An ambitious left-wing YouTuber who claims to have volunteered for the re-election campaign of Democratic Socialist New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has admittedly left the US “for good” and is now residing in China.
Eric Hovagim describes yourself on LinkedIn as “[g]eopolitical commentary YouTuber” listing his location on the site as Brooklyn. A pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) micro-influencer who has uploaded several videos supporting Mamdani and also worked as part of his successful campaign video team, however, claims to have permanently moved across the Pacific to China. From there, he posts content downplaying the CCP's genocide against the Uyghurs, an indigenous, predominantly Muslim minority group.
“I volunteered to help produce and/or edit three videos about Zohran's plan to make New York more accessible. I was NEVER paid by the campaign, any PAC, or anyone around him. All three videos were completed before the primary,” Hovagim wrote in response to a Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) request for comment. He added that he had only been in contact with Mamdani's video team and not with the rest of the socialist mayor-elect's election campaign.
Mamdani's campaign did not respond to DCNF's request for comment.
“As a dude, I'm sorry that the CIA used the Uyghurs as a pawn to foment unrest. I feel sorry for the people of Taiwan, who overwhelmingly do not want to be independent, but have been caught in the crosshairs of America's brutal foreign policy. And I feel most sorry for the people of Tibet until they were recently liberated,” Hovagim said on YouTube. video published on September 22 under the title “Why I Left America Forever.” (RELATED: Chinese Communist Party Members Study on Campuses Near You)
Eric Hovagim was Zohran's campaign video editor.
He recently moved to China as an outspoken supporter of the Chinese Communist Party.
He publishes pro-China war reports and films a Uyghur restaurant in China, trying to say that there is no Uyghur oppression.
He claims… pic.twitter.com/OdLI4H3Pfz
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) November 16, 2025
He continued with the video, seemingly calling out the CCP's point of view. genocide against the Uighurs, as well as acts aggression against Tibet And Taiwanas “revisionist CIA propaganda that is only now getting its own Wikipedia pages.” The Uighurs are a Turkic people living in Chinese-occupied territory. East Turkestanrenamed by the CCP as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
“I believe that the Uyghurs and other Chinese minority groups in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region are victims of how the CIA spent decades of taxpayer money to fund violence in the Middle East. Xinjiang borders Afghanistan and Kashmir, two extremely unstable regions that have fallen victim to the murderous regimes of both America and Israel,” Hovagim told DCNF. “The CIA is openly involved in the opium trade in Afghanistan, effectively turning it into a drug regime right on the border with China. I am glad that China acted more peacefully and intelligently than the US after various terrorist attacks in the 90s and 2000s.”
“By calling the situation a genocide, we make a mockery of the actual genocides happening in places like Palestine with our tax dollars. Of course, all of this comes on the heels of the greatest cost of living crisis in US history, as we now prepare to invade Venezuela while the vast majority of young people in America will never be able to own their own homes,” the YouTuber added.
Hovagim responded in X's Saturday post to a more than 750-page report titled “Detention Facilities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” published by an account dedicated to “exposing the CCP's persecution of Uyghurs and minorities.”
Rather than present concrete evidence, this report uses drawings (!), Google Maps screenshots, and a few random images of Chinese police officers.
As an alternative, here's my friend Gerald, who was essentially thrown into prison without a fair trial in Louisiana 30 years ago. https://t.co/Q5dWX8oO1Q pic.twitter.com/3AIyn191QI
— Eric Hovagim (@EricHovagim) November 16, 2025
“Rather than presenting concrete evidence, this report uses drawings (!), Google Maps screenshots and a few random images of Chinese police officers,” the content creator wrote.
“Zohran's campaign will go down in the history books, but don't let them fool you. This was not just a master class in video production or social media, but rather a disciplined, generational campaign focused on affordability, the simple idea that New York is the best city in the world, but it's too damn expensive,” Hovagim said in a Nov. 4 statement. video entitled “How Zoran's Videos Won the Election.” (RELATED: 'Those Who Can Go, Will Go': Mamdani, 'The Hammer and Sickle Partner' in 'Rude Awakening,' Says Campaign Vet)
However, at the time of Mamdani's speech on November 4, the young content creator was no longer a New York resident, let alone a resident of the United States. victoryhis publication history shows.
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 12: New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani joins other politicians at the ribbon cutting ceremony at the new National Urban League headquarters in Harlem on November 12, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“It's official: I've left the United States. I caught the last helicopter of the great American century of humiliation,” Hovagim said in a video in September 2025, announcing his move to China.
“I've suffered enough from an oppressive two-party system. I wanted to find a place to call home, where I felt safe, where my income provided a decent living, and where I could feel motivated to get out of bed every day. Somewhere where everything seemed to be going in the right direction,” the YouTuber said in the video.
“I know what you're thinking: 'He's glassing China,' 'he's [Chinese President] Xi Jinping's number one foot soldier. – And the truth is that I would like it. That would be fucking disgusting,” Hovagim continued after a bizarre 13-second montage of Xi Jinping, marching Chinese soldiers, tanks and planes to rap music.
Eating Uyghur kebab in Shanghai with my friend Jim 🇨🇳 pic.twitter.com/e48xMAmDnx
— Eric Hovagim (@EricHovagim) November 1, 2025
“And I also hear what you're saying, Eric, in a couple of months, Comrade Mamdani is going to turn New York into the socialist caliphate you've been praying for. Why do you want to leave right now?” Hovagim added, pointing to a Mamdani campaign poster on his wall.
“I decided to cross the pond because I wanted a better life. The USA is ready,” Hovagim wrote in the description of the video. “It's likely to get worse over the next ten or two years as it becomes more violent and staggers like the dying empire that it is.”
In the same video, Hogavim said there is “no doubt” that most political violence in the US is “perpetrated by far-right extremists.” A few minutes earlier, he mentioned the events of September 10th. murder Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk as a “definite event.”
“But America is here because of our culture of economic development,” he continued, apparently referring to American free-market capitalism. “The way we have structured our economy encourages short-term individual gain rather than long-term collective progress. The United States as a project has no long-term vision. There is no unity among Americans because the very core of the nation is rotten.”
One way ticket to Zulag https://t.co/beezSSnEq1 pic.twitter.com/NF6hWLSVtk
— Eric Hovagim (@EricHovagim) November 2, 2025
Hovagim has only 35,000 subscribers. YouTubealmost 30,000 X followersand 15,500 Instagram followers. He currently works as both a full-time YouTube creator and a full-time freelance web developer, according to his LinkedIn profile, where his pronouns are listed as “he/him.” He graduated University of California at Berkeley College of Engineering in 2019, according to its LinkedIn.
Hovagim's LinkedIn page does not appear to mention his involvement in Mamdani's mayoral campaign.
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