very corrupt. And every action that the people over 18 taking, like voting, their action means a lot to me as well, because I come from a working-class family. We don't have many benefits.

We don't have much resources.

Across working-class South Asian communities in the city, there's a deep belief that Zoran Mamdani will stand up for them if he becomes mayor. A big reason for that is his role in the taxi workers' protest against medallion debt back in 2021. When the drivers decided to go on a hunger strike, Assemblyman Mamdani joined them for the full 15 days. Qazi Fauzia remembers how moved the community was. I saw how long

he's doing the hunger strike and he almost dying that time. So I feel this call actually real solidarity, solidarity, not just come and talk and leave.

Solitarity also he put his body front line.

Drum or Desi's Rising Up and Moving was founded in Jackson Heights, Queens, in 2000 as a membership organization of low-wage South Asian and Indo-Caribbean workers and youth. For most of its history, their membership has faced the brunt of domestic repression and hate crimes that followed the September 11th attacks. Kazi Fauzia found herself the target of NYPD surveillance when she started organizing in immigrant Muslim communities.

I came to 2008, this country, and I used to work in a retail store in Jackson Heights. And I, at that time, I'm doing volunteering, organizing with the drum, and one day I found an informer behind me.

A few years later, as hate crimes against South Asian immigrants spiked again, many people suggested she stop wearing her hijab.

People asked me in 2013, you should take off your hijab because it's not safe anymore. We saw how much isolation and fear community have after 9-11.

Jagpreet Singh remembers his sick family members cutting their hair and beards and wearing American flag t-shirts to stay safe after 9-11.

This is a reality we lived with for a long time, that we had to hide ourselves, that we had to retreat back, that we had to hide ourselves, that we had to retreat back, that we had to fight for everything that we wanted. And we're in this reality now, where Sirhan Mamdani is about to become mayor of our city, a very outward Muslim man, South Asian, who is very much into his identity, who does not hide his identity.

From the shadows of post-911 repression and fear, the Mamdani campaign has given this community a new sense of political confidence and purpose.

So if you see now our member, our community member, our religious lead, our neighbors, all now talking, talking, talking for Zohran. If they go back to the 9-11 era and they try to talk about Islamophobic, xenophobic things, it's not going to sell. It's not going to sell.

It's over. People are not going to go back to the isolating zone anymore. If they try to implement this, they will push back.

If Zohran Mamdani wins the mayoral election, drumbeats like other progressive groups that backed Mamdani from the start could find themselves in a brand new role, collaborating with the administration to govern the city. It's been a long journey, from advocating for those on the margins to potentially having a seat at the table.

Here's Jagpreet Singh again. Talks about what the administration would look like are still a little premature, but the campaign and the administration has been very willing to work with organizations like ours at Trump Beats. It feels amazing to see that we now get to take up leadership, that we get to not only have a seat at the table, but run how our city runs.

It's not just going to happen by him being in office, no matter how charismatic he is.

Qazi Fazia says that if Mamdani wins the race, but is unable to keep his campaign promises down the road, their members will not hesitate to push his administration and hold their feet to the fire.

Zohran made impossible possible in his grassroots movement to in the mayoral campaign. So Zohran had to keep his promises and fulfill his commitment. And we will support all the time him. And also if he don't fulfill or keep his promises,

we'll hold him accountable.

In the event of a Mamdani victory, his administration will not face an easy path. People like Fahad Ahmed are already preparing for how to confront the many challenges and threats that may come, whether from the Trump administration or Wall Street and real estate

interests.

On our side, there will be real challenges of trying to run a city as a left when we don't have extensive experience of doing that. But how it is that we govern, tending to the actual material needs that come up in day-to-day administration of the city while having a vision that is transformative, that does believe that cities and society can be shaped differently and can function in ways that actually meet the needs of everyday working people.

But for now, the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities that have been pounding the pavement for Mamdani couldn't be more excited for a potential Zoran Mamdani victory and their new role in the spotlight.

We choose the future because for all those who say our time is coming, my friends, our

time is now. For Democracy Now!, this is Anjali Khamat, with Nicole Salazar. Thanks to Rehan Ansari.

And special thanks to democracynow.org, where you can download our news app, sign up for our newsletter, subscribe to the Daily Podcast and so much our news app, sign up for our newsletter, subscribe to the Daily Podcast and so much more.