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I spent yesterday, November 4th 2025, desperately trying to keep my anxiety at bay.
I turned the oven on and forgot to put my dinner in. On the subway, I very nearly yelled out, “We all voted right? For Mamdani?!”
I posted a lot on Threads. Here are some highlights.
I phone-banked until the last possible second - when the Zohran for NYC campaign was told we had to shut down because they spent every last dollar that they were allowed to spend on this campaign. When those tireless volunteers and staff members found a (legal) way to keep going, I got back on the phone again.
Through it all, I kept having flashbacks to November 2016 and 2024 — the worst presedential election nights I hope to ever experience in my lifetime.
I was a senior at Vassar College on election night in 2016. I checked the polls before leaving for a rehearsal for a Midsummer Night’s Dream; Trump had just taken one of his first red states. I was shocked that any state would elect this man — even a red state. When I expressed my confusion, doubt, and unease to one of my best friends and housemates, she told me that I had nothing to worry about. It was so early. He was bound to win some of the red states. Everything was going to be fine. I had no reason to panic.
Hours later, we huddled together with classmates in the dining hall and watched the final results come in. That same friend showed me a video that Obama posted that night. His tone felt grim, and dire. I felt like he was preparing us for the worst possible outcome. I felt like we were on the eve of an impending war.
Weren’t we?
When Trump took Pennsylvania, we were all stunned to silence. The president of the democrats club took the mic to break it to us that there was no possible way that Hilary Clinton could win. Trump was officially the next President of the United States.
I don’t remember the walk back to my house. I don’t remember putting my pajamas on and getting into bed. I do remember hearing the primal scream taking place in the dorm courtyards. I also remember falling asleep to Jane the Virgin.
I woke up the next day to emails about cancelled classes, meetings, and rehearsals. It was like we were all frozen in time — unwilling and unable to walk forward into the inevitable future none of us had predicted. My English teacher, who did not cancel class, sat down and took one look at us before announcing that he simply couldn’t teach today. He told us that the great authors we were reading survived horrible times, and so would we. In that class, we were currently reading books like Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I remember thinking “Oh God, what is about to happen to us? What is going to happen to me? What are we going to do?”
Hours later, I bumped into that same best friend and housemate in our kitchen at 3AM. I took one look at her and started crying. We held eachother. I remember wailing, “I can’t cry for the next four years!”
Up until that point, I naively thought that all the bad times were in the history books behind us. I thought that the arc of change was bending in the right direction. I thought we could only go up after eight years of having Obama in office.
Wrong.
We will leave mediocrity in our past. No longer will we have to open a history book for proof that Democrats can dare to be great…This new age will be one of relentless improvement. We will hire thousands more teachers. We will cut waste from a bloated bureaucracy. We will work tirelessly to make lights shine again in the hallways of NYCHA developments where they have long flickered.
Mayor Mamdani
I can’t decide if 2016 was worst than 2024.
In 2016, I was certain that a Trump presidency could never happen. In ‘24, I was certain that no one would ever opt into yet another era of tragedy and doom, to put it lightly.
Unlike in 2016, I did not stay awake to watch the results roll in. After seeing how long it took to count all the ballots in 2020, I figured it was futile to wait up and see. I said a prayer to whichever Gods are out there, and went to sleep on the couch in my seaside San Diego apartment.
When I woke up and checked instagram on autopilot, I was met with a villainous photo of Trump and a caption that read something like “Trump storms back.”
A living nightmare.
Against my body’s pleas, I somehow made it out the door to a morning workout that I had previously committed to with a new friend. Working out before sunrise is also my version of a nightmare.
On the drive there, I rambled on about my disappointment in America and what this country is becoming. I said something about how America hates Black women. My friend replied, “I don’t necessarily think Trump being president means that America hates black women.”
Really?
In true abject shock, I delivered a two minute rant on the recent murder of Sonya Massey (who my new friend had never heard of) and what it means that a Black woman can be shot to death in her own kitchen after calling for help, and that another Black woman (me) has to read about that murder while making pasta in her respective kitchen.
And that’s how I ended up comforting a white woman about racism in America, no less than an hour after finding out about Trump’s 2nd term. I couldn’t believe this situation I found myself in. I could’ve let her sit with her feelings and cry it out — but she was in the drivers seat. I didn’t want to get into a car accident because she couldn’t see the road. Dying in San Diego the morning after Trump was elected for a second time is not how I was meant to die.
Safety and justice will go hand in hand as we work with police officers to reduce crime and create a Department of Community Safety that tackles the mental health crisis and homelessness crises head-on. Excellence will become the expectation across government, not the exception.
