When he announced his candidacy for New York City mayor last year,
it's fair to say a lot of people had no clue who Zahran Mamdani was and didn't think he had a chance of winning.
But the 33-year-old Democratic socialist is now the Democratic nominee in New York City's mayor's race.
It sent a shockwave through our politics.
He's out down with him on Monday,
one-on-one for this special episode of Up First from NPR News.
Coming up,
Zahran Mamdani speaks about what the Democratic Party can learn from his campaign.
For far too long, we've thought of politics as removed from people.
He also talks about the barrage of bigotry he's been getting while running for office.
It's been very difficult to see just how much of this hatred has been normalized.
And I ask him how his faith informs his politics.
Thank you for coming in.
Thank you very much for having me.
It's a pleasure So I really want to start with how you did this I mean you were a person that most people didn't know your name.
They still can't pronounce your name spelled
like it sounds You did not have the establishment of the of your party behind you the paper of record in New York City the editorial Board of that paper actually asked voters not to rank you at all and yet you won how did you do that and Why did voters choose you?
You know, from the beginning,
we wanted to break out of the bubble of New York City politics and into the world of New York City itself.
This is a city that I moved to when I was seven years old.