Zohran Mamdani Is Making a Huge Run for Mayor of New York City — Can He Ever Be President?

It's no secret that Zohran Mamdani is the Millennials' mayoral candidate. The 34-year-old is running for mayor of New York City, the biggest city in the United States, and some of NYC's residents sure do love his vibes. He famously walked the length of Manhattan ahead of the primaries, where he undoubtedly smiled and handshaked his way into a few extra votes.

Zohran is all about affordability, and he promises to bring that to a city that has been struggling for decades. He has thrown out big ideas like free buses and five city-owned grocery stores located in each of the five boroughs. "We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores, whose mission is lower prices, not price gouging," he said in a video. Despite criticism surrounding his views on Israel, some folks would like to see him become president. Can he?

Because Zohran was not born in America or any U.S. territory, he cannot run for President of the United States. There are only three requirements one has to meet in order to run for president. They are at least 35 years old, have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years, and are a natural-born citizen. This is also why we'll never see Arnold Schwarzenegger go from being The Governator to the Presidentator. That one doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

If the natural-born citizen part seems a little unfair, let's break down the thinking behind it. Essentially this was meant to curb the influence of a foreign entity on the president's decisions. Unfortunately we have learned that being born in the U.S.A. doesn't necessarily mean you might not do something like, take a plane from Qatar, for example.

According to The New York Times, Zohran's parents met in the late 1980s in Uganda. Zohran's father's side of the family belongs to a community of East Africans who have lived in Uganda, where Zohran was born, for generations, per Politico. They are originally from the Indian state of Gujarat. Zohran's mother, filmmaker Mira Nair, was born in Rourkela, in Orissa (now Odisha), India.

His father, Mahmood Mamdani, and mother have not shied away from expressing anti-Israel views over the years. In 2013 Mira declined an invitation to a film festival in Israel, saying she wouldn't come until the apartheid was over. Mahmood says Zionists are oppressors and "led teach-ins at Columbia’s encampments protesting the war in Gaza," per The Times. Mahmood is a professor at Columbia University.

While speaking with The Times, Zohran's parents had very different opinions regarding how much their son learned from their own system of beliefs. His father maintains Zohran is his own person, and anything he does doesn't reflect back on them. "I don’t agree," said Mira. "Of course the world we live in, and what we write and film and think about, is the world that Zohran has very much absorbed."