August 11, 2025
The NYC mayoral candidate continues his push to rebuild with Black voters after losing that demographic in the June primary.
New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s recent visit to the Greater Allen A.M.E. Church in Southeast Queens highlights his push to strengthen ties with Black voters.
Mamdani won June’s Democratic primary, but failed to resonate with voters in low-income, Black communities. At the pulpit of the historic African Methodist Episcopal church, Mamdani delivered his message to a neighborhood that he hopes embraces him.
“I will govern with a simple goal: to make this city affordable and to make a good and dignified life possible for each and every New Yorker,” Mandani told the churchgoers, according to the New York Times. “And what I ask of you is to hold me accountable in that promise.”
While Mamdani, 33, a state assemblyman, beat out former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, preliminary results suggest that the Indian American struggled in lower-income neighborhoods with high Black populations compared to Cuomo.
In the city’s predominantly Black precincts, where over 80% of residents are Black, Mamdani received less than 30% of the vote. Across majority-Black precincts more broadly, his support reached only 42%.
Conversely, in gentrified parts of the city where the Black population declined most sharply between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, Mamdani secured more than two-thirds of the vote. These rapidly changing neighborhoods include central Harlem in Manhattan, where he visited with Rev. Al Sharpton shortly after his primary win, and Fort Greene and Crown Heights in Brooklyn.
One point of tension between Mamdani and some Black voters is his proposal to freeze rents in rent-stabilized apartments. When he mentioned the policy during his visit to Greater Allen A.M.E., it drew audible whispers and groans from parishioners, many of whom are homeowners.
At a recent meeting with Black business leaders, concerns were raised that such a freeze could hinder Black homeowners and developers from building generational wealth. For many landlords and developers, the fear is that Mamdani’s approach could further limit income from property ownership.
“They have a right to have a healthy skepticism,” Jumaane Williams, a public advocate and ally of Mamdani, said of Black voters. “If you hear somebody talking about ‘they’re trying to take your house’ and the little bit of that thing that you’ve earned from working hard and having your grandmother work hard, then you have a right to be scared about that.”
A growing wave of Black Democratic leaders, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, is rallying behind Mamdani, determined to ensure their communities are well-served if he becomes the city’s next mayor. Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, who previously backed Cuomo, endorsed Mamdani after his primary victory and accompanied him on a tour of Brooklyn’s Little Haiti.
“Once Black voters really get to know who he is, I don’t think it will take much for them to support him,” said Hermelyn.
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