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It may come as no surprise that students at Bronx Science, Zohran Mamdani’s alma mater, are cheering on the 34-year-old mayoral frontrunner.
Students outside the specialized high school last week liked Mamdani’s youth, that he was raised by immigrant parents, and that he’s a person of color, saying those were good qualities for a mayor of New York City.
The Queens state assemblyman is gaining traction with students beyond Bronx Science too — even winning over some students at Archbishop Molloy High School, the esteemed Queens Catholic school former Gov. Andrew Cuomo graduated from 50 years ago.
“I love Mamdani,” said Katie Brophy, 17, standing outside Molloy last week. Katie supports Mamdani’s city-run grocery store proposal to support low-income residents.
Students told Chalkbeat they learned about some of Mamdani’s proposals — like free city buses and increasing the minimum wage — through watching him on TikTok visiting bodegas and different parts of the city. They connected with his straightforward messages about making the city more affordable. In his first pitch on the campaign trail, the video has quick scene cuts, a warm tone filter that softens the city, with Mamdani speaking against a rhythmic beat.
Mamdani’s celebrity status online has grown to include more than a million TikTok followers, while Cuomo has just 14,000 followers. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa has nearly 200,000 followers, but some students still struggled to identify him by name.
Voting patterns highlight a generational divide in the race. During the Democratic primary, Cuomo led with voters above age 50, but Mamdani won, with twice as many votes from those under 50 as his opponents, according to an Emerson College poll.
More than 90,000 young voters ages 25 to 34 led in early voting registration in the primaries. Meanwhile, during the first weekend of early voting in the general election, voters over 55 made up just over half of overall voters, Gothamist reported.
City residents ages 18 or above can vote in the upcoming mayoral election on Nov. 4. Early voting started Saturday and runs through Nov. 2.
Mamdani moved here from Uganda at the age of 7 with his parents, Mira Nair, a filmmaker, and Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University. He graduated from Bronx Science in 2010. Cuomo, who is the son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, was born in Queens and graduated from Molloy — where his picture hangs in the school’s Hall of Fame — in 1975, when it was an all-boys school. Brooklyn-born Guardian Angels founder Sliwa attended an all-boys Jesuit high school called Brooklyn Preparatory School before being expelled in 1972 and then failing to graduate at Canarsie High School. Both schools Sliwa attended do not exist anymore. (Canarsie High School was replaced by multiple schools at what’s now called the Canarsie Education Complex.)
New York City’s former schools Chancellor David Banks called Mamdani the candidate of the “new, young generation.”
“The fact that he got so many young people engaged in this process. I find that very, very exciting,” Banks told Chalkbeat. “He just built an army of young people who hit the streets. I haven’t seen that kind of energy in a long, long time.”
Dev Brar, a senior from Bronx Science, said he’s voting for Mamdani because of his promise to increase the minimum wage to $30 dollars an hour by 2030. He also doesn’t come across Cuomo’s advertisements.
“Cuomo’s campaigns are on TV, and I don’t really watch that,” Dev said of the former governor.
Mamdani’s appeal among young people isn’t universal, however. There were some rabid opponents to the frontrunner at Cuomo’s old stomping grounds. A student in Molloy’s navy polo uniform driving a white sedan, rolled the windows down on a recent Friday after school and yelled, “F— Mamdani!”
From fighting Trump to free bus-skepticism, students share their views
Senior Jillian Kahn from Molloy, said all the candidates “have significant drawbacks.” She supported Sliwa’s commitment to reforming animal shelters and affordable housing.
“But sometimes when he speaks, he sounds like he’s in a dreamworld,” she said.
She was skeptical of Mamdani’s proposal to make buses free, adding that this was the state government’s responsibility instead. If Jillian had to choose, she’d pick Cuomo.
But many students in the Bronx and Queens were troubled by sexual harassment allegations against Cuomo and death rates at nursing homes during the pandemic while he was governor. Cuomo denied the harassment claims and called the federal nursing home investigation politically motivated.
“He loves his rich billionaire friends,” Katie said, referring to his deep-pocketed campaign donors. She also cited the harassment allegations as a reason to steer clear of supporting him.
Another point in Mamdani’s favor, several students said, was how the frontrunner said he would stand up to the Trump administration.
Out of the three candidates, Mamdani is the most vocal about fighting President Donald Trump, said Bronx Science student Madiha Bukhari. The 17-year-old was particularly mad about the Trump administration cutting $400 million from Columbia University in March. (The university paid a $200 million fine to partially recover funding cuts.)
Going to the same high school as the mayoral frontrunner was a point of pride for Madiha, who like Mamdani, also lost a race for the school’s vice presidency.
“We have that in common,” said Madiha. As someone who is Muslim and part Indian, she said she “feels a cultural connection” with him too.
Senior Tory George from DeWitt Clinton High School, located near Bronx Science, felt she could relate to his identity too.
“He’s brown, he’s young, he’s actually a New Yorker,” she said about Mamdani. Free buses and rent freezes also appealed to her.
Beyond city reform, students want to see the next mayor tackle a variety of issues to support the nation’s largest public school system, including increasing funding for schools and serving “better food” at the cafeterias.
None of the mayoral candidates have made education a focal point this election, despite the Department of Education being the largest city agency.
Sixteen-year-old Sadar Shan wants Mamdani to invest in mental health facilities at schools. At Bronx Science, where Sadar currently attends, there are 12 counselors for roughly 3,000 students.
“That’s just not enough attention needed per student,” Sadar said.
Like Madiha and several other students Chalkbeat spoke to, stopping Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from violently arresting city residents — and fighting Trump’s policies — was on Sadar’s priority list.
“[Mamdani] can stop Trump from taking over the city,” he said.
Ananya Chetia is a reporting intern for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Ananya at achetia@chalkbeat.org.
