Democratic socialist New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani once admitted that identifying himself as African American would be “misleading” — despite him ticking that as his race on his Columbia University application.

Zohran Mamdani, the Democrat running for mayor of New York City, was born in Uganda. He doesn’t consider himself Black but said the application didn’t allow for the complexity of his background.

NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani listed himself as Black on a Columbia application but later said he wasn’t, according to reporting from the New York Times.