A new report has documented an unprecedented wave of Islamophobic content on X during New York City’s mayoral election, with more than 35,000 posts targeting the city’s first Muslim candidate for the office.
The analysis by the Centre for the Study of Organised Hate found that between 24 June and 31 October 2025, posts containing Islamophobic and xenophobic language directed at Democratic Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani generated 7.37 million likes and 2.01 million reposts, reaching an estimated 1.5 billion users.
Overview
The study identified 35,522 original posts authored by 17,752 unique accounts on X containing Islamophobic, xenophobic or exclusionary language about Mamdani, who won the Democratic Party nomination on 24 June.
Nearly four in ten accounts spreading Islamophobic content were verified blue-badge users, who generated almost 45 per cent of all original posts analysed in the study.
The volume of hostile content intensified dramatically as the election approached, with October alone accounting for 43 per cent of total posts—a spike of more than 450 per cent compared with September.
Extremist and Terrorist Labelling
The largest category of harmful content involved labelling Mamdani as a terrorist or extremist, accounting for 72 per cent of all posts. These 25,514 posts, generated by 12,844 unique authors, portrayed him as a violent threat using terms such as “terrorist”, “jihadist”, “radical Muslim” and “extremist”.
The report’s authors, Raqib Hameed Naik and Eviane Leidig, noted that this narrative moved beyond criticism of an individual candidate to reflect broader hostility towards Muslim Americans’ participation in political life.
“By repeatedly framing Mamdani in the context of terrorism, these posts questioned his legitimacy as a political actor and, by extension, cast suspicion on Muslim participation in democratic life,” the report states.
Islamisation Conspiracies
The second major theme involved conspiracy theories claiming that electing a Muslim politician would lead to the imposition of “sharia law” or an “Islamic theocracy” in New York City. This category encompassed 2,868 posts (8 per cent of the total) authored by 2,132 users.
Posts commonly used phrases such as “Muslim takeover”, “Islamic takeover” and “taqiyya”—a theological term distorted by far-right actors to allege that Muslims practise deception to conceal extremist intent.
The report notes that this narrative echoes far-right movements in Europe and the UK, which describe Muslim populations as a demographic invasion through conspiracies such as Eurabia and the Great Replacement.
Calls for Deportation and Denaturalisation
The third theme captured explicit calls for Mamdani’s removal from the country or revocation of his citizenship, with 4,055 posts (11 per cent of the dataset) generated by 3,233 unique authors using phrases like “send back”, “kick out”, “deport”, “denaturalise” and “remigrate”.
The study documented the emergence of far-right language previously more common in Europe, including calls for “remigration”—a term advocating for the forced mass deportation of non-white immigrants and their descendants, especially those of Muslim background.
“The uptake of the term ‘remigration’ in our dataset reveals the transnational linkages through the sharing of ideas and policy prescriptions between far-right and Islamophobic movements in the US and Europe,” the report states.
Patriotism and Loyalty Attacks
The fourth category consisted of 3,085 posts (9 per cent) authored by 2,294 users questioning Mamdani’s loyalty to the United States, using terms such as “traitor”, “enemy within”, “anti-American” and “un-American”.
The phrase “New York has fallen” notably appeared in multiple posts, symbolising the belief that the city had been “taken over by enemies within” and serving as a rallying cry for those who view Muslim participation in public life as a form of national betrayal.
Broader Implications
Mamdani addressed the rampant Islamophobia at a press conference on 24 October, highlighting concerns about Muslim New Yorkers’ ability to fully participate in civic life.
“These harmful narratives targeting Mamdani reflect an open hostility towards Muslim Americans, who are frequently positioned as occupying a fifth column within American society,” the report states. “By stoking fear and panic around references to ‘Sharia law’ and warnings that ‘New York has fallen’, Muslims are constructed as a suspect community, which can distort voter perceptions.”
The report warns that online hate and dehumanisation have the potential to manifest as offline violence, citing recent incidents of political violence in the United States as evidence of an increasingly polarised climate.
The Centre for the Study of Organised Hate has called on X to strengthen platform safeguards during election periods, enforce community guidelines on hate content more rigorously, and improve accountability for verified users who amplify discriminatory narratives.
Full repost can be downloaded from the Centre for Study of Organised Hate Website.
