New York City – For Zohran Mamdani, it starts and ends in Astoria, the Queens neighbourhood he has represented as a state assemblyman for five years, and where he made his first public address following a shock victory in the June Democratic primary for mayor.
On Monday, the 34-year-old made his final appearance before Tuesday’s election day, standing at a playground at dusk, with children laughing in the background.
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His message to his army of volunteers, which the campaign has said is made up of more than 100,000: “Leave everything out there on the field”.
“These are the hands that have brought us to this point of making history in this city”, he said, “making history to show that when you focus and fight for working people, you can, in fact, remake the politics of the place that you call home”.
While US President Donald Trump may have gained from deep disquiet over an affordability crisis in the country to win the 2024 presidential vote, Mamdani has argued that it is he and his mayoral campaign that can actually address those challenges in the biggest city of the United States.
Indeed, Trump loomed large on Monday as Mamdani stood before a cadre of cheering canvassers, some clad in the campaign’s ubiquitous yellow beanies, and an equally large horde of local, national and international media.
Just hours earlier, the US president had explicitly endorsed former Governor Andrew Cuomo, saying New Yorkers must choose the “bad democrat” over the “communist”, a false label he has repeatedly applied to democratic socialist Mamdani.
Soon after, billionaire Elon Musk also threw his support behind Cuomo, a Democrat who is running as an independent after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic Party’s primary.
The most recent polls showed Mamdani maintaining a commanding, if shrinking, lead over Cuomo. The late endorsements for the former governor, who has explicitly called on conservatives to jump ship from Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa and support him instead, could also further destabilise an already volatile race.
Still, Mamdani’s supporters on Monday said they hoped their candidate’s speech will be a coda on a campaign that has been widely considered as a rebuke to the entrenched, donor-dominated Democratic establishment that Cuomo is seen to represent.
“I feel amazing right now,” said Tasnuva Khan, who was among the canvassers on Monday, adding that the race had revealed both the power of Muslim voters and the city’s fast-growing Bangladeshi community.
Mamdani would be the first Muslim, first person of South Asian descent, and the first person born in Africa to lead the city, if he wins.
“But I’m trying to stay balanced. What wins elections are votes. As long as we kind of stay focused and reach out to our community members, keep canvassing, knocking on doors, then I think we can definitely deliver,” she told Al Jazeera.
But Shabnam Salehezadehi, a dentist from Long Island City, Queens, and a Mamdani supporter, said she feared the mayoral candidate’s real challenges would begin after the election.
Winning is just the bare minimum, she noted, but for Mamdani to enact many of his sweeping pledges – free buses, universal childcare, rent freezes for a large portion of city apartments, paid for by increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy – he must win buy-in from a coalition of both state and city lawmakers.
“I’m really anxious – not so much whether he’ll win or not,” said Salehezadehi, who added she was first drawn to Mamdani for his staunch support of Palestinian rights, a break from the traditional Democratic mainstream.
“I just really hope we have the mandate to show that Zohran Mamdani is the candidate the city vehemently voted for,” she said.
Election day looms
Cuomo also spent the final day of the race cutting across the city, visiting the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn.
In the Fordham neighbourhood of the Bronx, a community representative of some of the minority-dominated working-class areas Cuomo carried in the primary, the former governor stood on a park bench overlooking nearby street vendors.
He decried the “socialist city” New York would become if Mamdani were to win.
“Socialism did not work in Venezuela. Socialism did not work in Cuba. Socialism will not work in New York City,” he said, in what has become a mantra in the final days of the race.
At a subsequent stop in Washington Heights, Manhattan, he replied to a question about the nod from Trump, which comes as Cuomo has already faced scrutiny for sharing many of the same billionaire donors as the Republican president.
“He called me a bad Democrat. First of all, I happen to be a good Democrat and a proud Democrat, and I’m going to stay a proud Democrat. Mamdani is not a communist,” Cuomo said. “He’s a socialist. But we don’t need a socialist mayor either.”
But for Gwendolyn Paige, a 69-year-old special educator from the Bronx, the “socialist label” is not what’s deterring her from voting for Mamdani.
Instead, she pointed to the Cuomo legacy. Cuomo’s father, Mario Cuomo, had also served as governor of the state. The younger Cuomo left his post in 2021 amid sexual misconduct allegations.
“Cuomo is the only person who will stand up to the Trump administration,” Paige told Al Jazeera from the Fordham neighbourhood, even as she dismissed Trump’s endorsement.
“Listen, tomorrow, Trump will say something else,” she said. “So, I don’t put much stock in it”.
At least 735,000 voters have already cast their ballots in early voting, just a portion of the 4.7 million registered voters in the city.
Polls will be open from 6am to 9pm on Tuesday (11:00 GMT, Tuesday to 02:00 GMT, Wednesday), with a winner expected to emerge in the hours after. The victor will take office in January.
With just hours until election day, some votes are still up for grabs.
Lisa Gonzalez, a retired Army veteran, pointed to dire times for low-income residents of the US, including restrictions on food assistance benefits (SNAP) included in a bill passed by Trump and Republicans earlier this year.
Trump has further threatened to cut federal funding for New York City and deploy the National Guard if Mamdani is elected.
“I’m still deciding. The stakes feel really high,” she said. “So I’m just gonna be very careful tomorrow when I vote”.