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What's good? You're listening to The Code Switch podcast from NPR. I'm Gene Demby.

We are in the home stretch of one of the most closely watched local races in the country.

That's New York City's mayoral election. And this race has been framed as a fight for the soul and the future of the Democratic Party. And at the center of all this hullabaloo,

hullabaloo, I can't believe about said that word.

I never said that word before.

At the center of all of it is the 34-year-old Democratic socialist, Zoran Mamdani.

I will be your Democratic nominee

for the mayor of New York City.

Momdani was basically unknown to most of the city at this time last year, right?

He's a state assemblyman representing a district in Queens, but he stunned the political

establishment in New York, and if we're keeping it to being, like, across the country,

by handily winning the Democratic primary, despite trailing and all the polls for most of the run-up to that vote to the presumptive establishment favorite former governor Andrew Cuomo.

Life in this city doesn't need to be this hard, but politicians like Eric Adams and Andrew Cuomo want it to be this way.

They care about their donors. They care about themselves.

They don't care about you.

The working class who keep this city running.

Mamdani has become a figure of fascination in part because of his biography, right?

Like, he was born in Uganda to the acclaimed Indian filmmaker Miranair. And if he wins, he would be the first Muslim mayor in the

history of New York City. But it's also the vibes of everything. Like, his campaign has been

...