From Fox News: New York City’s leading mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, raised nearly $13,000 from donors with addresses outside the United States, a Fox News review of New York City Campaign Finance records show — raising questions about campaign compliance and transparency.
As of Oct. 3, at least 170 of the nearly 54,000 contributions to the Mamdani campaign may violate campaign finance rules, as only U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents are permitted to contribute to American political campaigns. Candidates are expected to return illegal donations.
As of Tuesday, records revealed that 91 of the foreign donations have been refunded. According to data from the New York City Campaign Finance Records contribution refunds, $5,723.50 of the $7,190 has been returned to foreign donors.
A review of the donors revealed that Mamdani’s mother-in-law in Dubai, Bariah Dardari, donated $500 in January. Her donation was refunded four days later.
Mamdani, 33, was born in Kampala, Uganda, and immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was 7 years old. He is Muslim, and a Democrat Socialist.
As of Tuesday night, the report notes there were at least 79 foreign donations that the Mamdani campaign had not returned.
According to campaign records, Mamdani has raked in at least $4 million in private donations, $12.7 million in public matching funds and has $6.1 million in cash on hand.
Mamdani is drawing huge crowds of New Yorkers to his campaign rallies, and the adoring crowd erupted in cheers when Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James endorsed him at a rally this week.
The Muslim is drawing huge crowds. Ny is fucked. https://t.co/GWefI2Qd7a
— Dennis Michael Lynch (@TrustDML) October 14, 2025
On Monday, Mamdani was endorsed by the The Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, the union representing hotel and gaming workers in New York City.
With just two weeks to go until early voting, HTC was proud to join thousands of union members, community leaders, activists, and volunteers tonight in Washington Heights to support our next Mayor, @ZohranKMamdani #UnionPower https://t.co/ru8twfXmO4
— Hotel and Gaming Trades Council (@NYHTC) October 14, 2025
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