Mamdani still has to win the general election in November to take office. The Republican nominee is Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who is not expected to be a threat in the heavily Democratic city. Mayor Eric Adams is running as an independent, but polling indicates he has not been able to overcome his various scandals and his connections with the Trump administration. Cuomo may run as a third-party candidate, but after the polls closed on Tuesday he signaled to reporters that he knew his moment had passed. "I said I wanted to look at the numbers and the ranked-choice voting to decide about what to do in the future, because I'm also on an independent line," he told the New York Times.
Which leaves Mamdani in the driver’s seat heading into the fall.
“In the words of Nelson Mandela, it always seems impossible until it is done,” Mamdani said on election night. “My friends, we have done it.”
Mamdani's victory has made progressives jubilant. “This is a realignment election in the city and perhaps one of the most significant victories by an unabashedly left-wing candidate in the history of the U.S.,” columnist Ross Barkan wrote in New York magazine.
It’s also welcome news for Republicans, who see Mamdani — who would be the city’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor — as a useful foil. The National Republican Congressional Committee has already declared him to be the “new face of the Democrat Party.”
Mamdani’s win runs counter to some recent trends, with Democrats generally talking tougher on crime and shifting to the center in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential victory last fall. Some cities such as Pittsburgh and San Francisco have recently ousted progressive mayors of color in favor of more moderate white candidates.
Assuming that Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York, how does he intend to govern?
Free Services, Higher Taxes
Mamdani ran a campaign centered on a single word: affordability. New York has always been an expensive city, but the cost of housing and other necessities has spiraled beyond the easy reach of many residents.
Mamdani wants to freeze rent for the 2 million New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized apartments. He intends to provide free child care throughout the city, as well as free bus service. Mamdani believes the city should build 200,000 housing units over the next decade and he’s embraced the idea of the city running and owning grocery stores to service food deserts.
He’d pay for all this by increasing taxes on millionaires and businesses to the tune of $10 billion.
This has business leaders more than a little nervous. But Mamdani — who carried Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn on Tuesday — prevailed in many of the city’s most affluent enclaves, including the Financial District, Midtown Manhattan and Park Slope.
Progressive but Pragmatic?
It’s worth noting that some of Mamdani’s ideas have been field-tested in Chicago by Mayor Brandon Johnson — taxing the rich to pay for housing, free bus service for some residents and publicly owned grocery stores.
Most of Johnson’s major policy proposals have fallen flat — none have happened and voters explicitly rejected his mansion tax, which would have increased property taxes for expensive homes. His approval rating in a poll this month showed him at 26 percent — a low number but a big improvement from his Chicago-record low of 14 percent earlier in the year.
“Want to know how a socialist mayor would govern New York City? Ask Chicago,” the Chicago Tribune suggested in a blistering editorial at the start of the week.
Mamdani is not yet mayor and there’s no telling, once in office, how much of his agenda he’ll be able to get through the City Council. On some issues he has slightly softened his rhetoric — including on criticism of Israel and policing.
He continues to express support for transgender health care and opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations. His public safety plan calls for expansion of violence prevention and mental health programs, as opposed to beefing up the police.
He’s also adopted some of the language currently used by more centrist Democrats. During a podcast interview this week, he emphasized his recognition that government needs to accomplish things, not make false promises that aren’t carried out due to excessive concerns about process and regulation.
“I clearly have ideas and politics but ultimately beyond all of those things, I care about outcomes,” Mamdani said. “The way that I would approach running the city is to be wedded to outcomes, not wedded to the means by which we get to those outcomes.”
