MUSIC (00:06):
On stage, rockin', I'm stir-crazy.
(00:07)
Cocoa flow like 1980s.
(00:10)
Come, let's tell a drop lazy.
(00:12)
None of that maybe energy.
(00:16)
Energy.
(00:16)
Energy.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Good evening, New York. Thank you so much for joining us this evening and for making this event possible. Before I begin, let's give a big thank you to the venue's staff who have made this night such a celebration.
(00:41)
Now, Zohran is about to join us on stage, but before he does, I want to say a few quick words of reflection and thanks, and introduce a very special member of our team. So first, let's hear a round of applause for our day one endorsers, those who helped build this movement into what it's become. New York City DSA.
Audience (01:03):
DSA. DSA. DSA. DSA. DSA. DSA. DSA.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
CAAAV Voice, DRUM Beats!, New York Communities for Change, and Jewish Voice for Peace Action. And please give it up for our friends at the New York Working Families Party who have been such a leader in our long fight for an affordable, livable city.
(01:45)
Now, do we have Labor in the house? Throughout this campaign, we have stood shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters in organized labor at 1:00 A.M. in Queens, at 4:00 P.M. in Manhattan, at 6:00 A.M. in Brooklyn, at every time of day and night in every corner of the city. And we are so grateful for your partnership. And we are so proud to be backed by dozens of elected leaders from the local to the state, to the federal level. And we know that the relationships that we have built will only deepen from City Hall as we work together to transform New York into a city where every person can live a dignified life. I also want to thank our incredible campaign staff. You have sacrificed your social lives and your sleep schedules, and you have given so much to this movement. And then when Cuomo decided to get back into the race, you dug deep and gave more. I have been so honored to work with you, learn from you, and support you as you have faced unprecedented scrutiny and at times, ugliness and threats, from our opponents. You have built a historic campaign. So, please give them all a round of applause. And please join me in celebrating the person who has been Zohran's right hand from day one, whose deep commitment to our movement and care for our people has infused every part of this campaign from top to bottom and without whom we would not be here tonight, Elle Bisgaard Church.
(03:41)
Now, we have all been inspired by Zohran as a candidate, but I also want to speak to his strength as a person. He has led our team and this movement with grace, curiosity, good humor and thoughtfulness. And this race has been difficult, he has been the subject of attacks and threats, but he has truly risen above it all to give us hope. So, please join me in giving Zohran, our friend, a round of applause.
(04:19)
And there are too many supporters to name, so I want to speak to everyone directly. Please raise your hand if you have given to this campaign, whether that is time, labor, knocking a door, hosting an event, creating art. This is beautiful. And if you are one of the tens of thousands of people who contributed but cannot be with us tonight, this is for you as well. You have made history. You set unreachable goals and then exceeded them. You believed in this city and believed in each other, and you achieved something that people will speak of for decades to come. You led with kindness and compassion and most importantly, during a time of despair and rising fascism, you decided to fight for someone that you don't know. So, thank you.
(05:19)
Friends, the scope of this campaign was truly unprecedented. We had hundreds of thousands of conversations with our neighbors and trained leaders who will help us deliver our agenda for the next four years. But this record-breaking program did not come out of nowhere. It was the product of years of organizing and leadership development by New York City DSA and so many of our movement partners.
Audience (05:44):
DSA. DSA. DSA. DSA. DSA.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
And we were so fortunate to be led on this campaign by someone who has been a part of this work from the beginning. She led Julia Salazar's groundbreaking campaign in 2018 and since then has been behind the scenes in so many of our victories.
(06:07)
If this campaign made you feel powerful, or taught you something, or showed you discipline, or brought you joy, you have this person to thank. She is caring, wise, and deeply committed to our movement, and I'm sure she is backstage losing her mind at being called out like this. But I need everyone here to please join me in giving her the longest and loudest round of applause, our organizing director, Tascha.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Thank you. This is very exciting. Thank you, everyone. I'm Tascha and I've had the honor of being the field director on this campaign. I first crossed paths with Zohran in 2017 on a City Council campaign for Khader El-Yateem in Bay Ridge. Zohran was a paid canvas manager, and I was volunteering on the campaign as a member of New York City Democratic Socialists of America.
