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Socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has rocketed to frontrunner status in the race despite roughly half a dozen far-left positions that he has declined to walk back, which could prove problematic for the Democratic Party if he’s victorious.
Mamdani has faced heated criticism for his support of socialist policies, perhaps most famously his 2021 remarks to a Young Democratic Socialists of America conference, where he urged attendees not to compromise on goals like “seizing the means of production.”
“Right now, if we’re talking about the cancellation of student debt, if we’re talking about Medicare for all, you know, these are issues which have the groundswell of popular support across this country,” Mamdani said in a video to conference-goers. “But then there are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it’s BDS or whether it is the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.”
Mamdani spokesperson Andrew Epstein told Politifact, “There is nothing in his platform or in his record regarding seizing the means of production,” but Mamdani has not walked back his original statement, saying that is his “end goal.”
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Another controversial position Mamdani has taken came in the form of a campaign policy document that explicitly calls for shifting the city’s tax burden onto “richer and whiter neighborhoods.”
“Shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods,” the proposal reads. “The property tax system is unbalanced because assessment levels are artificially capped, so homeowners in expensive neighborhoods pay less than their fair share.”
Mamdani has not explicitly walked back on that policy item and has defended it in multiple interviews, including on “Meet the Press,” where he said, “That is just a description of what we see right now. It’s not driven by race. It’s more of an assessment of what neighborhoods are being under-taxed versus over-taxed.”
Mamdani has made it clear he is not a fan of capitalism, including in an interview with CNN in June.
“No, I have many critiques of capitalism,” he said in response to CNN’s Erin Burnett asking him if he likes it.
Mamdani has faced heated criticism from Jewish groups in New York City for a variety of past statements and positions dating back to his college days that are considered anti-Israel, several of which he is yet to walk back.
Mamdani drew the ire of Jewish groups for a video posted in December 2024 that mocked Jewish Hanukkah traditions.
“Our holidays and traditions are sacred and not for your comedic pleasure, Zohran Mamdani – this is sick,” Stop Antisemitism said in response to the video, which Mamdani has not apologized for or deleted as of this publication.
The self-proclaimed democratic socialist has refused multiple times to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and he has supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
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“My support for BDS is consistent with my core of my politics, which is non-violence,” Mamdani said when pressed on his BDS support earlier this year.
BDS is described as “an international campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel as the expression of the Jewish people’s right to national self-determination by isolating the country economically through consumer boycotts, business and government withdrawal of investment, and legal sanctions,” according to Influence Watch.
Mamdani has also refused to condemn the term “globalize the intifada” despite it widely being accepted as a term justifying violence against Jewish people.
“My concern is, to start to walk down the line of language and making clear what language I believe is permissible or impermissible, takes me into a place similar to that of the president, who is looking to do those very kinds of things, putting people in jail for writing an op-ed, putting them in jail for protesting,” Mamdani told NBC News earlier this year. “Ultimately, it is not language that I use. It is language, I understand there are concerns about, and what I will do is showcase my vision for the city through my words and my actions.”
Mamdani infuriated some in the Italian American community, a key voting bloc in New York City, by calling for a statue of Christopher Columbus to be torn down. In its place, Mamdani suggested a statue of Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarcho-communists executed in 1927, should be erected.
Mamdani has not walked back or apologized for that position.
One of the most highly-talked-about controversies from Mamdani’s campaign involved the revelation that he identified as “Black” and “Asian” on his college applications. Mamdani, born in Uganda to Indian parents, did not apologize for the move but said checking multiple boxes was an effort to reflect his “complex background,” not to gain an edge in the competitive admissions process.
Many, including a GOP lawmaker in New York City and a Democratic strategist who spoke to Fox News Digital, have speculated that a Mamdani victory in November would put the Democratic Party in a tough position given the variety of positions Mamdani has not walked back, along with his past support of safe injection sites, free buses, city run grocery stores, and defunding the police.
“His sudden rise isn’t just a crisis for Democrats — it’s a five-alarm warning for every New Yorker and every American who still believes in decency, democracy, and common sense, no matter their party,” New York GOP State Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz, who serves in the assembly with Mamdani, told Fox News Digital.
“If this is who the left chooses to elevate, it’s not just a sign they’ve lost their way — it’s proof they’ve abandoned the values that once held this nation together. This isn’t the future of the Democratic Party — it’s the unraveling of it.”
Former House Judiciary Chief Counsel Julian Epstein, a Democrat, told Fox News Digital he does not believe that Mandai will win the race for mayor, but if he does, “it could be the beginning of a Cold War within the Democratic Party.”
“There is just no way that moderate and centrist Democrats can abide by socialism, cultural Revolution, and ever bloated welfare state driving us into bankruptcy, and alignment with goals of mid east fascist terrorists,” Epstein said. “So if he wins, not only will it continue to sink the national brand of the party, it may portend the eventual break up of the party as we know it today.”
Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan, Anders Hagstrom and Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.
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