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Can Zohran Mamdani run for president in 2028? Here's what the US Constitution says
The US Constitution explains whether Zohran Mamdani can run for president in 2028, or ever.
Amid the New York City mayoral elections, both supporters and opponents of Zohran Mamdani have one question: can he run for president in 2028?
Mamdani has been a vocal mayoral candidate, talking about various issues, including about his identity as a Muslim and the Islamophobia he has allegedly faced during his campaign. “To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity. But indignity does not make us distinct — there are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does,” he previously said. “In an era of ever-diminishing bipartisanship, Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement."
Can Zohran Mamdani run for president in 2028?
Mamdani cannot run for president in 2028, or ever, because of Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution which says, “No person except a natural-born Citizen… shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Notably, Mamdani was born in 1991 to non-American parents in Uganda. He became a US citizen through naturalisation in 2018.
Read More | ‘Weak little man’: Zohran Mamdani trolled for failing at bench press at Men’s Day in Brooklyn | Video
According to the Legal Information Institute, “A natural born citizen is a person who became a U.S. citizen at birth and did not need to go through a naturalization proceeding later in life.”
The term arises from Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution, which lays out the eligibility requirements for holding the office of President: “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States."
Mamdani presents himself as an organizer and a candidate of the people. "As life took its inevitable turns, with detours in film, rap, and writing," reads his state assembly profile, "it was always organising that ensured that the events of our world would not lead him to despair, but to action."
While speaking at a recent rally in Queens, Mamdani called for an end to “the era of government that deems an issue too small or a crisis too big.” “Because we need a government that is every bit as ambitious as our adversaries,” he said. “A government strong enough to refuse the realities we will not accept and forge the future.”
“No longer will we allow the Republican Party to be the one of ambition,” he added. “No longer will we have to open a history book to read about Democrats leading with big ideas. My friends, the world is changing. It’s not a question of whether that change will come. It’s a question of who will change it.”
