Zohran Mamdani Might Not Be Sworn In As 111th New York Mayor – It’s Gone Viral

Zohran Mamdani is preparing to make history on January 1 – yet an unexpected historical dispute has suddenly cast doubt on whether he can be sworn in as the 111th mayor.

What exactly went wrong, and why the matter is only surfacing now, has become one of New York City’s most unexpected pre-inauguration twists.

The November 4, 2025 mayoral race was one of the most dramatic in decades.

Democratic state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani won with 50.78 percent of the vote, defeating Republican activist Curtis Sliwa and independent former governor Andrew Cuomo.

It was the highest turnout in a New York City mayoral election since 1993, fueled largely by surging youth registration.

Mamdani’s victory made global headlines. His inauguration was expected to be a landmark moment – the symbolic start of a new era for America’s largest city.

The 33-year-old is known for his progressive politics, grassroots campaigning, and background as a community organizer in Queens.

Born in Kampala, Uganda, to Indian parents and raised in New York City, Mamdani built his political profile around issues affecting working-class New Yorkers, from housing affordability to public transit reform.

Before entering politics, he worked as a foreclosure prevention counselor and as a tenant organizer, experiences that shaped his focus on inequality and economic justice.

He first won election to the New York State Assembly in 2020 where he quickly became one of the chamber’s most outspoken advocates for renters, police reform, and stronger social safety nets.

During the 2025 mayoral race, Mamdani campaigned on expanding affordable housing, increasing protections for tenants, redesigning the city’s mental health response system, investing in public transit, and boosting youth programs across all five boroughs.

His platform resonated with young voters especially, contributing to the highest turnout in a New York City mayoral election since 1993.

If elected as scheduled on January 1, 2026, Mamdani will become the first Muslim, the first South Asian, and the youngest mayor of New York City since 1892, marking one of the most significant generational shifts in the city’s leadership in over a century.

But now, just as preparations begin, a historian’s claim has interrupted the smooth transition, raising questions about the title Mamdani is about to inherit.

The controversy began when historian Paul Hortenstine shared new findings that, he says, reveal a long-overlooked flaw in New York’s official record.

He argues that the city’s documented mayoral lineage contains an error that has gone unnoticed for centuries.

According to Hortenstine, the mistake is significant enough that it would technically prevent Mamdani from being sworn in under the title ‘111th mayor’ – because that number, he says, is wrong.

The claim has surprised even veteran researchers.

“It’s a good question. Who noticed this discrepancy? Apparently, this historian did,” said Ken Cobb, assistant commissioner of the city’s Department of Records.

Cobb added that he could not find mention of what Hortenstine identified – but also said he does not dispute the findings.

Officials have now acknowledged the claim and confirmed they are aware of the research.

Hortenstine says he discovered the issue accidentally while researching ties between early New York mayors and slavery.

Deep in the archives, he found references to a detail that, if correct, would alter how every mayor since the 17th century has been counted.

He found the key evidence in the papers of Edmund Andros, the colonial governor of New York.

“This was in 1675,” he told The Gothamist. “So then, when I later looked through the official list of the city, I noticed that they had missed this term.”

Other historians and a historical group reviewed the material and agreed that the research appears credible.

A spokesperson for New York Historical said a preliminary search of the museum’s archives located three references to the same overlooked detail in the classic text ‘The Iconography of Manhattan Island.’

Those references seem to confirm the historian’s theory.

In fact, the city has corrected its official list before.

In 1937, Charles Lodwick, who served from 1694–1695, was added retroactively as the 21st mayor – forcing every subsequent mayor to shift up by one.

Randy Mastro, the first Deputy Mayor, reacted to the new findings by saying he had never heard of the missing entry.

“I think we will leave this issue for historians and, for a change, the next administration,” he said.

And that brings us to the question at the center of the controversy:

According to Hortenstine and earlier historian Peter R. Christoph, who wrote about the same problem in 1989, the city made a crucial mistake nearly 200 years ago.

They say the official record left out an entire mayoral term from the 1670s – a second, nonconsecutive term served by Mayor Matthias Nicolls – and that this omission was printed in an 1841 municipal manual before being copied into every later document.

Because nonconsecutive terms are counted separately (just like US presidents), missing one throws the entire numbering sequence off.

Christoph once put it this way: “Edward I. Koch is the 105th Mayor of New York. The City Of New York Official Directory says so. So does The New York Times. But they are wrong: He is the 106th.

“Not only is he misnumbered, but so is everyone else after Mayor No. Seven… 99 mayors misnumbered… numerically out of whack.”

If the research is officially accepted, every mayor since the 17th century shifts by one – and Zohran Mamdani would not be No. 111.

He would, technically, be the 112th mayor of New York City.

No – he will still take office on January 1, 2026.

But if historians are correct, the title on his inauguration documents, press materials, and historical record may need to be corrected before he takes the oath.

It’s a bureaucratic twist no one expected – and one that emerged not from politics, scandal, or modern controversy, but from a missing page in New York’s own 350-year-old history.

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