Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani speaks to supporters at an election night watch party after winning the New York City mayoral race on Tuesday. Photo by Derek French/UPI | License Photo
One day after Zohran Mamdani was elected New York City mayor, the 34-year-old democratic socialist announced on Wednesday his five-member transition team of all women.
Mamdani, who was a member of the state General Assembly since 2021, will enter City Hall on Jan. 1 as New York City’s 111th mayor.
“The poetry of campaigning may have come to a close last night at 9, but the beautiful prose of governing has only begun,” he said in front of the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. “The hard work of improving New Yorkers’ lives starts now.”
Named as co-chairs were former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan, former deputy mayors Maria Torres-Springer and Melanie Hartzog and United Way of New York City leader Grace Bonilla.
Elana Leopold, who worked under former Mayor Bill de Blasio and was a senior campaign adviser, will serve as the transition team’s executive director.
Torres-Springer was the first deputy mayor under Mayor Eric Adams, until she resigned in February over concerns about the mayor’s relationship with the Trump administration, WPIX-TV reported.
Hartzog was the city’s deputy mayor for Health and Human Services and previously was the director of the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget under Bill de Blasio.
Khan, who is a prominent ally of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, led the FTC when Joe Biden was president.
“We will form an administration that is in equal parts capable and compassionate, driven by integrity and willing to work just as hard as the millions of New Yorkers that call this city home,” Mamdani said, noting he will announce deputy mayor appointments in a few days.
Mamdani called on his supporters to fund “a transition that can meet the moment of preparing for January 1.
“There were a few months ago where I told supporters across the city to stop donating, and today I am asking them to start once again,” the mayor-elect said.
His transition team will include personnel involved in research.
The transition website lists 104,764 volunteers.
“I’m excited for the fact that it will be funded by the very people who brought us to this point, the working people who have been left behind by the politics of the city,” Mamdani added.
In all, 2,055,921 ballots were cast in the largest turnout in 50 years for a mayoral race.
Mamdani received 1,036,051 votes, or 50.39% of those cast, according to the city’s Board of Elections in unofficial results.
Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent after losing to Mandani in the Democratic Party primary, had 854,995 votes, or 41.59%, while Republican Curtis Sliwa captured 7.11% of the votes at 146,137.
Adams ran as an independent after also losing in the primary but dropped out and received 6,382 votes.
Mamdani was elected as the first Muslim mayor in the city, the first of South-Asian descent and the first African-born.
He also will be the city’s second-youngest mayor, as former Mayor Hugh J. Grant was 30 when he was inaugurated in 1889, ABC News reported.
Mamdani’s inauguration is scheduled on Jan. 1.
