Zohran Mamdani

He is the assembly member for the 36th district of the New York State Assembly, in Queens.

Zohran Kwame Mamdani (born October 18, 1991) is a Ugandan-born American Democratic Socialist politician.

Mamdani graduated from Bowdoin College in 2014.

Mamdani worked as a cricketer and prevention counselor before running for office.

Mamdani started to consider himself a democratic socialist following the 2016 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders.

After leading student organizing campaigns, Mamdani became formally involved in politics when he volunteered for the unsuccessful campaign of New York City Council primary candidate Khader El-Yateem, a Palestinian Lutheran Democratic Socialist minister running in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn in 2017, then he was the campaign manager for Ross Barkan's race for New York State Senate in 2018, and a field organizer for Democratic Socialist Tiffany Cabán's campaign for Queens District Attorney in 2019, before running for Assembly himself.

On January 29, 2021, Mamdani hosted a video for the progressive left wing Gravel Institute discussing the housing crisis in the United States.

In 2019, Mamdani announced his campaign for New York State Assembly in the 36th district, which encompasses Astoria and Long Island City in Queens.

During the campaign, Mamdani was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and ran on statewide rent control, fare-free transit, and single-payer healthcare in New York.

Mamdani's narrow victory over four-term incumbent Aravella Simotas took almost a month to call.

Mamdani was elected after defeating incumbent Democrat Aravella Simotas in the 2020 primary.

Mamdani is the son of Marxist academic Mahmood Mamdani, the director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), and filmmaker Mira Nair.

Born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, Mamdani moved to New York City when he was seven.

He is a Muslim.