BY KIRSTEN DAVIS
This year’s mayoral race saw the highest turnout of voters in New York City since 1969. Three-quarters of NYC’s youth, people under 30, who voted chose Mamdani, according to a voter poll conducted by The Associated Press on November 5, 2025. In April 2025, some young women in New York City mobilized and, brought together by 24-year-old Cait Camelia and 28-year-old Kaif Kabir, started the unofficial campaign, ‘Hot Girls for Zohran,’ after having the idea to create a fun kind of campaign t-shirt. ‘Hot Girls for Zohran’ is inspired by a 2020 trend, #HotGirlsforBernie, which started during Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign.
The group is primarily Gen Z, but has gone viral and spread to other age groups. Actress Emily Ratajkowski joined the campaign, and even former New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio was seen wearing a ‘Hot Girls for Zohran’ t-shirt on November 4 when he showed up to vote. The group inspired groups formed by Republican podcaster Emily Austin, ‘Hot Girls for Cuomo’, and ‘Cool Girls for Capitalism’, formed by Danielle Goldman.
Calling themselves ‘hot girls,’ Camelia’s goal was to empower women and bring them together in a way that would convince more of the city to vote for Mamdani. On November 4, he was announced as NYC’s next mayor.
“Together, we have illustrated the power of leading with a politics grounded in hope, compassion, and humility – rather than a politics of fear, shame, and superiority,” Camelia said in a speech she gave at a watch party on election night, “This campaign was built on community, conversations, and something that politics has lacked for far too long: joy.”
The group’s mission brought people together from many different parts of the city through parties, t-shirt giveaways, comedy shows, and canvassing, in which they would walk the city and knock on doors to tell them why they should vote for Mamdani.
For actress, model, and influencer Abril Rios, the group was more than just a way to spread politics. “I think in the past years, especially after the pandemic, a lot of us in Gen Z have felt very disconnected from one another,” Rios said. Rios has a following of over 200,000 on instagram and yet it only serves to make her feel lonely.
“It’s almost even more isolating cuz you see this like huge number on a screen, but it’s not necessarily reality. For a long time, I grappled with that as an influencer, and I really craved a community,” she said. “When I moved back to the States after being in Europe and got involved with ‘Hot Girls for Zohran’, and I was so amazed by his ability to make campaigning fun. There’s all these little ways that he brought people together to make it not feel like a job.”
‘Hot Girls for Zohran’ certainly built a community not just with their over 18,000 followers but with the thousands of people who actually came together to campaign for Mamdani. It didn’t just stop at women, and New York City’s queer community as well as men joined in. The group helped change how young people approach politics and got them more involved than in recent years. Even Mamdani himself appeared in social media videos for the group’s Instagram.
Not only did the campaign help with making politics more fun and accessible but it helped humanize Mamdani for the younger generation. Mamdani’s win is just the beginning for the group and after his win, they plan to keep their work going.
“We have many more doors to knock, many more minds to change, and many more strides to make. In the words of Mohammed El Kurd, I do not want us to compare our past to our present. I want us to invent a new future. Together,” Camelia said.