(07:53)
I don't think that we could ever have imagined that eight years later we would be here on election night for a mayoral campaign 104,000 volunteers strong. 104,000 volunteers. We love numbers, we love metrics, but I want to talk first about what's behind those numbers. Every number is, in a way, an act of bravery. Door knocking is not the easiest thing. For many, including myself, it takes a moment of bravery at the beginning, asking a stranger something about their lives and sharing something about yours. Sharing what you want to see in the world. It can be daunting. Thousands, thousands of people did it. And every time every volunteer went to a door and talked to a stranger, they offered their vision to that stranger and invited that stranger to be a part of shaping their vision.
Audience (09:06):
We love strangers.
(09:08)
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
We love strangers. Every door knock and every phone call is a statement of belief that politics is for all of us. This campaign and this city is all of ours to shape. I also want to say something about field leads. For those who don't know, all of our canvases have been led by volunteers, we call field leads. Many of them are here. Most led a shift every week, and some led a shift every week since December. And every time they led a canvas and they were the ones welcoming new volunteers into our movement. They were the ones who helped inspire folks coming out to canvas for the first time.
(10:17)
Without those 700 people who chose to step into leadership in an uncertain moment and try something new and scary, this field operation at this scale would not have happened. Those 700 people prove that leadership isn't about having all of the answers, it's about the willingness to step into the unknown and inspire others to imagine something better.
(10:52)
So here are the numbers. Over 104,000 volunteers made over 4.4 million calls. At around noon today, a volunteer knocked our three-millionth door. Over 700 field leads have led over 5,700 canvases in 243 neighborhoods. 6,568 voters signed up to volunteer on the spot when they were canvassed by somebody. 8,389 voters signed up to volunteer when they were asked by a phone banker. These are unprecedented numbers. The bravery that you all have shown, that this field operation carried across all five boroughs, is going
Speaker 2 (12:00):
To transform our city. What all 100,400 of us have accomplished has rewritten the possibilities of mass democratic action and it doesn't stop tonight. We all know that we won't stop at electing Zohran. We will continue to fight to bring the affordable of New York City to life. I am so excited to do that with all of you. And now, I'm so honored to introduce the person you've been waiting to hear. We've worked for many years to bring about change in New York City that it so urgently needs. He's been a friend and he is the next mayor of the greatest city of New York, Zohran Mamdani.
Zohran Mamdani (13:56):
Thank you my friends. The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said, I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity. For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands. Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms callus from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns. These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power, and yet over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands. My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty. I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life, but let tonight be the final time I utter his name as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few. New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change, a mandate for a new kind of politics, a mandate for a city we can afford. And the mandate for a government that delivers exactly that. On January 1st, I will be sworn in as the mayor of New York City. And that is because of you. So, before I say anything else, I must say this. Thank you. Thank you to the next generation of New Yorkers who refused to accept that the promise of a better future was a relic of the past. You showed that when politics speaks to you without condescension, we can usher in a new era of leadership.
(17:18)
We will fight for you because we are you or as we say on Steinway, ana minkum wa alaikum. Thank you to those so often forgotten by the politics of our city who made this movement their own. I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Yes, aunties. To every New Yorker in Kensington and Midwood and Hunts Point, know this. This city is your city and this democracy is yours too. This campaign is about people like Wesley, an 1199 organizer I met outside of Elmhurst Hospital on Thursday night. A New Yorker who lives elsewhere, who commutes two hours each way from Pennsylvania because rent is too expensive in this city.
(18:48)
It's about people like the woman I met on the BX 33 years ago who said to me, "I used to love New York, but now it's just where I live." And it's about people like Richard, the taxi driver. I went on a 15-day hunger strike with outside of City Hall, who still has to drive his cab seven days a week. My brother, we are in City Hall now. This victory is for all of them and it's for all of you. The more than 100,000 volunteers who built this campaign into an unstoppable force. Because of you, we will make this city one that working people can love and live in again. With every door knocked, every petition signature earned and every hard-earned conversation, you eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics.
(20:09)
Now, I know that I have asked for much from you over this last year. Time and again, you have answered my calls, but I have one final request. New York City, breathe this moment in. We have held our breath for longer than we know. We have held it in anticipation of defeat, held it because the air has been knocked out of our lungs too many times to count, held it because we cannot afford to exhale thanks to all of those who sacrificed so much. We are breathing in the air of a that has been reborn. To my campaign team who believed when no one else did and who took an electoral project and turned it into so much more, I will never be able to express the depth of my gratitude. You can sleep now. To my parents, mama and baba. You have made me into the man I am today.
