Ahead of Zohran Mamdani’s Victory, Opponents Smeared a Muslim Advocacy Group Supporting Him

TLDR

• Zohran Mamdani was elected the next mayor of New York City on Nov. 4, 2025. Throughout his campaign, Mamdani was subjected to bigoted attacks focused on his identity.

• Open Measures found that last-minute smears against Mamdani also targeted the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim rights advocacy group that supported his campaign, rehashing longstanding Islamaphobic smears.

• Many posts mentioning CAIR’s support of Mamdani also referenced terms commonly associated with Islamic terrorism in conservative news media. More than a third of posts referenced a variation of “terror,” like “terrorism” or “terrorist.”

Background

New York City voters elected Zohran Mamdani to become their next mayor on Nov. 4, 2025.¹ Throughout his campaign, Mamdani was subjugated to bigoted attacks on his religious, racial, and ethnic identity.² Open Measures previously reported on the swell of these online attacks after Mamdani won the Democratic Party’s mayoral primary in June.

Throughout his campaign, Mamdani, who will be the city’s first South Asian and Muslim mayor, received support from several minority advocate groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The organization’s lobbying and political arm, CAIR Action, endorsed Mamdani, gave to political action committees (PACs) that supported his candidacy, and denounced Islamophobic attacks from his opponents.³

Since its inception, political figures and media personalities have promoted conspiracy theories about CAIR, many of which are predicated on anti-Muslim prejudices. The organization has been falsely accused of supporting Islamist terrorist groups, promoting antisemitism, and participating in a fictitious plot to subvert the United States.⁴ CAIR staffers have reported receiving violent threats related to these themes.⁵

Methodology

Open Measures sought to identify posts on platforms we monitor mentioning both Mamdani and CAIR since his June victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary election. We used the following search string to identify posts made from June 24 to Nov. 6, 2025::

("cair" OR "cair-ny" OR "council on american-islamic relations" OR #cair) AND (Zohran OR Mamdani OR #zohran OR #mamdani)

Our researchers used Open Measures’ platform to draw insights from their results.

Analysis

Open Measures identified at least 876 posts across 17 platforms that mentioned both CAIR and Mamdani since June 24, 2025. More than 40% of these posts were shared in November, peaking at 173 unique posts on Election Day.

Researchers found that conversation about CAIR’s support for Mamdani’s campaign surged on Nov. 3, after a pro-Israel doxxing group shared footage of activist Linda Sarsour speaking at a CAIR conference in September and mistakenly referring to a pro-Mamdani super PAC in New York, Unity and Justice Fund, as “the CAIR super PAC.” While CAIR was one of the PAC’s largest institutional supporters in 2025, CAIR Action’s executive director clarified at the event that CAIR did not control the PAC.⁶

Caption: Daily posts mentioning both New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and the Council on American-Islamic Relations between June 24 and Nov. 6, 2025. (Graphic made with Flourish using Open Measures data)

Our researchers also searched the posts mentioning Mamdani and CAIR for keywords associated with common Islamophobic smears against his campaign and the organization. Among the 876 posts they identified, they found:

• About 34% of all posts also mentioned a variation of the word “terror” (like “terrorism” or “terrorist”).

• About 29% of all posts also mentioned the Muslim Brotherhood, a long-standing Sunni Islamist movement.⁷

• About 26% of all posts also mentioned Hamas, a militant Sunni Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip.⁸

• About 18% of all posts also mentioned a variation of “jihad” (like “jihadist” or “jihadi”).

The highest number of posts they identified were on alternative microblogging platforms dominated by right-wing communities: Gab, Truth Social, and Gettr. Posts identified on those three platforms made up about 75% of all posts mentioning Mamdani and CAIR together in our analysis period.

Caption: Total numbers of posts mentioning both New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and the Council on American-Islamic Relations per platform between June 24 and Nov. 6, 2025. (Graphic made with Flourish using Open Measures data)

Our researchers looked closer at Gab, Truth Social, and Gettr during the November surge to better understand what sources helped drive conversations about CAIR and Mamdani. Using the Activity tool in our research dashboard, they were able to determine which websites were linked to most often in those posts.

Their findings were relatively consistent across the three platforms — the top 10 web domains that appeared in posts mentioning Mamdani and CAIR directed to:

• Hyper-partisan and pro-Trump news blogs (The Gateway Pundit, Zero Hedge, Breitbart, National Pulse, Citizen Free Press, Townhall, Underground USA, One America News Network, BizPac Review, and The Post Millennial).

• Anti-Islam hate groups and blogs (Resistance Against Islamic Radicals (RAIR), Bare Naked Islam, and Geller Report).

• Posts originally shared on X from the pseudonymous account “End Wokeness,” RAIR founder Amy Mekelburg (known as “Amy Mek”), and conservative media personality Glenn Beck.

Conclusion

Mamdani’s opponents aggressively targeted him on the basis of his identity throughout his campaign, seeking to inflame racist and religious prejudices among New York City voters. As such, pro-Israel and anti-Muslim opponents of Mamdani’s campaign rehashed longstanding conspiracy theories and smears against CAIR in their last-minute efforts to damage his reputation.

New York City elected Mamdani at a time when anti-Muslim hate and discrimination is surging in the United States. Conspiratorial and hateful rhetoric targeting Muslims has inspired violence, threats, and harassment toward members of the faith and organizations that advocate on their behalf.⁹ Tracking the proliferation of these narratives can be critical for ensuring the security of such organizations.