By Humza Yousaf MSP

Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory in the New York Mayoral elections will have ramifications far beyond the Big Apple.

In what I suspect will long be remembered as a turning point in US politics, Mamdani has risen from virtual obscurity to become the face of a progressive renewal in the Democratic party.

It is worth noting that when Mamdani launched his primary campaign, reports described him as having barely 1% support in the polls, underscoring the magnitude of what has just been achieved.

He ran a campaign grounded in a progressive vision for ordinary New Yorkers, describing himself as a democratic socialist.

Mamdani’s bold policy agenda - free public buses, rent-freezes, universal childcare, city-owned grocery stores, taxing the wealthy - was unapologetically radical. This is the oxygen progressive Democrats, people like Mamdani, AOC and Bernie Sanders, have brought to the Party. They are breathing new life into a party that has been withering on the vine after Kamala Harris’s ill-fated, listless and lethargic Presidential campaign last year.

It is quite remarkable, we live in a time when two of the world’s great cities, London and New York, now have progressive Muslim mayors. That fact should not be treated as an anomaly or a threat. It should be celebrated as a........

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