Faraz Ansari / @fkaphoto
Mayoral Rally Sends Message: New York Belongs to Its People
MOHAMED FARGHALY
mfarghaly@queensledger.com
“New York is not for sale,” Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani declared to a roaring crowd at Forest Hills Stadium on October 27, capping a weekend of early voting with a rally that drew an estimated 13,000 supporters. The Queens lawmaker headlined the event alongside U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, emphasizing a platform of free buses, universal childcare, and a citywide rent freeze. With Election Day less than a week away, Mamdani called on volunteers to sustain the grassroots energy that has defined his campaign. Over three hours, political, labor, and religious leaders rallied behind Mamdani’s message of economic justice and working-class power.
Union and socialist leaders opened the event, linking their workplace struggles to Mamdani’s platform. A longtime 32BJ member highlighted years of fighting under-resourced public institutions and praised the union’s support for Mamdani’s vision of a “people’s university.” Security officer Clarissa Baines drew attention to poverty wages, noting that the city’s low-wage security officers earn an average of $40,000 a year. Healthcare and education workers emphasized similar challenges, with one noting that the affordability crisis is harming patients and another praising Mamdani’s plan for a Department of Community Safety, highlighting the need for alternatives to traditional policing in mental health emergencies.
Other unions expressed concerns for fairness and dignity in their workplaces. Leaders warned of executives cutting hours for educators to protect their own power, denounced corporate greed, and called for a mayor who would take on entrenched economic interests. SEIU President April Verrett closed the segment with a call to action, emphasizing that Mamdani “knows how to fight, and he doesn’t just fight, he wins.”
State Senator Julia Salazar and Assembly Member Claire Valdez positioned Mamdani within the city’s growing socialist movement. Valdez declared, “They think if they can set enough money on fire, they’ll win—but we know the truth that New York is not for sale.”
New York City Comptroller and former mayoral candidate Brad Lander then addressed the crowd with humor and conviction, introducing himself as “your second choice in the primary” before giving full-throated support for Mamdani. Lander praised the coalition Mamdani is building, calling it proof that politics can be “a team sport for building the New York of our dreams.” He contrasted Mamdani’s grassroots approach with the “sour, selfish ego trip of Cuomo or Adams or Trump,” drawing cheers when he said, “We had to send that corrupt, abusive bully, Andrew Cuomo back to the suburbs.”
Lander also spoke directly to Jewish and Muslim New Yorkers, condemning Islamophobia and political exploitation of religious divisions. “Jews and Muslims will not be divided against each other,” he said. “Our safety, our freedom, our thriving, is bound up together.” Linking that to global justice, he asserted, “Israelis will not be free and safe until Palestinians are free and safe,” demanding “the end to the genocide in Gaza.” Lander recalled his arrest during immigration protests and credited Mamdani as “the first mayoral candidate to show up and demand my release,” before rallying the crowd: “It’s not Donald Trump versus Zohran Mamdani—it’s Donald Trump versus New York City… elect Mayor Zohran Mamdani to build the New York of our dreams.”
Governor Kathy Hochul followed, tying Mamdani’s campaign to a broader fight against Republican extremism. “Tonight, we are here for one reason… Do you want to elect Mamdani as the next mayor of New York?” she asked. Hochul warned that Donald Trump and Republicans were “taking a wrecking ball to our very values, our people, and our progress,” citing cuts to “food assistance for babies,” “money for seniors,” and “health care for New Yorkers.” She condemned their attacks on reproductive rights, unions, and immigrants, calling out “ICE agents flooding our streets… terrorizing innocent people.” Hochul concluded with a call to ongoing political engagement: “Take that energy, that passion, and take it into 2026 so that we can take back the House of Representatives, take the Senate, and take back our country.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez returned to her home borough to thunderous applause, framing the mayoral race as part of a larger fight for democracy. “It is so good to be home… in Queens, New York, the world borough, the jewel of America,” she said. “We are a working people’s borough in a working people’s city, and all of that makes us a fascist’s worst nightmare.” Ocasio-Cortez warned that Mamdani faces national-level authoritarian threats, citing “an authoritarian, criminal presidency… and an eroded bygone political establishment.” She targeted former Gov. Cuomo directly: his “pursuit of power has blinded [him] from what that power is supposed to be used for… to aid and put the working people of America and New York City first.”
Ocasio-Cortez framed Mamdani’s campaign as a rebuke to the billionaire class, declaring, “Their greatest fear is an equitable, affordable and prosperous city for all.” She called for moral courage and solidarity: “We are not the crazy ones, New York City… it is not radical to demand affordable housing, a decent wage, the right to health care… it is basic and core humanity.” She invoked Mamdani’s platform of “child care, buses, rent and our rights” as an embodiment of that humanity, urging voters to “send a loud message to President Donald Trump that his authoritarianism is no good here.”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed the crowd with global stakes, framing the NYC mayoral race as a test of working-class power. “This is not a normal election,” Sanders said. “It takes place in a moment when we have a rigged economy with more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of our country.” He asked a central question: “Is it possible for ordinary people, for working-class people, to come together and defeat those oligarchs? You’re damn right we can.” Sanders criticized tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy under the Trump administration and said a Mamdani victory would signal that “this country belongs to us, not them.”
Defending policies critics call radical, Sanders outlined Mamdani’s agenda: rent freezes, expanded affordable housing, universal childcare, and free public transportation. “These ideas are not radical,” he said. “They are common sense and they are what the people of New York City want and need.” Sanders, a former mayor of Burlington, Vermont, noted the challenges of local governance but urged sustained engagement beyond election night: “When he is elected, your job is not over… Do everything you can to make him and his administration the best in the history of New York.” He closed with a warning not to be complacent: “Forget about the polls… None of us want to wake up the day after the election and find that we lost because our opponents outworked us.”
Mamdani concluded the rally by emphasizing the power of grassroots organizing and the inclusivity of his campaign. He recalled leading a hunger strike with Ocasio-Cortez in 2021 that won $450 million in debt relief for taxi drivers. “She was there with us on the picket line, on the phone after everyone else had gone home, and again in the primary of this election,” he said.
Highlighting the movement’s rapid growth, Mamdani said, “So many small donors chipped in that we had to ask you to stop donating. People started to learn how to pronounce my name,” he joked, drawing laughter, “and the billionaires got scared.” He called out Islamophobia and big-money efforts to label his campaign as radical. “Time and again, they have encouraged you to imagine less because they know a reimagined New York hurts their bottom line. We deserve a city government as ambitious as the working New Yorkers who make it the greatest city in the world,” he said.
He outlined his policy priorities for affordability and dignity: “We are going to freeze the rent for more than 2 million rent-stabilized tenants, build housing for everyone who needs it, eliminate the fare on every single bus line, and create universal childcare at no cost to parents.” Closing with a call to action, Mamdani urged supporters to continue mobilizing in the final days before Election Day. “If you have knocked a door, turn your flashlight on. If you have more to give, turn your flashlight on. Together, let us make a light bright enough to banish any darkness over these final nine days and the months and years that follow… On November 4, we set ourselves free.”
As he closed the evening, flanked by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, the three raised their arms in solidarity, symbolizing a united front for what Mamdani described as a movement for New Yorkers rather than billionaires.
