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WHAT ZOHRAN MAMDANI NEEDS TO DO TO SUCCEED AS NEW YORK CITY’S MAYOR
 
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Peter Dreier
June 30, 2025
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_ Mamdani has one more big hurdle to overcome–a general election in
November. Pulling together a successful electoral coalition is
difficult, but forging a governing coalition to run the city is even
harder. As mayor, Mamdani will face major challenges _

Zohran Mamdani, New York City Democratic Mayoral Candidate, and
Letitia James, Attorney General of New York, take part in the 2025 NYC
Pride March on June 29, 2025 in New York City. , Photo credit: Agence
France-Presse (AFP) // Arab News

 

Zohran Mamdani ran a brilliant campaign for New York City mayor that
inspired a huge turnout, especially among young voters. The
33-year-old Mamdani, a state Assembly member from Queens and a
democratic socialist, defeated former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the
Democratic primary on June 24. The scion of a political dynasty, and
long considered the front-runner, Cuomo won only 36.4 percent of
first-round votes in the city's ranked-choice system, compared to
Mamdani's 43.5 percent. City Comptroller Brad Lander came in third
with 11.3 percent of the votes. As the two left-most candidates in a
very crowded field, Mamdani and Lander's 54.8 percent of the
first-round votes reflect a significant victory for progressives.

Mamdani was helped by endorsements from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
and Sen. Bernie Sanders. His campaign was also bolstered by a
cross-endorsement with Lander, including joint appearances in YouTube
ads and on Stephen Colbert's late-night show. Together, they
demonstrated how a Jew and a Muslim could join forces to stop Cuomo
from becoming the next mayor and advance a progressive vision for New
York City.

Cuomo initially benefited from much higher name recognition plus about
$25 million in donations from finance and real estate billionaires.
But Cuomo – who was forced to resign as governor in the wake of
widespread scandals, including accusations of sexual harassment and
lies about his efforts to contain the COVID pandemic – ran a
lackluster campaign that failed to inspire voters. In contrast,
Mamdani had many more individual donors, with over 20,000 people
giving an average of $62 each as of June 16. Mamdani rallied more than
40,000 volunteers to door-knock and phone-bank. His boisterous
campaign promoted a progressive platform augmented by a large social
media presence of clever ads. A charismatic speaker, he campaigned
everywhere, including precincts where he didn't expect to win many
votes, but wanted to demonstrate his commitment to being mayor for the
entire city.

Despite the celebration of his victory in the Democratic primary,
Mamdani has one more big hurdle to overcome – a general election in
November. The Wall Street banks and private equity firms, and the
city's powerful real estate industry (perhaps with support from their
counterparts around the country), as well as some other business
sectors, will try to defeat Mamdani by uniting behind another
candidate
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The scandal-plagued incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, did not run in the
Democratic primary, but will run as an independent. He cut a deal with
Trump to drop federal corruption charges in exchange for embracing the
president's crusade against immigrants. Trump may even endorse him,
although that could backfire. A few days after the election, Cuomo
announced that he, too, will run as an independent. So Cuomo and Adams
will be competing for business money and anti-Mamdani voters, which
will help Mamdani. So, too, will the presence of Republican candidate
Curtis Sliwa. He won't get many votes but whatever he gets he'll take
away from Adams and Cuomo.

A year ago, political observers predicted that most liberals and
progressives would unite behind Lander. No one has more experience
than him when it comes to knowing New York's municipal government
inside out. He has been the steadiest progressive voice in NYC
politics for over a decade, as a community organizer, affordable
housing developer, City Council member (and cofounder of its
Progressive Caucus), and comptroller (and thus incredibly
knowledgeable about city finances). Lander has been outspoken against
Trump's ICE raids and has been escorting immigrants out of the
courthouse to make sure they are not kidnapped by ICE. He  was
recently assaulted, handcuffed, and arrested for doing this.

But it was Mamdani's campaign that caught fire with young, progressive
voters of all races. Although most unions backed Cuomo, believing his
was a shoo-in, rank-and-file union members were less enthusiastic, and
enough unions, as well as New York's Working Families Party, endorsed
Mamdani to provide him with volunteers. Labor groups are likely to get
fully behind Mamdani in the general election. Mamdani also gained the
endorsement of New York's Democratic Socialists of America, whose
volunteers proved critical in the campaign's day-to-day operation.

Pulling together a successful electoral coalition is difficult, but
forging a governing coalition to run the city is even harder. As
mayor, Mamdani will face major challenges. Here is some unsolicited
advice for the next mayor of America's largest city.

