by ZOHRAN MAMDANI
New York City socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani says New Yorkers “are ready for a new generation of leadership that puts working people first.”
There are over three thousand New Yorkers here this evening — and thousands more watching from home. New Yorkers who believe that living here shouldn’t be a daily grind of anxiety. New Yorkers who are ready to turn the page on years of corruption and incompetence. To reject the politics of distraction and fear, of big money and small vision, of cowardice and collaboration in the face of Trump’s authoritarianism. New Yorkers who are ready for a new generation of leadership that puts working people first.
My brothers and sisters, you are the beating heart of this campaign. You have climbed six floor walkups and braved the pouring rain to canvass our city, sharing our message with the very New Yorkers you’ve lived alongside for years but never had the chance to meet. And make no mistake, this campaign is reaching every corner of this city.
I see the work each of you do when New Yorkers wave excitedly from bus windows and shout “freeze the rent” from moving cars.
I see it when volunteers who have never participated in politics before dedicate their every Sunday night to spreading our message. I see it when thousands of New Yorkers post proud screenshots of their first ever ballots. And I feel it when the aunties and uncles who have long felt abandoned by a broken status quo pull me aside to tell me that finally, they’re excited to believe again.
We stand on the verge of a victory that will resonate across the country and the world. Make no mistake: this victory will be historic, not just because of who I am — a Muslim immigrant and proud democratic socialist — but for what we will do: make this city affordable for everyone.
I think of a woman I met on the BX33 in the Bronx, who said to me: “I used to love New York — but now it’s just where I live.” We’re going to make this city one that working people can love once again.
That’s who I’m thinking about tonight: the New Yorkers who make this city run. For after this rally, as many of us sleep, millions of our neighbors will step out onto moon-lit streets across our city.
Nurses working the night shift will put on their scrubs and save lives. City workers will clean subway stations and pick up our trash. Office buildings will be made new again, as the midnight shift scrubs and polishes in the dark.
Many of these New Yorkers are immigrants, who traveled to this city from faraway countries with nothing in their pockets except a dream of a better life. And even more of them will spend the entire night tirelessly working, and return home carrying the burden that it still isn’t enough. The sun rises, the bills continue to climb, and the stress never seems to fade.
If New York truly is the city that never sleeps, we deserve a mayor who fights for those of us who labor at every single hour of the day. I will be that mayor.
When we launched this campaign on a cold October evening, few thought we could win. Only a couple more could even pronounce my name. Andrew Cuomo still can’t.
The so-called experts said we’d be lucky to break 5 percent. But I always knew that we would build a campaign like this.
So when a disgraced former governor questions whether or not we can lead this city, I look at our campaign and I know the answer.
Over a million doors knocked. More than 40,000 volunteers. A movement that the pundits and politicians had written off, now on the precipice of toppling a political dynasty. And because of that, we will win a city that we can afford.
But what does winning look like?
It looks like a rent-stabilized retiree who wakes up on the first of every month, knowing the amount they’re going to pay hasn’t soared since the month before.
Together, New York, we’re going to freeze the rent.
It looks like a single mom who can drop her kids off at school and know she won’t be late to work, because her bus will arrive on time and cost nothing at all.
Jacobin for more