Democrat New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is building support with Asian immigrants across the city, especially those living in immigrant enclaves, a report detailed Wednesday.
Mamdani, a self-proclaimed socialist who is the front-runner in the mayoral race, has built much of his lead against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and Republican Curtis Sliwa with foreign-born voters who are more likely to vote for left-wing candidates.
Jacobin, the far-left magazine, reported that Mamdani is enhancing his campaign’s support by reaching Asian immigrants in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods:
But New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, an avowed democratic socialist, has challenged strategists’ assumptions about Asian American immigrants’ political reflexes. In the June Democratic primary, Mamdani, running on a platform that framed left-leaning policies as a promise of liberation from economic hardship and the calculations of moneyed interests, triumphed in Asian American precincts that largely cast their ballots for centrist incumbent Eric Adams four years ago. [Emphasis added]
…
Mamdani performed well in the primary across New York’s ethnic enclaves, where first- and second-generation immigrants are likelier than their more integrated counterparts to congregate and find support from neighbors who speak their common language, streets that smell of familiar ingredients, and community-specific services that can lower the cost of living. His message found traction in places like Pelham Parkway, a heavily Vietnamese American neighborhood in the Bronx, where the median household income barely scratches $60,000— about 75 percent of the city’s median household income. [Emphasis added]
Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo won the Bronx convincingly, but Mamdani pulled ahead of his rival in Pelham Parkway by ten points, even though Vietnamese American voters have long stood out as the most conservative group among Asian Americans (in a 2023 Pew survey, 51 percent of them identified with the Republican Party). Mamdani posted better numbers in other Asian neighborhoods, winning the primary by twenty-eight points in Manhattan’s Chinatown and sixteen points in New York’s Asian-majority 49th state assembly district, where Republican state assemblymember Lester Chang ran for reelection unopposed in 2024. [Emphasis added]
A recent survey from Patriot Polling showed the extent to which mass immigration has been a boon to Mamdani’s campaign for mayor.
Among New York City voters born outside the United States, Mamdani leads with a whopping 62 percent compared to Cuomo’s 24 percent and Sliwa’s 12 percent. Meanwhile, among native-born Americans in New York City, Cuomo leads with 40 percent, while Mamdani falls to 31 percent and Sliwa gains with 25 percent.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
