New York Mayor polls: Zohran Mamdani, 33, accused of having a 'silver spoon'; What is the Indian-American’s Punjab link

Mayor Eric Adams officially kicked off his independent reelection campaign Thursday, vowing to fight for “working-class New Yorkers” while taking sharp aim at Indian-American Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a progressive upstart who stunned the political world by defeating Andrew Cuomo in the primary.

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"This election is a choice between a candidate with a blue collar and one with a 'silver spoon'," Adams said, adding, "A choice between dirty fingernails and manicured nails."

Adams framed himself as a street-savvy pragmatist against what he called Mamdani’s out-of-touch idealism.

"I'm not interested in Twitter politics; I'm interested in getting the trash picked up," Adams told his supporters Thursday, taking a dig at Mamdani.

"I'm not interested in slogans; I'm interested in solutions."

Mamdani, 33, a democratic socialist and state assemblyman, has surged to prominence with a grassroots campaign focused on the city’s cost-of-living crisis.

But Adams, freshly cleared of federal corruption charges, is betting that moderate voters still prefer his brand of swagger and public safety-first politics.

Two days ago, progressive upstart Mamdani declared a stunning Democratic primary victory over former Gov Andrew Cuomo, the presumed favourite despite a sexual harassment scandal that forced him from office four years ago.

Results will be finalised after the city's ranked-choice vote-counting resumes July 1, and the winner advances to November's election against candidates, including Republican Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels anti-crime group.

Mamdani is the son of Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, of Gujarati Muslim descent, and his mother is Mira Nair, an Indian-American filmmaker from Punjab and recipient of the Padma Bhushan award. He graduated from a private liberal arts college, worked as a foreclosure prevention counselor, and had a side hustle as a rapper before first being elected to the New York Assembly in 2020.