BRUNSWICK — As the closely watched New York City mayoral election approaches next week, some students at Bowdoin College are watching too because of front-runner Zohran Mamdani’s history at the small liberal arts school.

Mamdani, who earned the Democratic nomination in June, majored in Africana studies at Bowdoin and graduated in 2014. While there, he co-founded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine and wrote opinion pieces for the student newspaper, the Bowdoin Orient.

Throughout the race, polling has consistently put Mamdani, 34, ahead of his opponents — former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary and is now running as an independent, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, would become the city’s first Muslim mayor if he’s elected Tuesday.

Students interviewed on Bowdoin’s campus Friday were generally aware of Mamdani’s connection to Maine. Several were excited that a recent graduate could soon lead the nation’s largest city, while others said his campaign has brought more national recognition to the small college.

Sienna Phillips, a first-year student, said she has followed the race through social media and the news. 

“It’s definitely cool to see that someone that goes here can have such a big political presence,” Phillips said. “I feel like he’s a very well-spoken person, so I think that definitely speaks to Bowdoin.”  

Sophomore Rye Hughes suspected she lived in Mamdani’s old dorm room at the Baxter House. She said there’s a small cupboard there that previous occupants signed, and she found Mamdani’s signature among them.

The college confirmed that Mamdani did indeed live there.

Hughes and her roommate are planning to host an election watch party on Tuesday.

Students from many different states said friends and family members back home are watching the race and have remarked about Mamdani’s connection to Bowdoin. 

“I have a couple of friends who are from New York, and they’re a lot more plugged into (the race),” said sophomore Mia Cheney.

Annabel Close, also a sophomore, is from Arizona and said she’s been watching closely. 

“It’s amazing to see someone who took the same classes we’re taking, who was at the same campus that we’re at, and he’s gone on and is having this amazing political career,” she said.

The race has also brought some heightened scrutiny to the college. Close mentioned a New York Times piece published this week that looked at whether Mamdani’s Bowdoin education exemplified right-wing concerns about liberal arts colleges, something she found interesting but not true to her experience. 

“At the end of the day, Bowdoin is just an academic institution, where we have intellectual discussion about things, and I think wherever that discussion goes regardless of political ideology,” Close said. 

First-year student Whittier Henry said he was following the race from afar and supported Mamdani as a candidate, then found out he went to Bowdoin around the same time he was starting at the college. He said Mamdani’s campaign has been exciting because it has brought a younger voice to Democratic politics. 

“He understands the matters that we care about more,” Henry said.

Friends and professors of Mamdani’s from his time at the college have told the Press Herald they see the same qualities in him as a high-profile political figure that they observed as a student.

Bowdoin English Professor Guy Mark Foster taught Mamdani in a course more than a decade ago, but remembers him as an eloquent writer and eager contributor.

He called Mamdani warm, funny and generous, and said he was culturally literate and sensitive about issues of race, which was important to the course that focused on texts complicating the idea of Blackness in America.

“The Zohran I remember is the Zohran I see on TV,” Foster said, although he noted one difference — Mamdani now wears a suit.

Foster especially remembers Mamdani’s final paper for the course, which he pulled to reread after he saw him campaigning on TV. He said it demonstrated an orderliness of mind and sophisticated thinking that he sees Mamdani bringing to politics.

Like other Bowdoin community members who crossed paths with Mamdani, he said it is exciting to see him on the national political stage, but not all that surprising.