New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani challenges Donald Trump in victory speech as Democrats win key US election races – live | Zohran Mamdani
Mamdani: ‘In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light’
In a defiant speech, Mamdani vowed to change to city hall – and the country.
“In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light,” he said.
Acknowledging concerns about his age and experience, Mamdani expressed only confidence: “When we enter city hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them.”
“Our greatness will be anything but abstract,” he roared, concluding his remarks in Brooklyn. “It will be felt by every rent-stabilized tenant who wakes up on the first of every month knowing the amount they’re going to pay hasn’t soared since the month before. It will be felt by each grandparent who can afford to stay in the home they have worked for and whose grandchildren live nearby because the cost of childcare didn’t send them to Long Island.
“It will be felt by the single mother who is safe on her commute and whose bus runs fast enough that she doesn’t have to rush school drop off to make it to work on time. And it will be felt when New Yorkers open their newspapers in the morning and read headlines of success, not scandal. Most of all, it will be felt by each New Yorker when the city they love finally loves them back.”
Key events
Newsom, in his remarks, acknowledged that California’s retaliatory gerrymander was a significant victory in the fight for control of the House next year – but that it didn’t stop Trump and Republicans from drawing new, favorable maps in other states.
In response, Newsom issued a call to action for blue-state governors to join California in redrawing their congressional boundaries, to offset Republican gains in other states beyond Texas.
“We need the state of Virginia. We need the state of Maryland. We need our friends in New York and Illinois and Colorado,” he said. “We need to see other states, the remarkable leaders that have been doing remarkable things, meet this moment head on as well to recognize what we’re up against in 2026.”
“Let me make this crystal clear, we can de facto end Donald Trump’s presidency as we know it, the minute speaker Jeffries gets sworn in,” he added, referring to the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries. “It is all on the line.”
Speaking in Sacramento, California governor Gavin Newsom applauded his state for approving a new House map, part of a coast-to-coast sweep of victories for Democrats on Tuesday.
“What a night for the Democratic Party,” he said. “We are proud here in California to be part of this narrative this evening.”
He called Democrats a “party that is in its ascendancy, a party that’s on its toes, no longer on its heels, from coast to coast, sea to shining sea.”
The passage of proposition 50 was a major achievement for the term-limited governor, who has made no secret about his presidential ambitions. In his remarks, Newsom denounced Trump’s record, accusing him of “vandalism to this republic and our democracy”.
“Why else is he trying to rig the midterm elections before one single vote is even cast,” the governor said of Trump’s unprecednetd effort to persuade Republican states to gerrymander their congressional districts.
“We stood stood firm in response to Donald Trump’s recklessness,” Newsom said, “and tonight, after poking the bear, this bear roared, with unprecedented turnout in a special election with an extraordinary result.”
Data analysis: Sliwa didn’t spoil Cuomo’s night – Mamdani dominated the vote
With more than 97% of the vote in, Zohran Mamdani’s victory is decisive. He received 1,030,000 votes, more than all the other candidates combined.
People will argue for weeks and maybe years to come about whether Republican Curtis Sliwa dropping out would have helped Andrew Cuomo win. But the votes show that is a moot argument, with all the other candidates – including Sliwa, Cuomo, Adams – and all other write-in candidates, receiving only 1,014,000 votes.
Government shutdown becomes longest in US history
While the election results continue to roll in, the country has marked another milestone: day 36 of the government shutdown, the longest in US history.
The shutdown beat the previous 35-day record set in December 2018 and January 2019 during Donald Trump’s first term, when government funding legislation was held up over his insistence on including money to build a wall along the border with Mexico, Chris Stein reports.
The standoff began on the first day of October, after Democratic senators refused to vote for a government funding bill unless it included an extension of Joe Biden-era tax credits that lower costs for health plans purchased through Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges. Tens of millions of Americans are expected to be unable to afford insurance once the credits expire at the end of 2025.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives had in September passed the funding bill with only a single Democrat voting in favor, and speaker Mike Johnson has kept the chamber out of session ever since. That has shifted much of the legislative action to the Senate, where John Thune, the majority leader, has held 14 votes on the legislation – all of which failed due to insufficient Democratic support.
The nonpartisan congressional budget office predicts the shutdown will cost the economy as much as $14bn in GDP, depending on how much longer it continues.
Mamdani did not trade in subtleties in his remarks on Tuesday night. But a fleeting reference to a “Great New Yorker” certainly wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by his opponent – that great New Yorker’s son.
“A great New Yorker once said that, while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose,” Mamdani said, repeating the oft-quoted dictum from the late New York governor Mario Cuomo – a political truism that means the sweeping visions delivered on the campaign trail do not always translate into the unglamorous work of governing.
Mamdani offered his own twist, perhaps an acknowledgement of the many policy battles that lie ahead: “If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme and let us build a shining city for all.”
Trump appears to respond to Mamdani speech: ‘AND SO IT BEGINS!’
