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ZOHRAN MAMDANI ON USING GOVERNMENT TO FIGHT FOR THE MANY  
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Zohran Mamdani
April 13, 2026
Jacobin [[link removed]]

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_ In a speech marking his first 100 days as New York City mayor,
Zohran Mamdani describes his administration’s accomplishments so far
and champions “pothole politics,” a 21st-century version of
Milwaukee’s proud tradition of sewer socialism. _

“With what we’ve accomplished in 14 weeks, imagine what we can do
together in four years,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.Credit...,
Angelina Katsanis for The New York Times

 

_On Sunday, April 12, Zohran Mamdani delivered a speech reflecting on
his first one hundred days as New York City’s mayor. Jacobin
reprints his remarks here._

It is a Sunday night in New York City. And while some prepare for the
week ahead, for many, the workday has only just begun.

Tonight, in the northern reaches of the Bronx, an MTA train operator
is guiding a 2 train out of Wakefield. Before that train reaches its
final stop in Flatbush, it will drop off New York City Health and
Hospitals nurses at 135th Street, NYCHA (New York City Housing
Authority) maintenance workers at 96th Street, CUNY staff at Franklin
Avenue–Medgar Evers College. From the Power Control Center at 53rd
Street, engineers will manage its path through a vast network of
signals. And at every stop, at every hour of the night, the people of
New York City will get off the subway and go to work.

This city does not run by accident. New York City is the greatest city
in the world because of the millions of people who labor tirelessly
each and every day to make it so. What an immense honor it is to be
your mayor. To not simply lead you, but to learn from you.

One hundred two days ago, we stood together on the steps of city hall,
bracing ourselves against the bitter cold. One hundred two days ago,
we stood together at the dawn of a new era. The world watched,
wondering if change could really come. Across the five boroughs, New
Yorkers waited to see if a city hall powered by the people could truly
govern for the people.

There were cynics then, just as there are cynics now. Some said that
once the hard work began, we would forget the movement of working
people that rewrote what was possible in this city. Others warned that
the Left could debate but could never deliver. Socialists might be
able to win a campaign, they said, but we could never advance an
agenda.

Far more wanted to believe but didn’t know how. Because for too
long, city hall had not just failed to meet expectations, it had
lowered them. After years of broken promises, no one in this city
could be blamed for doubting that government held either the ability
or the ambition to upend the status quo.

Yet as I said on that freezing January afternoon to more than eight
and a half million New Yorkers, we will make no apology for what we
believe. I was elected as a democratic socialist and I will govern as
a democratic socialist.

 

ONE HUNDRED DAYS IN

Tonight I want to talk about what we’ve done. Not to congratulate
ourselves but as a reminder of what is possible. With what we’ve
accomplished in fourteen weeks, imagine what we can do together in
four years.

We began with a promise, universal childcare, and by day eight, we
delivered it. Thanks to the historic $1.2 billion partnership with
Governor Kathy Hochul and the organizing of more than a hundred
thousand New Yorkers during the campaign, we will not only make 3-K
truly universal, we will deliver free child care for two-year-olds for
the first time in New York City history. We will begin with 2,000
children this fall, 12,000 next year, and cover every single
two-year-old by the end of four years. Tens of thousands of families
will no longer have to choose between having a child and affording to
live in our city. That is the change government can deliver.

When young parents save more than $20,000 per year per child, that is
the change government can deliver. When children get a better start,
when parents can keep their jobs, when billions of dollars in
workforce productivity return to our economy, that is the change
government can deliver.

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Zohran Mamdani will deliver free child care for two-year-olds for the
first time in New York City history. (Jason Alpert-Wisnia / Hans Lucas
/ AFP via Getty Images)

And we didn’t stop there. We’re taking on the biggest driver of
the affordability crisis in our city: housing. We are going after the
bad landlords who violate our laws and mistreat their tenants. Since
January 1, we have won more than $34 million in settlements,
judgments, and repairs for tenants, delivered improvements to 6,070
apartments so far and issued 195,829 violations.

New York City will no longer tolerate exploitation as a business
model. We have held Rental Ripoff Hearings across the five boroughs
and heard from more than 1,600 New Yorkers. Because the same tenants
who have been overlooked by our politics will now be at the heart of
our policies.

As we protect the tenants of today, we must also build for tomorrow.
That is why we have cut red tape and accelerated the construction of
thousands of new units of housing: homes that are not only affordable
enough to rent, but many that will be affordable enough to buy as
well.

I know there are many New Yorkers who care about the work of the Rent
Guidelines Board. I am one of them. Rents are too high across New York
City, and government can do more to address that. I am proud of the
six new members I appointed to that independent board, and I look
forward to the decision they will come to in just a few short months.

