Zohran Mamdani built his campaign on promises to dismantle privilege but new accounts of his childhood reveal that the self-styled socialist firebrand was educated amid the very elite institutions he now rails against.
The 33-year-old Democratic Socialist lawmaker, who has electrified young voters with pledges to freeze rents, free childcare and taxing the rich, spent his formative years at a $60,000-a-year progressive private school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Former classmates describe him as charismatic, confident and adored – a far cry from the struggling working-class narrative that has fueled his meteoric political rise.
His upbringing, stretching from Uganda to Manhattan’s cultural heart, has become a fresh line of attack from opponents in a race already defined by identity and class.
Born in Kampala, Uganda, to renowned academic Mahmood Mamdani and film director Mira Nair, Mamdani moved to the United States at age seven when his father joined Columbia University‘s faculty.
The family settled into university housing on the Upper West Side, one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods.
It was there that Mamdani enrolled at Bank Street School for Children, a private, ultra-progressive academy long favored by Manhattan’s liberal elite.
Tuition now costs more than $66,000 per year with teachers addressed by their first names, classes have without grades and students encouraged to develop their own ‘leadership voices.’
Zohran Mamdani, the man expected to become New York City’s next mayor has built his campaign on promises to dismantle privilege but he was educated amid the very elite institutions he now rails against
Born in Kampala, Uganda, Mamdani moved to the United States at age seven when his father joined Columbia University’s faculty
Mamdani enrolled at Bank Street School for Children, a private, ultra-progressive academy long favored by Manhattan’s liberal elite. Tuition costs upwards of $66,000
Mamdani stood out within the school walls classmates say, even as a child.
‘It was so obvious this guy was going to be some sort of leader of people,’ recalled Evan Roth Smith, a former schoolmate to the Daily Telegraph.
Mamdani’s early political instincts were obvious even in middle school when he ran in a ‘mock election’.
At age the age of 12, frustrated that only eighth-graders could run as Democrats or Republicans, Mamdani led a breakaway campaign under a self-created third party – and won in a landslide.
The are echoes of his mayoral campaign two decades later with Mamdani, a state assemblyman representing Queens, upending New York’s political establishment in much the same way.
Mamdani’s campaign videos have flooded TikTok feeds while his insurgent style have drawn both supporters and haters.
In the halls of Bank Street, his former classmates remember a bright boy who thrived.
‘Zohran was a very worldly person who had experiences none of us did,’ said Smith who was Mamdani’s running-mate in his mock election.
‘Golden rule of Zohran is you’re not gonna win that contest – everyone’s in love with Zohran.’
In the halls of Bank Street, his former classmates remember a bright boy who thrived
Mamdani is seen alongside family members in a picture from his childhood
Bernie Sanders (pictured left) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (pictured right) celebrated Zohran Mamdani at a New York City rally on Sunday night
‘He had charisma at an age where most people could barely get their words out,’ former classmate John McAuliff, now a Democratic candidate for state office in Virginia, said.
‘I think at some level he, coming from out of the country, felt he probably needed to work harder to fit in, which I think is what breeds that skill’
Mamdani’s political awakening seem to come not in the classrooms of Bank Street, but on the streets of New York during the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign.
He has said Sanders’ populist message convinced him to ‘step into the arena’ and run for office himself.
Before that, he had tried on other identities: as a rapper under the name ‘Mr Cardamom’, a filmmaker, and foreclosure-prevention counselor for immigrant families in Queens.
Those experiences, he says, showed him how economic systems crush working-class people – and solidified his socialism.
He won a seat in the state Assembly in 2020, becoming one of the first Democratic Socialists elected to Albany in a generation.
Mamdani has tried on other identities including as a rapper under the name ‘Mr Cardamom’
Polls suggest Mamdani’s lead remains commanding, driven by under-35 voters and turnout from immigrant neighborhoods in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn
By 2025, when Mayor Eric Adams abandoned his re-election campaign following repeated scandals, a federal indictment and his courtship of Trump, Mamdani became the clear choice for the progressive wing in the upcoming election.
Since then, his message has captured national attention. Trump labeled him a ‘little communist’ from the Oval Office.
After Bank Street, Mamdani attended the Bronx High School of Science, one of the city’s most prestigious public schools, before heading to Bowdoin College in Maine.
Rejected by Columbia, the university where his father worked he majored in Africana Studies, later co-founding a campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the controversial activist group that remains central to his political identity today.
A week after Hamas’s October 7 attack, he was arrested during a cease-fire protest outside Senator Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn home.
He later said he would ‘discourage’ use of the slogan ‘globalize the intifada’ but refused to condemn it outright, drawing accusations of antisemitism from critics.
More than 650 rabbis, including 60 from New York, have since signed a letter warning against his possible mayoralty.
Mamdani insists he recognizes Israel’s right to exist, ‘but not as a Jewish state,’ and has vowed to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever visits the city.
Polls suggest Mamdani’s lead remains commanding, driven by under-35 voters and turnout from immigrant neighborhoods in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn.
