NEW YORK (AP) — New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani seemed at ease as he made his way from a high-rise apartment building to a street festival in the historic Black neighborhood of Harlem on a recent Sunday.
His reason for being there was clear: While he won the Democratic primary in June and secured the party's nomination for the November general election, Mamdani underperformed in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Now he's trying to better connect with their skeptical older generation.
Black New Yorkers make up about 22% of the city’s 8.8 million people and stand as one of its most influential voting groups.
Mamdani and his supporters hope to harness the energy that connects him with young progressives to grow his trust among older Black New Yorkers. A major hurdle for the 33-year-old Queens assemblymember is the fact that his two leading opponents — former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams — have spent long political careers making allies in Black neighborhoods and churches, as well as cultivating mentors in the community.
Mamdani is banking on his No. 1 issue — making the city more affordable — to connect across demographics. And it may work. According to AP VoteCast, about 6 in 10 Black voters in New York in the 2024 election said they were “very concerned” about their personal housing costs.
“What I’ve heard from Black voters across the five boroughs is that the affordability crisis is one that is pushing them out of this city,” Mamdani told The Associated Press. “I’ve spoken to the older generation of Black voters about how affordability is something that has to be applied across the board. It’s not just a struggle for tenants, it’s also a struggle of homeowners.”
Jerrell Gray, a 26-year-old born to parents who immigrated from the Caribbean, has a master’s degree from New York University and works as an assistant director of a public health nonprofit. But he still lives with his mother in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood because rents are too high for him to afford his own place.
“A lot of my friends who are so talented, the people that I grew up with, end up leaving New York City because they can’t afford it, or they feel like the city doesn’t have anything for them,” said Gray, a Mamdani supporter.
Even as Mamdani has attracted younger Black progressives, his opponents have a slight advantage with their parents and grandparents.
“I was asking a pastor — who had endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the primary many months ago — ‘why?’” Mamdani recalled. “And he told me, ‘I endorsed Mario’s son. It was because Mario was good to me,’” Mamdani said, referencing Cuomo’s father, Mario Cuomo, who himself served three terms in the state's top office.
An AP analysis shows exactly how short Mamdani came up with Black voters in the primary. He won only eight out of the city's 33 majority-Black neighborhoods in June, while Cuomo came out on top in 25 of them. By comparison, Adams won all 33 majority-Black neighborhoods four years ago.
Some older Black voters say their support for Cuomo stems from his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he projected a sense of control amid widespread uncertainty and economic turmoil. They also recall the decades Andrew Cuomo spent speaking in Black churches and appearing at community events, dating back to when his dad was governor.
“Cuomo, I feel like, was somebody that was in office before and he got us during the pandemic, and that made me comfortable and safe,” said Brooklyn native Nerissa Robinson, 58, who is leaning toward voting for Cuomo despite the sexual harassment scandal that led him to resign the governor's office in 2021.
“Voters understand what Andrew Cuomo’s done for them,” said Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi. “And they understand that Andrew Cuomo’s going to fight for them.”
Adams, New York's second Black mayor, dropped out of the Democratic primary after he was indicted on bribery charges. He then outraged liberal voters by cultivating a warm relationship with President Donald Trump as his lawyers successfully lobbied the Justice Department to drop the bribery case. Now, like Cuomo, he's running as an independent in November.
Adams' spokesperson, Todd Shapiro, noted that the Democratic primary results don’t tell the full story. Any candidate could sway the mayoral race, he said.
In fact, polls do not capture all of New York’s unaffiliated registered voters, who make up 23.9% of the electorate.
“The people of this city know who fights for them every single day — and that’s why Eric Adams will rise in the polls and win,” Shapiro said.
Mamdani's choice of audience for his first public remarks after winning the primary shows the importance of Black voters to his campaign: He addressed the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network at a civil rights rally in Harlem.
More than two months later, the candidate has been endorsed by several prominent New York politicians. Some see his primary win as what Columbia University professor and political analyst Basil Smikle describes as “a desire for some kind of disruptive politics.”
Among those now backing Mamdani is Brooklyn Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who supported Adams in his first mayoral run and later fell into Andrew Cuomo's camp leading up to the 2025 Democratic primary.
“They all want the same thing, and it’s affordability,” Bichotte Hermelyn said of her constituents in the Flatbush, Midwood and Ditmas Park neighborhoods, many of whom share her Caribbean roots.
But Mamdani's message may not be enough to lure voters who are skeptical about his level of experience. The Democratic nominee has only served as a state assemblymember since 2021.
Political analyst Darius Jones said many older Black voters want leaders who don’t just speak emotionally about their issues, but who have a proven ability to turn that concern into real policy change.
“They’re old enough to have heard people come in and use the campaigns largely to virtue signal and to say things which appeal to the desires of vulnerable people,” said Jones, executive director of the National Black Empowerment Action Fund.
Mamdani said he remains confident that affordability is the winning issue for Black voters of all backgrounds.
“We saw the population of Black children and teenagers drop precipitously from 2010 to 2019, and that is a function of the inability of the city leadership to reckon with the most pressing crisis at hand, which is ensuring this is a city that everyone can afford,” he said.
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AP writers Maya Sweedler in Washington, D.C.; Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida; and Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, New York contributed. ___
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