No longer will city government be afraid of its own shadow. If anyone
should be afraid, it is those who take advantage of working people.
Over these past 102 days, as we launched a sweeping worker and
consumer protection agenda, we have made clear that solidarity is not
just a slogan. It is a practice. When NYSNA (New York State Nurses
Association) nurses went on strike, I was proud to join them on the
picket line. And those nurses didn’t back down until they won the
better wages and safe working conditions they deserved.

We will stand with workers who have so often stood alone. We have
returned more than $9.3 million to workers, consumers, and small
businesses — nearly $100,000 every single day we’ve been in
office. We’ve expanded protected time off for more than four million
workers, reinstated nearly 10,000 wrongly deactivated delivery workers
and issued nearly 60,000 compliance warnings across our city. And
throughout it all, we have taken on the junk fees and subscription
traps that afflict far too many New Yorkers. No longer can someone
charge you a hidden fee for the hotel you book or make it impossible
to cancel a gym membership.

As we set the global standard for protecting consumers, we will also
ensure that New York City remains the global center of business. We
want to build the strongest economy that our five boroughs have ever
seen. And we are on our way. New York City continues to lead office
recovery nationwide. Venture capital investment in our city reached
11.1 billion in the first quarter of this year, the strongest quarter
in five years. Labor force participation is at an all-time high.

New York City will no longer tolerate exploitation as a business
model.

And yet we know that if we want our city to continue to grow, we must
deliver the conditions for exactly that. Public safety is at the top
of the list. Make no mistake, our approach to public safety is
working. Since we took office, murders have hit record lows. There has
not been a murder on Staten Island in more than 180 days. Crime in our
city is down. The NYPD has taken more than one thousand guns off of
our streets since January 1. Together with the crisis management
system, we are on pace to deliver the lowest levels of shootings in
our city’s recorded history.

There is always more to be done. Our administration will approach
public safety with a whole-of-government approach. That is why on day
78, we were proud to announce the creation of New York City’s first
ever Office of Community Safety. It will devise new approaches to the
gun violence and mental health crises that stretch across our city.

This commitment to safety extends to making our city safer and
smoother for the New Yorkers who navigate our streets. On the third
day of our administration, we announced that we would install
protected bike lanes along the entirety of McGuinness Boulevard, one
of the most dangerous roads in New York City, protecting the thousands
of New Yorkers who use it every single day. We took action to lower
speed limits across thousands of school zones citywide. Four hundred
thirty-eight children have been killed in traffic crashes in our city
since 2000 — we will not accept this as normal. And as we prepare
for the World Cup, we are delivering major street upgrades, including
a redesign of 9th Avenue and expanded bike lanes and pedestrian spaces
across Downtown Manhattan.

Throughout every day of this work, we have contended with a historic
budget deficit larger than even that of the Great Recession. Unlike
those who came before us, we will budget with transparency and
accountability. As we have responded to this crisis, I have thought
often of the Margaret Thatcher quote, “The problem with socialism is
that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” If anything,
it seems that you eventually need a socialist to clean up the mess.

On January 1, I told New Yorkers that city hall would hold a singular
purpose: to make this city belong to more of its people than it did
the day before. For 102 days, we have endeavored to do exactly that,
delivering both public goods and public excellence. Buses will run
faster on Fordham Road. Children play in a new recreation center in
East Flatbush, honoring the legacy of Shirley Chisholm. Childcare
centers are opening in Western Queens and Staten Island and the South
Bronx.

That is the change that government can deliver, and it is the change
that democratic socialism can deliver.

I know there are many who use “socialist” as a dirty word,
something to be ashamed of. They can try all they want, but we will
not be ashamed of using government to fight for the many, not simply
the few. We will not be ashamed of adding more heat pumps to NYCHA
buildings in the Rockaways or building more supportive housing in
Harlem or standing steadfast alongside our trans neighbors. We will
not be ashamed of investing in youth mental health clinics or working
to close Rikers or fighting for immigrants targeted by ICE
(Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

To any New Yorker, whether you’re under attack from the federal
government’s cruelty or suffocating under the affordability crisis,
we will stand beside you. Because government is a series of choices.
And socialism is the choice to fight for every New Yorker — to
extend democracy from the ballot box to the rest of our lives.

SEWER SOCIALISM AND POTHOLE POLITICS

We are hardly the first socialists to embrace good governance. One
hundred ten years ago, the city of Milwaukee elected a mayor named
Daniel Webster Hoan. Hoan was considered young for the job, only
thirty-five years old when he took office. Crazy, right?

