The 2025 New York City general election results confirm that working-class, working-poor, and poor voters in Black neighborhoods provided the most significant support for Mayor-elect Zorhan Mamdani, compared to other emerging ethnic groups.
Indeed, in precincts where Black citizens and denizens make up a majority of the population, Mamdani outperformed Cuomo by 26 points. This constituency provided substantial support for the young Mayor-elect’s governing goals in comparison to other emerging ethnic groups. Over 64% of African diasporic voters supported Zorhan Mamdani, while Hispanics accounted for 58% of his vote, and Asians another 49.1%. Moreover, 80% of Black voters under 40 united in a transformative, multi-ethnic, working-class electoral coalition to energize Mamdani’s historic quest to become the 111th Mayor of New York City.
This historic achievement came despite Bill Ackman and other Trump-supporting economic royalists pouring over $50 million into racist and xenophobic ads designed to distract Black voters from their real threat: the economic inequality driving New York’s affordability crisis.
Yet, our history teaches that casting a vote for a preferred candidate is only a beginning.
Democracy is not self-executing. To preserve and advance a system of self-governance that delivers justice for our communities, people of African heritage must embrace a daily practice of self-agency and communal responsibility. Election Day must mark the start of a larger commitment to civic education, policy monitoring, expanded voter registration, and community empowerment.
Accordingly, the Coalition for a Democratic and Just New York looks forward to uniting with Our Times Press and a broad coalition of civic and community-centered organizations to encourage people of African Heritage and our progressive allies to become critical and active citizens as an ascendant Mamdani administration and a new City Council take office on January 1, 2026.
To this end, we propose that our community unite with others affected by economic inequality and the unaffordable crisis by taking the following steps to ensure democratic accountability and equitable representation in city government.
- Urge Mayor-elect Mamdani to organize a series of public forums and inclusive, community-centered dialogues so that the mayoral transition team can incorporate diverse representation in city governance, including people of African heritage who have been harmed by the economic inequality driving the affordability crisis.
- Participate in a transparent public forum to evaluate whether the candidates for Speaker of the New York City Council possess the requisite vision and organic understanding of people of African heritage needed to enact local laws and policies that will benefit our community and other marginalized populations.
- Empower the next generation of Black policy makers and administrators. Building on the historic support that Zorhan Mamdani secured from young voters, urge the new administration to create pathways for young Black policy makers to shape the city’s future.
Over the next 55 days, Our Times Press will post a series of articles authored by the Coalition for a Democratic and Just New York that will define a proposed public policy framework intended to address the challenges harming our community. Moreover, we hope these proposals will inspire a critical and active practice of democratic self-governance and community empowerment needed to enact the progressive system change in the city government that our constituents deserve. In keeping with the expressed concerns of our community, the articles will feature policies intended to address the economic inequality driving the affordability crisis by reforming the following public services:
Affordable Housing
Universal Childcare
Public Safety
Secondary and Higher Education
AI Regulation
Food Security
A City Government that includes representation from people of African heritage.
As we begin this journey, we may remember and internalize the wisdom of the late Human Rights and Labor Leader A. Phillip Randolph.
“A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.”
Let us unite with our working-class, working-poor, and poor neighbors in a sustained campaign of critical and active citizenship that will transform the New York City governance for the benefit of all.