FIRST, he'll have to deal with opposition from Wall Street, the real
estate industry, and the high-tech industry, among other business
sectors. Mamdani’s platform included both very pragmatic ideas and
some visionary ideas that will take time to gestate and gain wider
public support. He called for a freeze on rents in rent-stabilized
units (in which 2.4 million New Yorkers live), free buses,
municipally-owned grocery stores, and higher taxes on wealthy
residents and corporations as well as closing streets to cars,
lowering speed limits, and bringing back year-round outdoor dining.
Some business leaders have already accused him of being
“anti-business” and some have even threatened to leave New York
City.

Whenever reformers promote ideas to limit business’s untrammeled
power, their lobby groups warn that companies will lay off workers or
exit the city entirely. To carry out his progressive ideas, Mamdani
will need to hire people with substantive economic expertise to help
him evaluate when business’s threats are real and when they are
bluffing..

Fiorello La Guardia
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model for Mamdani. In his three terms (1933–1945) as mayor, during
the Depression and World War II, La Guardia ran an honest, efficient,
and progressive administration that helped lift the spirit and improve
the conditions of New York's polyglot working class. As mayor, La
Guardia earned a national reputation as a nonpartisan reformer
dedicated to civic improvement.

Even so, business groups constantly attacked him as an impractical
leftist. When La Guardia was president of the City Council (then
called the Board of Aldermen) he wanted the city to purchase
snow-removal equipment in advance of winter storms. Comptroller
Charles Craig said it was “the wildest kind of radical,
socialistic” idea. LaGuardia – a Republican who worked closely
with Democrats – went on to become New York's greatest mayor, but
conservatives continued to attack his bold but pragmatic proposals.

He once told the _New York Times_, "The worst part of the entire
matter is that when anyone raises a question about the existing order,
he is called either a reformer or a radical. It has been my lot to be
called the latter. Why? Only because I have consistently objected to
things which I believe unjust and dangerous." He didn't back down.
“If fighting against existing evils is radical,” he said, “I am
content with the name."

In 2012, when unions and low-wage workers pushed to raise the city's
minimum wage from $9 to $15 over three years, business lobby groups
warned that it would destroy New York's economy. Now we know, in
retrospect, that they were crying wolf. New Yorkers spent their higher
incomes in the local economy, boosting businesses. The current wage is
$16.50, lower than a number of other major cities. Mamdani has called
for increasing it incrementally to $30 by 2030.

Mamdani's slogan – “a city that everyone can afford” – and his
laser focus on inequality and the cost of living resonated with New
York voters. The richest 1 percent of New Yorkers increased their
share of the city's total income from 12 percent in 1980 to 36 percent
in 2022, according to an analysis
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by The New School's James Parrott. The median monthly rent for a
two-bedroom apartment in New York is now $5,500.

Mamdani will come up against many implacable figures within New
York’s business elite. Can he persuade some segment of them that the
current level of inequity is unsustainable? He may be able to win some
over by speaking language they can understand — like “shared
prosperity,” which is good for the city because it puts money in the
hands of workers and consumers, and which is preferable to growing
inequality and rampant gentrification. He should redefine a “healthy
business climate” as not just more profits for business but one
where prosperity is widely shared, lifting families out of poverty and
precarity, and rebuilding the city’s middle class. That means having
affordable housing, health care, food, child care, and public
transportation for all.

He should find enlightened business leaders – there are more than
one might think – who share his concerns over widening inequality
and who agree that stronger regulations, higher taxes, and more
affordable housing are needed for a healthy city. He could start by
getting some of the city's major business leaders to jointly push back
against Trump's use of federal stormtroopers to kidnap immigrants, who
are the lifeblood of much of NYC's economy, including tourism, health
care, construction, and domestic services. He should ask key
businesspeople to join him in opposing Trump’s tariffs, which are
already damaging the city’s core private industries.

 

SECOND, he should embrace “good government.” America's cities were
the cradle of progressivism from the late 1800s through the New Deal
and beyond. In response to the growing influence of robber barons and
corporations in the Gilded Age, activists forged a coalition of
immigrants, unionists, upper-class philanthropists and middle-class
reformers (journalists, settlement house workers, clergy and academics
among them) to improve living and working conditions in the burgeoning
cities.

The leaders elected by this coalition – such as Mayors Tom Johnson
of Cleveland (1901–09) and Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones of Toledo
(1897–1904) – worked to make factories and tenements safer;
improve public health and transportation; expand parks and
playgrounds; put limits on electricity and water rates and create
municipal utilities; enact taxes on wealthy property owners; and give
working people a greater voice in their society. Later progressive
mayors–including La Guardia, Milwaukee's Daniel Hoan (1916–40),
Bridgeport's Jasper McLevy (1933–57), Chicago's Harold Washington
(1983–87) and Boston's Ray Flynn (1984–93)–sided with workers in
labor battles and with communities in struggles against business
interests and developers.

