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India-Americans running for key positions:

- Virginia lieutenant governor: Ghazala Hashmi, who as a 4-year-old emigrated from India with her mother and older brother  

- New York mayor: Zohran Mamdani, son of filmmaker Mira Nair

- Cincinnati (Ohio) mayor: Aftab Pureval, whose Tibetan mother fled China and grew up in a south Indian refugee camp; his father is a Punjabi

- Morrisville (North Carolina) mayor: Satish Garimella

- Hoboken (New Jersey) mayor: Dini Ajmani

- New Jersey Assembly: Ravi Bhalla 

PTI New York

New York City is all set to elect a new mayor on Tuesday as the mayoral race enters its final lap, with Indian-descent Zohran Kwame Mamdani emerging as the front-runner to take up the top political post in America's biggest city. Mamdani, 34, born in Uganda and raised in New York City, is a New York State Assembly member and democratic socialist running for Mayor.

The Democratic nominee will face off against former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent candidate and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa on the ballots. Current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, whose administration has been plagued by scandals, dropped out of the mayoral race in September. November 4 is election day across the US, with polls opening from 6 am to 9 pm. The early voting period, which commenced on October 25, ended on Sunday.

Mamdani, the son of renowned Indian filmmaker Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani, a Ugandan author of Indian ancestry, upset Cuomo in the Democratic primary race for New York City mayor and was declared victorious in June. The Board of Elections has said that more than 735,000 people voted early in this election, which is about four times more than the number of ballots cast during the 2021 elections.

Mamdani has emerged as the front-runner in the NYC Mayoral election race and has promised to "lower costs and make life easier" for New Yorkers as the city gets "too expensive". Mamdani has vowed that as Mayor, he will immediately freeze the rent for all stabilised tenants, and use every available resource to build the housing New Yorkers need and bring down the rent.