Republican politicians and right-wing commentators have joined a wave of racist and Islamophobic attacks against Muslim New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, ahead of the November 4 election.
The Ugandan-born, naturalised US citizen released a six-minute video last week reflecting on his faith and the Islamophobia he has faced during the campaign.
“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity,” Mr Mamdani said in the video posted on social media. “But indignity does not make us distinct – there are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.”
His critics have not come only from the political right. Departing Democratic Mayor Eric Adams threw his support behind former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and invoked warnings about “Islamic extremism” in comments widely seen as against Mr Mamdani.
In a radio interview this month, Mr Cuomo remarked, “God forbid, another 9/11 – can you imagine Mamdani in that seat?” When the host responded, “He’d be cheering,” Mr Cuomo laughed in agreement.
In the 24 hours after Mr Mamdani’s upset primary win in July, anti-Muslim online posts, some of them violent, soared. Prominent Republicans and conservative media figures have since amplified those opinions, accusing him of being unpatriotic or sympathetic to terrorism.
Mr Mamdani, who has positioned himself as a progressive voice focused on housing and inequality, dismissed the attacks.
“This is all the Republican Party has to offer,” he told MSNBC. “Cheap jokes about Islamophobia so as to not have to recognise what people are living through.”
Benny Avni, foreign editor of the New York Sun, countered that Mr Mamdani’s own comments about Israel have been “widely seen as anti-Semitic”.
“Rather than retracting those statements,” Mr Avni told The National, “the mayor-to-be is complaining that anyone who criticises him is doing it out of Islamophobia.”
Samuel, a New York cab driver originally from Ghana, told The National that while he doesn’t plan to vote for Mr Mamdani, doubting his ability to fulfil campaign promises, he believes the racial slurs and attacks directed at the candidate are deeply “unfair”.
“The media in this country have gone one step too far in my opinion,” he said.
Observers say Mr Mamdani’s campaign and the war in Gaza have brought to the fore latent Islamophobia in the US, and elected officials in Washington and elsewhere have been participating.
Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday, asking the Department of Justice to investigate Mr Mamdani’s American citizenship, alleging he has supported five convicted terrorists who funnelled money to Hamas.
He has proposed to denaturalise and deport Mr Mamdani.
Khaled Beydoun, a professor at Arizona State University and expert in Islamophobia, said the war in Gaza and Mr Mamdani’s campaign have legitimised and emboldened what he calls “liberal Islamophobia”.
“It's made it palatable for elements even on the left to engage in ominous or brazen Islamophobia in ways that wasn't the case,” Mr Beydoun told The National.
For Mr Mamdani, it has meant the resurrection of “caricatures” relating to Muslims, linking them to the 9/11 attacks, and themes of terrorism, radicalisation and anti-Semitism.
“The idea that Muslim identity – and specifically, I think masculine Muslim identity – embodies automatic anti-Semitism,” Mr Beydoun said.
Mr Mamdani, he said, has had to perpetually rebut the presumption of anti-Semitism. Mr Beydoun added that Islamophobia is not static, but rather perpetually changing with the political climate.
Observers note that much of the more recent Islamophobic content online comes from Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and a close ally of President Donald Trump.
Earlier in October, Ms Loomer called for the mass deportation of Muslims from the US, a ban on Muslims holding political office, and banning the hijab and halal, to resist the “Islamification” of America.
Some of the self-proclaimed proud Islamophobe's ideas have had immediate policy impact.
In August, wounded Palestinian children from Gaza who had been granted temporary medical‑humanitarian visas to receive treatment in the US became the target of Ms Loomer, who called them “Islamic invaders”.
A few days later, the State Department announced it would halt all visitor visas for people from Gaza while conducting “a full and thorough review” of the visa process.
Mr Trump has not explicitly mentioned Mr Mamdani’s faith, calling him instead a “100% communist lunatic”. On Wednesday, he said: “The more people learn about Mamdani, the less they like him.”
Mr Beydoun says that Muslims in the US are subject to structural Islamophobia – the travel ban and increased surveillance – as well as private discrimination, at work and school.
And that discrimination is becoming ever more overt.
Valentina Gomez, a Republican congressional candidate in Texas, set fire to a copy of the Quran using a flamethrower in August while declaring she would “end Islam” in her state and declaring that “America is a Christian nation, so those terrorist Muslims can go … to any of the 57 Muslim nations".
Months earlier, she stormed a Muslim civic event at the Texas State Capitol, grabbing the microphone to proclaim: “Islam is the religion of rape, incest and paedophilia … I will never let Sharia law take over Texas."
Conservative politicians have, since 2010, been proposing “anti-Sharia” legislation at the state and local level. At least a dozen states have passed laws prohibiting courts from considering Islamic or other foreign or religious law in legal decisions if it conflicts with US or state constitutions.
This month, Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama introduced the “No Sharia Act”, which would bar courts from enforcing judgments based on foreign laws if they violate the US Constitution, and the “Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act”, which seeks to make non‑citizens inadmissible or deportable if they advocate Islamic law.
“Calling radical Islam out for what it is doesn’t make you an ‘Islamophobe.’ It makes you a truth teller," Mr Tuberville wrote on X.
And it is not only Democrats and progressives who are in the line of fire. Mr Trump’s pick for US ambassador to Kuwait, Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib, faces unlikely odds of being confirmed after Republican senators said they would oppose his nomination.
His Senate hearing turned tense as Republican and Democratic leaders confronted him with comments and social media posts about the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel and past remarks about former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
He was also questioned about a “like” he gave to a Facebook post likening Jews to monkeys.
Mr Ghalib said the posts were made prior to holding office or were mistranslated from Arabic. He said liking a post does not signify endorsement.
“Your long‑standing views are directly contrary to the views and positions of President Trump and to the position of the United States,” Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said. “I, for one, I’m not going to be able to support your confirmation.”
