Press Herald - More than half of Portland tenants are struggling to afford rent. According to a new report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, almost 52% of renters in the Portland-South Portland area are “cost burdened,” meaning they spend at least 30% of their income on housing. And more than 24% are “severely” cost-burdened, meaning that more than half their income goes to housing.
Newsbreak - Just more than a decade before his upset win in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday, Zohran Mamdani graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine. Mamdani made headlines Tuesday night with his victory over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the primaries. Before the race, the 33-year-old progressive was virtually unknown in the New York politics scene, according to the Associated Press. Now, despite his relative youth, he is the favorite to win the mayoral race in the heavily Democratic city of more than 8 million people, although it could be a tough race.
Press Herald - The 33-year-old Democratic Socialist state lawmaker – who would be the first Muslim and first millennial mayor of the country’s largest city – graduated from the Brunswick college in 2014....
Bowdoin’s “Notable Alumni” page already includes Mamdani for his position on the New York State Assembly. At Bowdoin, he majored in Africana studies, an interdisciplinary field focused on the African continent and the worldwide African Diaspora.
“Zohran was a great student and is a great person,” said Brian Purnell, the Africana Studies department chair who taught and advised Mamdani. “New York City would be lucky if he was elected mayor.”
Erica Berry met Mamdani when they were freshman year hallmates, then worked alongside him at The Bowdoin Orient, the college’s student newspaper, as co-news editors. Berry later led the paper as editor-in-chief, and Mamdani found his voice as an opinion columnist.
Berry said Mamdani had a “tireless sense of justice” that he brought to every endeavor. She’s been a little surprised by his rapid rise in national name recognition — she was shocked to hear teenagers in Oregon, where she lives, talking about his campaign — but not at all surprised about his political success.
“He has this supernatural ability to bring people together that I’ve not seen in anyone since,” Berry said. “So when I think about the qualities that would make a politician in a dream world, it is this tireless energy and drive for coming together.”
Mamdani was profiled in The Orient in 2019 while campaigning for the state assembly. He told the paper his passion for political organizing began at Bowdoin, where he co-founded the college’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
“Through organizing around Palestine and Palestinian solidarity issues, I saw a very different side of the administration,” he said. “That was a very formative experience in understanding how things work when you’re trying to push for demands that are not popular with the people in power.”...
Bowdoin is no stranger to alumni in politics. Its ranks include one U.S. President, Franklin Pierce, and another young political standout, Justin Pearson, a Tennessee state representative who made national headlines in 2023 when he and another Black house member were expelled from the chamber for their role in a gun control protest. He was reinstated a week later. Pearson, who graduated from Bowdoin in 2017, gave a sold-out lecture at the college last year.