More important, Hoan made no apologies for being a socialist. Mayor
Hoan knew then what we know now. The worth of an ideology can only be
judged by its delivery. As Emil Seidel, the socialist mayor who came
before Hoan once said, their “entire governing philosophy was
simple. Go after it and get it.”

Under Mayor Hoan, Milwaukee built the greatest public park system in
the nation and weathered the Great Depression better than almost any
other American city. Under Mayor Hoan, Milwaukee purged corruption and
graft, built the first municipally sponsored public housing
development in the nation, and transformed the city’s sewage
disposal system. He believed, just as we do, that to deliver this
great society, we should tax the rich.

I know there are many who use ‘socialist’ as a dirty word,
something to be ashamed of. We will not be ashamed of using government
to fight for the many, not simply the few.

Today we know these leaders as the sewer socialists. But for years,
Milwaukeeans knew them simply as leaders who delivered. It’s time we
bring that to New York City.

There is no problem too big, no task too small. Universal childcare
was a problem deemed too big to take on. Standing up for workers
against corporations was a problem too big to take on. Building more
homes, lowering crime to historic levels, and defending tenants
against bad landlords — these were problems too big to take on.

But here’s the truth: nothing is too big for New York City to take
on. And over the past fourteen weeks, we have proved that there is no
task too small either. Because if government can’t do the small
things, how could you ever trust it to do the big ones? How can we
promise to transform our city if we can’t pave your street?

That’s why, since January 1, New York City has filled more than
102,000 potholes, including 22,800 in just three days alone. From
Pelham to Tompkinsville, Bay Ridge to Inwood, city workers have fixed
roads at a rate not seen in more than a decade. They filled them as
the sun came up. They filled them at midnight. They filled them at all
hours of the day.

That’s not all. By the end of this fiscal year, the Department of
Transportation will repave 1,150 miles of our streets — enough to
stretch from New York City to Miami.

This is pothole politics, our 2026 answer to sewer socialism, where
government is not too busy, not too self-important, not too mired in
paperwork to fix the problems of this city, no matter their size.

On day six, when we paved the bump at the base of the Williamsburg
Bridge, that was pothole politics. On day sixty-five, when we rolled
out our plan to take down thousands of feet of scaffolding that have
darkened city streets for years, that was pothole politics. On day
ninety, when we announced more than $100 million to replace and
modernize more than 6,700 catch basins, that, too, was pothole
politics. Honestly, that one might have been sewer socialism.

And when our city was blanketed by winter storms, when mountains of
snow piled up on our streets, we brought pothole politics to emergency
response. Sanitation workers melted 783 million pounds of snow, spread
one billion pounds of salt, and cleared 135,000 crosswalks, 34,000 bus
stops, and 29,000 fire hydrants.

We will lower costs, repave the road, shovel snow from the street, and
return dignity to working people’s lives. And to the cynics, you
know what? We’re going to fill your potholes too. Because when
socialists make promises, we go after it and get it.

PROVING GOVERNMENT WORTHY

So, let us look forward to the next promises we will keep. This
evening, I am proud to make three transformative announcements.

First, we’re going to make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on
the table. Since the pandemic, grocery prices have gone up, and they
haven’t come back down. We feel it every single time we go to the
store. Between 2013 and 2023, grocery prices increased in New York
City by nearly 66 percent, significantly higher than the national
average.

During our campaign, we promised New Yorkers that we would create a
network of five city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough. Today
we make good on that promise. I am proud to announce that we will open
every single one of these stores by the end of our first term. And the
first one will open next year. Stores where prices are fair, where
workers are treated with dignity, and where New Yorkers can actually
afford to shop. At our stores, eggs will be cheaper, bread will be
cheaper. Grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation.

[[link removed]]Mamdani
using a spade to fill the Williamsburg Bridge bump. (Adam Gray /
Bloomberg via Getty Images)

One of those stores will be at La Marqueta in El Barrio, the same
market that Fiorello La Guardia opened in 1936, so working people then
could save money on fruits and vegetables. We will continue his
legacy. We are building a brand-new store on city-owned land currently
sitting empty in East Harlem, a neighborhood where nearly 40 percent
of households received public assistance or SNAP in the past year.

Now, some will insist that city-owned businesses do not work, that
government cannot keep up with corporations. My answer to them is
simple. I look forward to the competition. May the most affordable
grocery store win.

When I think of the change that government can deliver, I think, too,
of the leadership of Mayor Bernie Sanders of Burlington, Vermont.
Bernie’s eight years as mayor were defined by a tireless commitment
to improving his city. He fixed a crumbling downtown. He delivered
city services equally, not just to the wealthier areas. And he used a
budget surplus to repair streets.

