Closing summary
This blog will be closing shortly but you can continue following the latest US election updates in our latest blog:
Here is a brief summary of some of the key events from a busy night and morning:
Zohran Mamdani is the mayor-elect of New York City with a decisive victory over former governor Andrew Cuomo. With more than 97% of the votes counted, Mamdani received more votes – at least 1.03 million – than all the other candidates combined, including Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
California passed Proposition 50, the measure that will temporarily redistrict the state in hopes of countering Republican efforts to do the same in Texas. The new maps could help Democrats pick up five additional seats in the US House of Representatives.
It was a good night for Democrats, with Abigail Spanberger winning the Virginia governor’s race and Mikie Sherrill winning the governorship in New Jersey.
President Donald Trump took to his favored platform, Truth Social, to distance himself from the losses. He also urged Republicans to pass voter reform and terminate the filibuster. As Mamdani was speaking, Trump posted a cryptic final missive of the night: “AND SO IT BEGINS!”.
Mamdani directly addressed Trump in his victory speech in Brooklyn, vowing to use his role in city hall to counter his politics of division. The newly minted mayor said: “Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”
Mamdani supporters said they were “elated” and “hopeful” after the Democratic candidate was elected as the new mayor of New York City. Mamdani’s socialist campaign promising to freeze rent and make buses free seduced New Yorkers who voted for him en masse, securing victory for him with more than 50% of the vote. He will be inaugurated as the 111th mayor of the city in January.
Democrats Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards advanced to a runoff on Tuesday night in a special election for a US House seat that has been vacant since March and will narrow the GOP’s slim majority once a winner is sworn in. Neither received more than 50% of the vote, sending the race to a runoff that is expected early next year.
Leftwingers in UK politics have been cheered by the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York. His London counterpart Sadiq Khan said New York had followed London in choosing hope over fear in electing Mamdani.
Updated
Israel’s diaspora minister on Wednesday criticised New York’s leftist mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani as a “Hamas supporter” and called on the city’s Jews to move to Israel after his victory, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“The city that once stood as a symbol of global freedom has handed over its keys to a Hamas supporter,” right-wing minister of diaspora and combating antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, wrote on X.
He went on to say that Mamdani’s views were “not far from those of the jihadist fanatics who, 25 years ago, murdered three thousand of its own people,” referring to the 11 September 2001 attacks by al-Qaida on New York and Washington.
Mamdani will become the city’s first Muslim mayor when he takes office in January.
In recent months he has made a point of vocally denouncing antisemitism – as well as the Islamophobia he has suffered.
Mamdani is a longstanding supporter of the Palestinian cause. His position on Israel – which he has called an “apartheid regime” – has drawn the ire of some in the Jewish community.