(21:38)
I'm so proud to be your son and to my incredible wife, Rama, hayati. There is no one I would rather have by my side in this moment and in every moment. To every New Yorker, whether you voted for me, for one of my opponents or felt too disappointed by politics to vote at all, thank you for the opportunity to prove myself worthy of your trust. I will wake each morning with a singular purpose to make this city better for you than it was the day before. There are many who thought this day would never come, who feared that we would be condemned only to a future of less with every election consigning us simply to more of the same. And there are others who see politics today as too cruel for the flame of hope to still burn. New York, we have answered those fears.
(22:55)
Tonight, we have spoken in a clear voice. Hope is alive. Hope is a decision that tens of thousands of New Yorkers made day after day, volunteer shift after volunteer shift despite attack ad after attack ad. More than a million of us stood in our churches, in gymnasiums, in community centers as we filled in the ledger of democracy. And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together, hope over tyranny, hope over big money and small ideas, hope over despair. We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible and we won, because we insisted that no longer would
Zohran Mamdani (24:00):
… politics be something that is done to us, now it is something that we do. Standing before you I think of the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, "A moment comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance." Tonight we have stepped out from the old into the new, so let us speak now with clarity and conviction that cannot be misunderstood about what this new age will deliver and for whom. This will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt. Central to that vision will be the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost of living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorello La Guardia. An agenda that will freeze the rents for more than two million rent stabilized tenants, make buses fast and free and deliver universal child care across our city.
(25:41)
Years from now may our only regret be that this day took so long to come. This new age will be one of relentless improvement. We will hire thousands more teachers. We will cut waste from a bloated bureaucracy. We'll work tirelessly to make lights shine again in the hallways of NYCHA developments where they have long flickered. Safety and justice will go hand in hand as we work with police officers to reduce crime and create a department of community safety that tackles the mental health crisis and homelessness crises head on. Excellence will become the expectation across government, not the exception. In this new age we make for ourselves, we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another. In this moment of political darkness New York will be the light. Here we believe in standing up for those we love.
(27:09)
Whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many Black women, that Donald Trump is fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down or anyone else with their back against the wall, your struggle is ours too. And we will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of anti-Semitism, where the more than one million Muslims know that they belong not just in the five boroughs of this city, but in the halls of power. No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election. This new age will be defined by a competence and a compassion that have too long been placed at odds with one another. We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about. For years those in City Hall have only helped those who can help them but on January 1st, we will usher in a city government that helps everyone.
(28:58)
Now, I know that many have heard our message only through the prism of misinformation, tens of millions of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them. As has so often occurred, the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour, that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour. They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long broken system. We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game anymore. They can play by the same rules as the rest of us. Together we will usher in a generation of change, and if we embrace this brave new course rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how he stop Trump, it's how he stop the next one. Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you, turn the volume up. We'll hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants. We'll put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know just as Donald Trump does that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed. New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight led by an immigrant. Hear me President Trump when I say this, to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us. When we enter City Hall in 58 days expectations will be high. We will meet them.
(33:09)
A great New Yorker once said that while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme and let us build a shining city for all. And we must chart a new path as bold as the one we have already traveled. After all, the conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this. And yet, if tonight teaches us anything, it is that convention has held us back. We have bowed at the altar of caution and we have paid a mighty price. Too many working people cannot recognize themselves in our party and too many among us have turned to the right for answers to why they've been left behind. We will leave mediocrity in our pasts. No longer will we have to open a history book for proof that Democrats can dare to be great.
(34:46)
Our greatness will be anything but abstract. It will be felt by every rent-stabilized tenant who wakes up on the first of every month knowing the amount they're going to pay hasn't soared since the month before. It will be felt by each grandparent who can afford to stay in the home they have worked for and whose grandchildren live nearby because the cost of childcare didn't send them to Long Island. It will be felt by the single mother who is safe on her commute and whose bus runs fast enough that she doesn't have to rush school drop-off to make it to work on time. And it will be felt when New Yorkers open their newspapers in the morning and read headlines of success, not scandal. Most of all, it will be felt by each New Yorker when the city they love finally loves them back. Together, New
Zohran Mamdani (36:00):
New York, we're going to freeze the?
Audience (36:02):
Rent.
Zohran Mamdani (36:04):
Together, New York, we're going to make buses fast and?
Audience (36:09):
Free.
Zohran Mamdani (36:09):
Together, New York, we're going to deliver universal?
Audience (36:13):
Healthcare.
Zohran Mamdani (36:16):
Let the words we've spoken together, the dreams we've dreamt together, become the agenda we deliver together. New York, this power, it's yours. This city belongs to you. Thank you.
MUSIC (36:42):
[foreign language 00:37:05]