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Why many Asian American Trump voters chose Zohran Mamdani in NYC's primary
By
Joe Hong
Published Jul 9, 2025
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MADISON SWART/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
By
Joe Hong
Published Jul 9, 2025
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Zohran Mamdani’s upset victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary was partly fueled by Asian American voters in neighborhoods that previously went for Donald Trump in 2020, according to a Gothamist analysis.
Following Mamdani’s win, Gothamist reported that the assemblymember from Queens won 30% of the election districts that Trump won in the 2024 presidential election. However, a closer analysis of census data reveals that many of those districts overlap with majority Asian American neighborhoods. Interviews in two of those neighborhoods – Flushing, Queens and Bensonhurst, Brooklyn – revealed that many residents voted for both candidates in the hopes they would address the city’s affordability crisis.
“I liked his policies, mainly his support for education and affordable housing,” said Shirley Wong, 70, of Bensonhurst, referring to Mamdani. “He seems to listen to us.”
But less than a year ago, Wong cast her ballot for Trump. She cited the influx of migrants in her neighborhood, as well as the cost of living under President Joe Biden. But now, Wong said she regretted voting for Trump, citing the Big Beautiful Bill’s projected cuts to Medicaid.
“I changed my mind to choose someone who can help us,” she said, referring to Mamdani and his progressive platform. “He just needs to prove everything he’s saying.”
Wong, who is Chinese American, has always voted based on issues rather than along party lines. Her voting habits align, according to political analysts, with other Asian American voters who supported Trump in 2024 and Mamdani in 2025. Some experts and strategists argue that Asian Americans, the fastest-growing ethnic minority in New York City, are the crucial swing demographic in the city.
“Asian American voters are not defined by blind party loyalty,” said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist. “They’re defined by whether a candidate speaks to their issues, even if they’re not perfect.”
A common thread
Advocates and researchers criticize “Asian American” as a demographic category because it conceals the community's diversity. As just one example, there are wide gaps in educational attainment, unemployment and median income between Bangladeshi and Japanese Americans in the city.
Despite the diversity, districts with a large percentage of Asian American residents showed a notable shift to Trump in 2024. In Flushing, Trump received the most votes, and Harris finished 36 percentage points behind Biden's 2020 total. In Bensonhurst, Harris fell by 40 percentage points compared to Biden in 2020, while Trump gained 12 points.
Yet voters chose Mamdani over more moderate candidates in the Democratic primary by substantial margins in some of Flushing’s election districts.
That swing from Trump to Mamdani didn’t surprise analysts like Glenn Magpantay, a commissioner to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and an expert on Asian American voting rights.
“Though they are politically diametrically opposed, they’re also both candidates from the outside who are seen to change things around,” he said.
Assemblymember Ron Kim, who represents Flushing, said the 2024 Trump campaign’s focus on affordability and public safety appealed to many economically ascendant middle-class Asian Americans.
“I think our party, the Democratic Party, has stopped listening to the concerns of working immigrants for some time,” he said. “Community safety, protecting small businesses, expanding access to specialized high schools. These are the issues that my constituents have repeatedly talked about, and no one really paid attention.”
One voter told Gothamist she regretted voting for Trump due to the projected cuts to Medicaid in the Big Beautiful Bill.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Centrist Democrats, Kim said, just haven’t been able to offer a competing vision to Trump’s. That’s until Mamdani came along in this year’s mayoral election.
Catherine Chen, the executive director of the Asian American Federation, said Mamdani’s campaign, also focused on affordability, resonated with members of the community. According to the Asian American Federation’s own research, about half of Asian households in New York City are rent-burdened and more likely to be overcrowded than the typical household in the city.
Swaths of New York City’s 49th Assembly District, which contains Dyker Heights, Sunset Park and Bensonhurst, went to both Trump and Mamdani. Census data showed they also had a majority of Asian American residents.
The district's Assemblymember Lester Chang, a Republican, said it’s too early to tell if these regions are experiencing a political shift. He wasn’t ready to predict Mamdani would be the clear winner, at least in his district.
“This general election is gonna be really interesting,” he said. “Even though the polls say something now, I suspect the polls will be shifting.”
The socialist stigma?
Both Chang and Kim noted their constituents' traditional reluctance to support a socialist candidate, especially since many of them left countries with communist regimes. Many immigrants, they said, came to the United States because they supported a democratic and capitalist system.
“They wanted access to private property and they wanted to gain wealth,” Kim said. “So they feel very conflicted.”
He added that there seems to be a generational divide between immigrant parents and their U.S.-born children. The latter, which Kim identifies with, are more likely to divorce their parents’ ideas of socialism from Mamdani’s platform of rent freezes, free buses and free child care.
Political strategists and researchers said Mamdani’s campaign videos in Bangla and Urdu were part of an effective strategy for overcoming any stigma of socialism.
“Folks are interested in being reached in their own language in culturally competent ways,” said Chen from the Asian American Federation. “When there is a conversation about trying to make the city more affordable, our community tends to respond.”
Yang, the Democratic strategist, said that Asian Americans ultimately will support a candidate who speaks openly about lowering the cost of living, no matter their political party.
“Whether you have a MAGA conservative running in a general presidential election or a democratic socialist running in a New York primary, voters care about affordability,” he said. “That’s especially true for Asian Americans.”
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new york city
Joe Hong
Joe Hong is the investigative data reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. He previously covered K-12 education for several newsrooms across California. His reporting has led to local reforms in juvenile justice system as well as a state law requiring universal screening for dyslexia. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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