As Zohran Mamdani surges in the polls in his campaign for mayor of New York City, Islamophobia is also on the rise.
A recent report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), which analyzed online hate before and after New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, documented a sharp increase in digital hate speech and Islamophobia on social media in the wake of Mamdani’s primary win.
The study found that in the lead-up to the primary, between June 13 to June 23, 2025, there were between 56 and 264 hateful posts per day. On June 24, 2025 — primary day — that number jumped to 899 posts. The day after the primary, CSOH documented 2,173 hate posts. According to CSOH, four key themes dominated the online discourse: Islamophobia, anti-communist red-baiting, nativism, and Hindu nationalism.
Explicit Islamophobic language was the most prominent theme of online hate toward Mamdani. Of the 1,933 posts reviewed by CSOH, 39.4% were categorized as Islamophobic. The study concluded that Mamdani’s Muslim identity was the primary reason for delegitimizing his campaign.
“We found a huge spike in online hate and fear-mongering targeting Muslims in the aftermath of Mamdani’s primary win, blending racism, anti-Muslim bigotry, red-baiting, and anti-immigrant sentiment into one dangerous narrative,” said Raqib Hameed Naik, executive director of CSOH, in a statement to Documented. “Muslims were portrayed as threats to national security, incompatible with democracy, or as agents of an imagined foreign agenda.”
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