Zohran Mamdani swung back at his mayoral opponents at a fiery and emotional speech Friday afternoon, accusing them of employing racist smears and anti-Muslim tropes in order to undermine his frontrunner status in the last days before the election.

Mamdani, a member of the state Assembly, spoke outside the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx, a house of worship that congregants said primarily caters to members of the city’s Gambian and Guinean communities. It coincided with the mosque’s Friday prayer.

“I thought that if I behaved well enough, bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith,” Mamdani said. “I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.”

Mamdani, who would

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