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Friday, June 27, 2025
NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani’s primary win sparks surge in anti-Muslim social media content, advocates say
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Anti-Muslim online posts targeting New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani have surged since his Democratic primary upset this week, including death threats and comments comparing his candidacy to the September 11, 2001, attacks, advocates say.
There were at least 127 violent hate-related reports mentioning Mamdani or his campaign in the day after polls closed, says CAIR Action, an arm of the Council on American Islamic Relations advocacy group, which logs such incidents.
That marks a five-fold increase over a daily average of such reports tracked earlier this month, CAIR Action says.
Overall, it noted about 6,200 online posts that mentioned some form of Islamophobic slur or hostility in that day-long time frame.
Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist and a 33-year-old state lawmaker, declared victory in Tuesday’s primary after former New York governor Andrew Cuomo conceded defeat.
“We call on public officials of every party — including those whose allies are amplifying these smears — to unequivocally condemn Islamophobia,” says Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR Action.
The advocacy group says its hate monitoring system includes its own scraping and analysis of posts, online submissions by the public and notifications from law enforcement.
About 62% of the anti-Muslim posts against Mamdani originated on X, CAIR Action says.
People close to US President Donald Trump, including one of his sons, are among those spreading anti-Muslim rhetoric, advocates say.
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, wrote on X on Wednesday that “New York City has fallen,” and Republican US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted an AI-generated picture of the Statue of Liberty draped in a burqa.
Mamdani came under fire from some parts of the NYC Jewish community for his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state — saying instead that he believes it “has a right to exist as a state with equal rights” — and for his apparent defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
He nevertheless received the endorsement of key Jewish and Zionist Democratic politicians, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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