Mamdani knows this history. Last year he spoke to WNYC radio host
Brian Lehrer about the many successes of the socialists who governed
in Milwaukee
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and elsewhere. (In 1912, about 1,200 socialists held public office in
340 cities). As he noted, they were often called "sewer socialists"
because they built parks, housing, schools, a municipal waste
facility, and other infrastructure that working class voters needed
and appreciated, and who kept re-electing the socialists from 1910
until 1960. They also ran a "clean" government that wasn't saddled
with corruption.

Like the Milwaukee socialists and La Guardia, Mamdani needs to
demonstrate that he can run a highly competent administration. His
most important task will be to make sure that he takes care of the
"civic housekeeping" functions of local government. As La Guardia once
said, “There is no Republican, no Democratic, no socialist way to
clean a street or build a sewer, but merely a right way and a wrong
way.”

Make sure that potholes and playground equipment get fixed, parks are
clean, and police and fire department response times are fast. At the
first sign of a major snowstorm, he should get on top of a plow. He
should make sure the buses and subways run on time and that riders
feel safe. If he can accomplish that, New Yorkers will give him the
room to address the social justice issues that he ran on.

To show his commitment to good government, he should be transparent
about his major goals and quantify them whenever possible. Issue
regular reports on the progress (or lack thereof) that the city is
making on such issues as crime trends, housing starts, potholes and
police response times. He should explain to New Yorkers which goals
will be the most difficult to achieve and why–whether it's due to
business opposition or lack of resources–and ask voters to help
overcome these obstacles. He should also identify a few things he
wants to accomplish each year for his first four-year term.

Mamdani clearly recognizes the importance of hiring top advisors and
department heads with experience in city government, state government
(to help with inter-governmental relations with Albany), business,
unions, and community organizing and nonprofit work. Like Lincoln and
FDR, he'll need top advisors with diverse views to help sort out what
paths to take to achieve his progressive goals. Many New Yorkers hope
he will appoint Lander as First Deputy Mayor and draw upon his policy
expertise, financial acumen, ties to community activists, and
knowledge of city government. Given how closely the two of them
campaigned together, this seems likely.

One of his most important decisions will be whether to reappoint
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to address New Yorkers' concerns
about both public safety in their neighborhoods and racial profiling
and excessive use of force by police. He has called for a new
Department of Community Safety
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separate from the Police Department, to respond to people having
mental health crises and to free up “police resources to increase
clearance rates for major crimes.” He called for a new agency to
focus on hate crimes. Unless he can develop a working relationship
with the police and their union, they could try to thwart his plans.

 

THIRD, Mamdani will have to deal with NYC's fiscal challenges and its
reliance on New York State for much of its funding (including the
subway) as well as legislative authority (such as rent control and
taxes). He'll need to work closely with the Democrats in the state
legislature and with Gov. Kathy Hochul, a liberal but not a
progressive. Solving the city's fiscal needs will be particularly
problematic if Trump and the Republicans in Congress pass some version
of the so-called "big beautiful bill" that will slash federal funding
for many essential services in order to give tax cuts to the
super-rich.

So it will be important for Mamdani to consistently explain to voters
that there are some things cities can't do on their own because they
require state or federal permission or funds.

Mamdani will need to build political bridges to the suburbs and New
York State's other major cities. Many New York City suburbs are really
cities with similar problems. He can forge coalitions around a
state-level legislative agenda on taxes and funding for essential
services, housing, and child care.

He can also use his national platform as mayor of America's largest
city to build coalitions with other urban mayors around a federal
agenda that lays the groundwork for a post-Trump era and a
revitalization of an urban or metropolitan policy agenda. Through the
U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities, America's
mayors can demand that Congress provide more funds for housing and
job-creating infrastructure, strengthen regulations against predatory
banks, adopt a federal law mandating paid sick days, expand federal
funding for child care and schools, and enlist mayors to adopt a truce
to end the “bidding wars” that use scarce subsidies and local tax
breaks to pit cities and states against each other to attract business
investment, as Amazon did with New York a few years ago.

FOURTH, Although Mamdani will be the mayor, he will need to think like
an organizer. Each major policy issue requires a campaign–with a
core base, allies and opposition targets (such as rent-gouging
landlords and predatory banks). He can't win these fights without
grassroots support and mobilization.

He should embrace the “inside/outside” tension that comes from
being a progressive in City Hall. Encourage grassroots groups to lobby
and protest when necessary to push major banks, employers, hospitals,
nursing homes, landlords, developers and others to act responsibly.
Occasionally, he'll be the target of protest. He'll need to develop a
thick skin.

He can encourage progressives and liberals to find common ground
around a four- and eight-year issue agenda so that different
constituencies aren't constantly competing to make their particular
issue his top priority. Hopefully the progressive members of the NY
City Council will do the same to help Mamdani be a successful mayor.

Toward that goal, he should urge the big New York-based foundations to
expand their funding and nurture a community-oriented infrastructure
that can fight for a progressive agenda around housing, education,
immigrant rights, and environmental and economic justice issues.

