Courtesy of JTA. Photo credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani greets supporters during an election night gathering in Queens, New York,June 24, 2025
(JTA) — Many details of Zohran Mamdani’s stunning win in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday are yet to become clear, including exactly how many voters ranked him first and whom he will face in November’s general election.
But whatever happens in November, Mamdani already has earned the most support of any U.S. politician who endorses the movement to boycott Israel. His victory offers a clear sign that backing the movement, known as BDS, is hardly the red line that its critics long tried to make it.
Mamdani drew at least 432,000 votes, according to a preliminary tally, to top a crowded field of mayoral hopefuls. The second-place candidate, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, received fewer than 362,000.
Mamdani earned nearly twice as many votes as either of the two BDS supporters in Congress, Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, received in any of their general-election wins in much smaller districts.
The clear conclusion: In the city with the most Jews in the entire world, backing the boycott of Israel is hardly an impediment to electoral success.
“My support for BDS is consistent with the core of my politics, which is nonviolence, and I think that it is a legitimate movement when you are seeking to find compliance with international law,” said Mamdani at a recent forum at the UJA-Federation of New York.
The BDS movement — short for Boycott, Divest, Sanctions — was launched in 2005 by a coalition of Palestinian civil society organizations. It calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions as a form of non-violent pressure on Israel for the “liberation” of Palestinians.
Jewish groups see it as unfairly singling Israel out for pressure, and say the movement’s ultimate goal — not a two-state solution but a “free Palestine” that doesn’t acknowledge a Jewish state — is essentially calling for Israel’s demise.
Jewish and pro-Israel groups devoted themselves to tracking BDS’ inroads on college campuses and opposing candidates who said they supported the movement. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee actively campaigns against the movement, lobbying for laws that make boycotting Israel illegal and identifying candidates who appear unsympathetic.
