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The Queens assemblymember has pulled in more out-of-state donations than Cuomo and Lander combined, signaling a national appetite for his brand of progressive politics.
Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s appeal seems to be spreading beyond the boundaries of the five boroughs, as the democratic socialist from Queens leads in the number of non-resident donations to his campaign.
When it comes to out-of-state contributions, the progressive assemblymember and mayoral hopeful has soared past his competition by a ratio of four-to-one, according to a City Limits analysis of publicly available campaign finance data.
Of the three Democrats leading the polls in the primary race for mayor, Mamdani received 4,494 out-of-state contributions. Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo follows with 1,030 such donations and sitting Comptroller Brad Lander isn’t far behind at 933, as of June 9, the last day for which data are available.
Cuomo still leads in general fundraising, having brought in about $4 million in campaign contributions. Lander has received almost $1.8 million, and Mamdani trails him at $1.7 million.
Mamdani has attracted significant attention since announcing his run for office last October. His proposals for bold policies aimed at affordability—freezing the rent, city-owned grocery stores, free buses—and adept use of social media have helped him stand out in a crowded primary.
Once thought to be a long shot candidate, some recent polls have shown Mamdani closing the gap between himself and the expected frontrunner, Cuomo. His high number of out-of-state donors is indicative of a public enthusiasm that more conventional politicians like Cuomo and Lander struggle to muster, said Sandeep Kaushik, a political consultant and moderate Democrat in Seattle.
Even though they wouldn’t be constituents, these donors see Mamdani as a standard bearer for a larger, more national movement. Kaushik pointed to the candidate’s social media savvy, as well as recent endorsements by other progressive lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, as potential drivers of non-local donations.
“You just start creating all this national buzz, and that buzz translates into dollars,” Kaushik said. “Mamdani is young and charismatic and a person of color who is speaking in broad thematic terms about very easy-to-understand issues, that may not actually be particularly viable or practical or attainable, but speak to the aspirations of left-progressive voters.”
City Limits reached out to several out-of-state donors who said they felt Mamdani offered a genuinely new kind of politics.
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Katherine Cochrane, 34, works as a wine purveyor in Washington state, and donated $25 to Mamdani’s campaign. She remembered being impressed by the assemblymember’s hunger strike in support of striking taxi cab drivers during her time living in New York.
“Instead of just doing politics, he was actually just doing the job,” she said.
Cochrane, who left New York City for Washington due to the city’s rising cost of living, thinks Mamdani is the only candidate who could make New York affordable enough for her to return.
“I haven’t felt like there has been someone to turn things around in a while,” Cochrane said.
Christopher Welbourne, 31, is a custodian in Alaska who donated $25 to Mamdani’s campaign. Unlike Cochrane, Welbourne has no relationship with New York. He said he contributed because he feels this mayoral race affects national politics more than any other local election in the country.
“[C]ontributing to a mayoral run there has larger potential impacts to me as a U.S. citizen than if I were to try offering support to a mayoral candidate in a smaller city,” Welbourne said in an email.
Dr. Babur Lateef, 53, is an ophthalmologist in Virginia who donated $100 to Mamdani’s campaign. Lateef doesn’t believe Mamdani will accomplish even half of his campaign promises. But he thinks that’s still better than the status quo.
“Will he get free transit? No. Will he have free buses? No freaking way! It’s not gonna happen. Nobody gets it,” said Lateef. “But can you have some sort of stabilization on rent? That all makes sense.”
While Mamdani may be winning in out-of-state donations, that’s no guarantee of wider victory. When Andrew Yang ran for mayor in 2021, he received about 17,000 out-of-state donations to his campaign, around 13,000 more than Mamdani, and more than any other candidate in the race that year. Yang still lost that election.
And though Mamdani leads in the number of out-of-state donors, Cuomo leads him in the total dollar amount of funds raised. The former governor has collected nearly $660,000 from non-New Yorkers, as of June 9. This is nearly three times the amount as Mamdani. And the average amount given by out-of-staters to Cuomo is more than 10 times larger than what’s given to Mamdani—about $640 on average compared to around $50.
But for some of his supporters, Mamdani doesn’t need to win the election to find success. What’s important to them is that they’ve been offered an alternative to mainstream politics.
Oliver Turiano, 25, is a musician in New Jersey. He donated $15 to Mamdani’s campaign. He hopes that whether Mamdani wins or not, his effort will show the Democratic Party how to run a campaign that inspires people.
“A win for Zohran, or even a close race, which I think it will be, is a blueprint for the Democratic Party. Look: run economic populist, run young,” said Turiano.
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