The sewer socialists used government to build a better Milwaukee.
Bernie Sanders used government to build a better Burlington. We will
use government to build a better New York City.

That, my friends, is pothole politics. And we will pursue it as we
tackle one of the most persistent challenges that faces our city —
one that affects every New Yorker, no matter where they live. The same
word that many correctly use to describe my jump shot: trash.

Trash bags clutter our streets and our sidewalks; rats and vermin
never have to look far for their next meal. In the wealthiest city, in
the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, no one should have
to live surrounded by garbage.

And for a brief moment, it seemed like we wouldn’t. In 2024, voters
overwhelmingly supported moving forward with trash containerization.
Empire Bins were rolled out in Harlem. They were promised in Brooklyn.

And then, as so many New Yorkers have come to expect from government,
the momentum stalled. No date was given by which it would be
completed. No funds set aside to make it real. The promise was empty.
The only thing that should be empty in New York City are our sidewalks
of trash.

So we are going to put a lid on it. Tonight I am proud to announce
that we are launching an ambitious campaign of trash containerization
across the five boroughs. We will containerize all trash at all
residential properties. There will be at least one fully containerized
community district in each burrow by the end of next year. We will
begin aggressively rolling out new containers to store that trash and
new trucks to pick it up, and we will accomplish full citywide
containerization by the end of 2031.

New Yorkers deserve a government that does not shy away from the daily
challenges we face, one that tackles the issues before us. That
commitment to delivering change is what guides the third and final
announcement I am so proud to make tonight: we will speed up buses for
more than one million New Yorkers across New York City.

We will lower costs, repave the road, shovel snow from the street, and
return dignity to working people’s lives.

Already over these first 102 days, we have delivered for hundreds of
thousands of bus riders. We kicked off street redesign projects on
Madison Avenue in Manhattan, on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, and we
improved crosstown bus service in the Bronx — because, yes, even
Yankees fans deserve better public transit.

But in a city where every minute counts, where time is money, it is
unacceptable that some buses run as slow as five miles an hour. That
is why on the campaign I promised to make buses faster. And it’s why
tonight I am so excited to share that we will cut down commutes by up
to six minutes each way. Six minutes is a lot of time. It’s enough
to spend a little longer at breakfast with your family, take a shower
before work, or listen to the seminal classic “4 Minutes” by
Madonna featuring Justin Timberlake and Timbaland one and a half
times.

Together with Governor Hochul, we will speed up buses by up to 20
percent along forty-five priority corridors. We will significantly
increase the number of bus stops that are fully accessible. We will
construct new, world-class rapid bus routes for a hundred thousand New
Yorkers who live more than a half mile away from a subway or rail
stop.

When we talk about who rides the bus, we are talking about New Yorkers
who have too often been overlooked in our politics: disproportionately
working-class, black, brown, outer-borough riders. The very New
Yorkers who have been told to make do riding the slowest buses in
America. No longer.

This will be led by a partnership between the Department of
Transportation and the MTA, the first of its kind in a decade.
Government will work together to work better for New Yorkers. We made
a promise to New Yorkers to make buses fast and free. Tonight, we’re
delivering the fast, and we’re excited to keep working with Albany
to deliver the free.

When I began speaking tonight, a 2 train had just set out on a
three-borough journey from Wakefield 241st Street. It rattled through
the Bronx, racing the setting sun. Beneath the steel tracks, street
vendors sold _birria_ and _fuchka_. Students did homework on their
stoop, and taxi drivers picked up passengers.

That train went underground beneath the Harlem River. Overhead, city
workers piloted ferries and tugboats riding the waves. It sped below
churches where the sound of neighbors singing in a single voice had
echoed only a few hours prior.

Now, as we stand together, it is arriving at 125th Street. The New
Yorkers on that train are thinking not of the many worlds they just
rode through or the miracle that is New York City. They are thinking
about whether they will make rent by the first of the month, whether
they’ll have enough to ever buy a home, whether they can raise a
family in the city that they love. And they’re thinking about
whether their train will arrive on time, whether government will
provide the services it has promised.

For too long, as New Yorkers have asked these questions, city hall has
not raised its hand to help. The people of our city have been left to
fend for themselves. We hold a mighty responsibility not just to
govern with honesty and integrity, not just to deliver relentless
improvement. We have the responsibility of proving that government is
worthy of the people it serves.

Our best days lie before us. New York, the work is there to be done
together. Let’s go after it and get it.

* Zohran Mamdani
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* First 100 Days
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