Mayor Mamdani
We ran. We did cardio circuits. Everyone in the class mostly acted like it was just another day. Another white woman told me that the first Trump presidency “wasn’t so bad” and that she knew she wouldn’t be too affected this time either. She told me she was mostly concerned for the environment.
I felt like I was in a post-apocalyptic universe. I felt invisible.
I came home and thankfully had therapy already booked. I think I drank tequila directly after my session.
My Canadian neighbor came over to help me take an updated passport photo so that I could get my passport renewed immediately - for obvious reasons. (You’re the best, J.)
At some point that afternoon, I saw a post online that rewired my brain; what I now call, “the plantation texts.”
Black women were receiving texts about being selected for a shift to pick cotton. Random numbers texted them that they would be picked up at their homes in a white van at 5AM. To this day, there are so many people who have no idea that this even happened; these inexplicably vile, racist, threatening texts that rewired my brain.
Even though I logically knew these texts were nothing more than a scare tactic - I still didn’t leave my house for a full week. And when I finally did, I couldn’t look at people the same way anymore. Everywhere I turned, I thought “Was it you? Did you do this? Did you vote for him? Have you sent us back into the dark ages? Did you really think that this criminal was a better choice than an overqualified Black woman? Is that how lowly you think of Vice President Harris? Of Black Women? Of me? Is this what you think of me?”
Is this what America thinks of women like me?
I swiftly made the choice to move back to New York. It felt like the world was ending. And if the world is ending, I’m going to be in New York.
A couple of my friends objected to my impulsive decision. “Isn’t it going to be the same everywhere? Aren’t there going to be Trump supporters everywhere? Isn’t San Diego just New York, but sunnier?”
First of all, San Diego is 100% not NY but sunnier - more on that another time.
And second — yes there are sadly trump supporters everywhere. But in New York, we do not bow down to corrupt leaders. Even if they’re the president.
In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light.
-Mayor Zohran Mamdani
At the same time that I was planning my impulsive move home, to the city that I thought I had left for good, a man named Zohran Mamdani was beginning his mayoral campaign.
Sitting on my couch, wrapped in a Costco blanket, drinking wine and watching The Handmaids Tale, I had no idea that seeds of hope had already been planted.
I had no idea that just a year after one of the most devastating election nights in American history — my hometown of NYC would go on to elect a mayoral candidate who has given us a level of hope that we haven’t seen since the Obama era.
Zohran Mamdani has given me back a sense of hope that I have not felt since I was 21 years old, a senior in college, about to enter the ‘real world’.
And I’m not the only one.
I’m 30 now. Each vote feels heavier and more crucial than ever. I’m far more aware of what’s at stake than I was at 21. I am acutely aware that the bad times are not behind us in history books. I am horrified and heartbroken at the hate that fuels this country. I joke that I’m a New Yorker, not an American — and I kind of mean it.
Watching Mayor Mamdani win this election made me prouder, happier, and more emotional than I have ever been about a political campaign in my lifetime.
I am hopeful. I am grateful. And scared.
Hope is a decision that tens of thousands of New Yorkers made day after day, volunteer shift after volunteer shift, despite attack ad after attack ad. More than a million of us stood in our churches, in gymnasiums, in community centers, as we filled in the ledger of democracy.
And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together. Hope over tyranny. Hope over big money and small ideas. Hope over despair.
Mayor Mamdani
I want everything that Zohran Mamdani promised us. I’m confident in him and his team. I want him to have a fair shot at running this city. I want him to get on the phone with Taylor Swift’s people and talk security teams and strategies. The reality of being a person of color in America, is fearing for the lives of other people of color. Mamdani is going to protect us. But we also have to protect him, and his family.
(I also really think that he and his wife deserve a spa staycation because I personally get exhausted even thinking about the man’s step count.)
I am elated. I am heartbroken.
I can’t believe I get to tell my future kids I volunteered for the historic campaign that put New York’s first Muslim mayor in office. I am heartbroken that my kids will also learn about the vitriol he faced. I’m heartbroken that this is the first time in our city’s history that the people who keep this city running are really truly feeling seen by the people in charge.
Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns: These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater.
Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands. My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.
Mayor Mamdani
I’m exhausted.
Right after the confirmed results came in, I texted a friend “I’m going to sleep so well tonight.” And I did. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’ve been holding.
Scared. Tired. Hopeful. Grateful. We can hold complex emotions amidst times of celebration and joy.
There is room for all of it, just like there is room for all of us in this beautiful city.
Most of all, [our greatness] will be felt by each New Yorker when the city they love finally loves them back.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani
On the note of celebration — I would like to rebrand New Year’s Eve as “Mamdani Eve” this year since my future mayor is being sworn in on January 1st.
I also will be referring to him as New York’s mayor effective immediately, regardless of when he is sworn in. That’s my mayor.
That’s our mayor.