“…AND SO IT BEGINS!” Trump wrote in a cryptic message on TruthSocial.
The timing appears to have coincided with the moment Mamdani directly addressed Trump in his victory night speech. The mayor-elect was unsparring in his denunciation of Trump, who has threatened to pull funds from the city if “communist” Mamdani won. In an 11th-hour bid to keep Mamdani out of city hall, Trump endorsed Cuomo, a former Democratic governor and one-time adversary of the president.
“Hear me, President Trump, when I say this,” Mamdani told the president. “To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.”
From the scene: Mamdani’s victory speech
Anna Betts
Before Mamdani began his victory speech, the crowd at the Brooklyn Paramount was deafening. When he walked on stage, chants of “Zohran, Zohran!” echoed.
At the podium, Mamdani thanked his supporters and volunteers, pledging to fight for all New Yorkers and to make the city more affordable for everyone.
“Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it” he said. “The future is in our hands.”
Hope – one of the central themes of Mamdani’s campaign – filled the room.
The crowd of hundreds erupted in applause and cheers. The room was electric, and filled with energy as people hugged one another, raised fists in the air, and filmed the speech on their phones.
As Mamdani listed out his pledges, including providing universal child care, fast and free buses, freezing rent increases for those in rent stabilised units, and more, the crowd responded with thunderous applause.
Supporters wore campaign merchandise, including yellow baseball caps, T shirts, and beanies. Among them was city comptroller Brad Lander, wearing a campaign T-shirt that reads “Good Fucking Riddance.” Lander cheered and clapped loudly during Mamdani’s speech.”
“Tonight we have spoken in a clear voice, hope is alive” Mamdani said.
Mamdani: ‘In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light’
In a defiant speech, Mamdani vowed to change to city hall – and the country.
“In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light,” he said.
Acknowledging concerns about his age and experience, Mamdani expressed only confidence: “When we enter city hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them.”
“Our greatness will be anything but abstract,” he roared, concluding his remarks in Brooklyn. “It will be felt by every rent-stabilized tenant who wakes up on the first of every month knowing the amount they’re going to pay hasn’t soared since the month before. It will be felt by each grandparent who can afford to stay in the home they have worked for and whose grandchildren live nearby because the cost of childcare didn’t send them to Long Island.
“It will be felt by the single mother who is safe on her commute and whose bus runs fast enough that she doesn’t have to rush school drop off to make it to work on time. And it will be felt when New Yorkers open their newspapers in the morning and read headlines of success, not scandal. Most of all, it will be felt by each New Yorker when the city they love finally loves them back.”
Zohran Mamdani is delivering a tour de force, pulling from the American socialist Eugene Debs and the former governor Mario Cuomo, the father of Andrew Cuomo, who defeated twice to become New York City’s mayor elect. He declared a “new age” and implored Democrats to break from the conventions of the past.
“No longer will we have to open a history book for proof that Democrats can dare to be great,” he said.
Of his own meteoric rise, he said that following conventional political wisdom would have discouraged him from ever running in the first place.
“The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate,” he said. “I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a Democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.”
Mamdani directly addresses Trump as speech condemns ‘oligarchy and authoritarianism’
Mamdani presented his “brave new course” for the nation’s largest city as a map for how to defeat the forces of “oligarchy and authoritarianism” pulsing through the country.
“After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” he said, offering a message to the president: “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”
Mamdani vowed to make New York a place that welcomes and celebrates its diversity.
“Here we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall, your struggle is ours too,” he said.
He then added: “We will build a city hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism, where the more than 1 million Muslims know that they belong, not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power.
“No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election.”
Speaking in Brooklyn, Mamdani declared a “new age” of political change.
“From now, may our only regret be that this day took so long to come,” he said.
He promised a “bold vision” of “what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt”. He swept through his agenda, promising to tackle the cost of living by freezing the rent, making buses “fast and free” and delivering universal childcare across the city.
“We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible,” Mamdani said, “and we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do.”
Mamdani recounted the many voters who he met along the campaign and throughout his political life: the organizer who can’t afford to live in New York, the woman he met on a city bus who told him “I used to love New York, but now it’s just where I live” and the taxi driver whom he joined in a hunger strike outside city hall.
He dedicated his victory to making the city more affordable for them.
“Thanks to all of those who sacrifice so much, we are breathing in the air of a city that has been reborn,” he said.
He thanked the more than 100,000 people who volunteered for his campaign. “You eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics,” he said.
Mamdani tells New Yorkers ‘the future is in our hands’, wishing Cuomo ‘the best in private life’
In his victory speech, Mamdani declared: “The future is in our hands.”
“For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands, fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handle bars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns. These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power,” Mamdani said. “And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it.
Mamdani celebrated his victory over Andrew Cuomo, the three-term former governor and son of a governor.
“We have toppled a political dynasty,” Mamdani said. “I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life. But let tonight be the final time I utter his name as we turn the page.”
