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New Yorkers elected leftist Zohran Mamdani as their next mayor, while Democrats won two key state governor races sending an early warning signal to Republican president Donald Trump ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The clean sweep among several ballots nationwide on Tuesday has boosted morale among Democrats bruised by Trump’s return to the White House and has set alarm bells ringing among Republican circles.

Mamdani is the city’s first Muslim mayor and the youngest to serve in more than a century.

The 34-year-old election winner was born in Uganda to a family of Indian origin and has lived in the United States since he was seven, becoming a naturalised US citizen in 2018.

He is the son of filmmaker Mira Nair (‘Monsoon Wedding,’ ‘Mississippi Masala’) and Mahmood Mamdani, a professor and respected Africa expert — leading some of his detractors to call him a ‘nepo baby.’

He followed a path paved by other youngsters from elite liberal families, attending the elite Bronx High School of Science followed by Bowdoin College in Maine, a university seen as a bastion of progressive thought.

Under the alias ‘Young Cardamom,’ he ventured into the world of rap in 2015, influenced by hip-hop group ‘Das Racist,’ which had two members of Indian origin who played with references and tropes from the subcontinent.

Mamdani’s attempt to break into the competitive world of professional music did not last, with the performer-turned-politician calling himself a second-rate artist.

He took an interest into politics when he learned that rapper Himanshu Suri, who performed under the alias Heems, was supporting a candidate for city council — and joined that campaign as an activist.

Mamdani went on to become a foreclosure prevention counsellor, helping financially struggling homeowners avoid losing their homes.

He was elected in 2018 as a lawmaker from Queens, a melting pot of predominantly poor and migrant communities, representing the area in the New York State Assembly.

The self-proclaimed socialist, who has been re-elected three times, forged an image that has become his trademark — a progressive Muslim just as comfortable at a Pride march as he is at an Eid banquet.

He put the goal of making the city affordable for everyone who are not wealthy, the majority of its approximately 8.5 million residents, at the heart of his campaign.

He has promised more rent control, free day care and buses, and city-run neighbourhood grocery stores.

Mamdani is also a long-standing supporter of the Palestinian cause, although his positions on Israel — which he has called an ‘apartheid regime’ while branding the war in Gaza a ‘genocide’ — have drawn the ire of some in the Jewish community.

In recent months he has made a point of vocally denouncing anti-Semitism — as well as the Islamophobia he has suffered.

Playing the race card, president Donald Trump, who calls Mamdani a ‘little communist,’ denounced him as a ‘a proven and self-professed JEW HATER’ Tuesday as New Yorkers were heading to the polls.

Mamdani is something of an establishment ‘outsider,’ according to Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University.

‘He has managed to galvanise support from disaffected voters and others in New York City who are dissatisfied with the status quo and with an establishment that they perceive to be overlooking their needs and policy preferences,’ he said.

Mamdani, a keen soccer and cricket fan, recently married US illustrator Rama Duwaji, and put his experience of activism to work in a strategically coordinated canvassing and leaflet campaign that he has paired with an extensive and often humorous use of social media.

Mamdani’s win, as well as the Democratic Party’s victories in the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, suggest a shift in the political mood across the United States as it looks to next year’s midterm elections when control of Congress will be up for grabs.

In another significant win for Democrats, voters in California also approved a proposition to redraw electoral districts in a bid to neutralise gerrymandering efforts ordered by Trump in other states.

Mamdani was virtually unknown before his upset victory to secure the Democratic nomination over former governor Andrew Cuomo, who he trounced again on Tuesday.

When the race was called in his favour, excitement was palpable across the city.

It was a ‘local victory’ that offered a means of ‘resisting and pushing back’ against the political establishment in Washington, Ben Parisi, 40, said, adding that the night stood in stark contrast to Republican Trump’s victory a year ago.

Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels citizen crime patrol group, came in third after weeks of Cuomo insisting he bow out to increase his chances.

Disappointed and ‘heartbroken’ Cuomo supporters booed as the results rolled in saying Mamdani’s victory is ‘not right.’

Many blamed Sliwa for splitting the centre-right vote while others questioned their safety in the city.

‘As a Jew in New York, it’s terrifying to think that we’re going to have a mayor who hates us,’ Cuomo supporter Elise, 74, said.

Turnout was high in this year’s vote with 2.06 million ballots, or 98 per cent of votes cast, counted by 12:31am Wednesday — more than the total number of voters in the 2021 race.

Mamdani’s improbable rise highlights the Democratic Party’s debate over a centrist or a leftist future, with some leading national figures offering only tepid endorsements of Mamdani ahead of voting.