Washington, DC (July 9, 2025) — The Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) today released a new report documenting a sharp rise in digital hate and Islamophobia on social media platforms before and after the results of New York City’s mayoral primary.
Titled “Digital Hate, Islamophobia, Zohran Mamdani, and NYC’s Mayoral Primary,” the report reveals that online discourse around Mamdani was shaped by overlapping narratives of anti-Muslim bigotry, ideological fear-mongering, and xenophobic attacks.
The report found four key themes dominating the conversation, including Islamophobia, that targeted Muslim Americans, particularly Muslim New Yorkers; a framing of Zohran Mamdani’s Muslim faith and Islam in general as inherently incompatible with public office; cold war style “red-baiting,” relabeling Mamdani’s democratic-socialist platform as communist infiltration; and nativist attacks questioning Mamdani’s right to be in the U.S. A fourth, transnational, layer driven by Hindu nationalist Indian and diaspora accounts framed him as “anti-Hindu” and “anti-India.”
From June 13 to June 23, 2025, traffic about Zohran Mamdani that met our keyword search criteria held between 56 and 264 hateful posts per day. On the day of the primary on June 24, 2025, the volume jumped to 899 keyword-matched posts. On June 25, 2,173 keyword-matched posts were published. This timeline illustrated a classic flash-mobilization pattern tied to an electoral milestone. A subset of 1,933 posts received closer scrutiny because they contained more pointed hate-related keywords or came from accounts with a track record of hateful content.
Explicit anti-Muslim language–either targeting Mamdani, Muslims, or Islam more broadly within the context of mayoral primary results–was found in 39.4% of the 1,933 posts. The frequency confirms that Mamdani’s Muslim identity is a primary vector for delegitimization and for broader claims that Islam is at odds with American civic discourse.
Around 51% post also used an “ideological demonization” frame, clubbing faith with ideology in portraying Mamdani’s politics as inherently dangerous. Similarly, 62.3% of posts that attacked his political ideology contained Islamophobic language, underscoring how closely faith-based and ideological attacks overlap. Phrases such as “Islamist socialism taking New York City” unify audiences worried about religion with those anxious about left-wing politics. Posts reflecting this fusion average 406,244.5 total interactions (views, likes, shares, and comments) per post, indicating that the rhetoric of blended fear travels farther than single-issue hate.
A subset of 227 posts comprising 14.3% of the reviewed dataset depicts Mamdani as illegitimate because of his immigrant background and his specific history of immigration and naturalization. The subset advises remedies that range from deportation to citizenship revocation.
“What we saw in the days surrounding Zohran Mamdani’s primary win was a concentrated surge of anti-Muslim hate that reached hundreds of millions of users,” said Kayla Bassett, one of the report’s co-author and Director of Research at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH).
“Posts recycling extremist tropes and warning of a so-called religious takeover sent a clear message to Muslim Americans that their faith alone renders them suspect and unwelcome in civic life. By fusing anti-Muslim prejudice with ideological scare tactics, this transformed a local contest into a rallying point against Muslim communities nationwide,” Bassett added.
“Social media platforms must act now to strengthen their safeguards before November’s general election, or this toxic playbook could dominate the political conversation and escalate into offline harassment, intimidation, and violence against Muslims, those perceived to be Muslim, and Mamdani’s supporters,” said Raqib Hameed Naik, Executive Director at the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH).
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