He will have to figure out how to work with the city's sometimes
fractious progressive movement that includes many organizations and
leaders, all with their own agendas. The public and private sectors
unions, the community organizing groups, environmental activists,
tenants' rights advocates, nonprofit housing developers, school
reformers, civil rights and civil liberties groups, and others will
also have to learn how to play the "inside/outside" game at a time
when the stakes couldn't be higher. They will of course want to hold
Mamdani accountable for the things he promised, but they need to have
the patience and strategic understanding that significant policy
changes take time, have to be prioritized, and often require
compromise. They need to recognize that “compromise” is not the
same thing as “selling out.” Compromises are good when they lead
to stepping-stone reforms that push things in the right direction and
lay the foundation for further change.

This is particularly important for Democratic Socialists of America, a
small but active part of Mamdani's base. DSA's national leadership,
and some of its chapters, have been justifiably criticized for their
ultra-leftism and indifference to practical politics. But many
rank-and-file DSA chapters
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including New York City, have learned to operate in coalitions with a
variety of community organizing, labor, and environmental groups and
to work within the Democratic Party to elect progressive candidates,
including those who don't call themselves socialists. As they
demonstrated in AOC's Congressional campaigns, New York DSAers working
for Mamdani were well-organized, disciplined, and strategic. Now they
need discipline and strategic smarts to avoid publicly criticizing him
every time he has to make compromises (including with the City Council
or state legislature) in order to get things accomplished to improve
daily life in New York City.

In these difficult times, it is uplifting to have a major progressive
victory that can inspire people with hope and help build the movement
both _against _Trump and_ for_ a progressive future. Like Sanders and
AOC, Mamdani is a brilliant communicator who is able to translate
progressive values into everyday language.

Mamdani will have to figure out how to convince Democratic Party
leaders, including Congressional leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem
Jeffries, both New Yorkers, to support him rather than fight him
incessantly — something far from guaranteed, given both of their
repeated antagonizing the Left. At the same time, progressives should
accept the reality that some Democrats running in swing Congressional
districts and states will want to put some distance between themselves
and Mamdani’s views.

Not all Democrats can win elections if they call themselves
progressives, much less socialists. Trump and the Republican Party
understand this and they will try to use Mamdani's victory to brand
all Democrats as dangerous socialists. Like AOC, Mamdani will become a
lightning rod for Republicans seeking to defeat Democrats in swing
House districts next year.The day after Mamdani clinched the primary,
Trump went on a temper tantrum on his Truth Social platform, calling
Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic."

One of Mamdani's most important accomplishments could be to restore
faith of young voters in the potential of electoral politics, the
Democratic Party, and the role of government in addressing Americans'
real needs. Hopefully, his victory will inspire liberals and
progressives around the country to volunteer for next year’s midterm
elections. There are at least 40 “swing” races that could shift
the House from a Republican to a Democratic majority, perhaps by as
much as a 20+ district margin. If the Democrats can hold onto their
current Senate seats and win four potentially battleground races
(Maine, North Carolina, Iowa, and Ohio), they will have a 51-49
majority.

A Democratic Senate majority can stop Trump’s judicial appointments.
A Democratic House majority can veto his budget and other proposals,
reign in his abuse and politicization of the military and federal law
enforcement (particularly against immigrants), and hold hearings and
conduct investigations about his corruption. A Democratic majority in
either house can neutralize Trump and lay the groundwork for
Democratic victories, including the White House in 2028, and thus
promote a progressive pro-urban federal agenda to make Mamdani’s
job, and the lives of all New Yorkers, easier.

Much is riding on how Mamdani leads New York City. If he is a
successful mayor, he will do more than transform the lives of working
class New Yorkers – he can inspire more young activists to run for
office, from school board to state legislature to Congress (a trend
that is already underway) and replace the Democrats’ gerontocracy.
He will also help move the Democratic Party away from the corporate
wing that has dominated it in recent decades toward a progressive
party that puts people first.

 

_[PETER DREIER is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics
and founding chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at
Occidental College. For eight years he served as a deputy to Boston's
Mayor Ray Flynn. He is the author or coauthor of several books on
urban politics and policy, including The Next Los Angeles: The
Struggle for a Livable City and Place Matters: Metropolitics for the
21st Century, a 4th edition of which will be published in 2026. A
version of this article appeared in Jacobin on June 30, 2025.]_

* Zohran Mamdani
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* New York City
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* Electoral Politics
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* Left Electoral Strategy
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* electoral coalition
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* governing coalition
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* Brad Lander
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* social media
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* African American communities
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* Hispanic communities
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* Muslim community
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* Asian community
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* Jewish community
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* multi-national working class
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* Labor Unions
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* Labor political action
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* Eric Adams
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* Andrew Cuomo
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* Curtis Sliwa
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