As his campaign has surged, mayoral candidate and state Rep. Zohran Mamdani has hired a security company at a high price, facing increasing threats.
According to campaign finance disclosures, Mamdani’s campaign paid nearly $8,000 this month to New York-based security firm Advance Security & Investigations, Inc. Other mayoral candidates, meanwhile, spent little or nothing on security.
Mamdani said his concerns were heightened by the killing of a Minnesota Democratic lawmaker and her husband at home last weekend, and the suspect was also accused of shooting and wounding another lawmaker and his wife. In an interview with The Gothamist, Mandani said, “I woke up yesterday to a message that said ‘The only good Muslims are dead Muslims.’ This is a message I see and read often. Racist and Islamophobic threats are not new to me, but these remarks have recently reached a new level of concreteness. My friends and family have been urging me to stay safe. The recent threats make me more sad than scared. It is this reality that keeps many people with the same background as me from participating in public life.”
Mandani spokesman Andrew Epstein said his team has hired personal and event security guards. Over the past four months, the Mandani campaign has tracked and compiled the death threats it has received through phone calls, emails and social media, including a voicemail sent to Mandani’s precinct office, “Hey Mandani, before I shoot you and your family in the head, you should go back to Uganda. You bastard-Muslims don’t belong here.”
It is reported that if elected, Mandani will become the first Muslim and Asian mayor of New York City. Earlier, City & State New York also reported that after Mandani confronted border czar Tom Homan in the state capitol in March, Mandani’s voicemails in the state capital Albany and the precinct office were also flooded with threats and hate speech.
Al Sharpton, a famous civil rights leader who ran for mayor in 1997 and was attacked at the time, said he understood why Mandani was worried about his personal safety. “It’s not that anyone is paranoid. They are realistic. We are in an environment where anyone can be inspired to do anything at any time.”
Senator Bernie Sanders expressed his support for Mandani on Tuesday, the 17th, providing Mandani with another heavyweight endorsement. This is also the first time Sanders has ever endorsed a New York City mayoral candidate. Sanders said in a statement, “At this critical and dangerous moment in American history, status quo politics is not good enough. We need new leadership that is ready to fight against powerful corporate interests and fight for the working class. Mandani is providing this vision. He is the best candidate for mayor of New York City.”
