Why N.Y.C. Business Leaders Fear Mamdani

Business’ Primary Day worries

Business leaders have plenty of global issues to worry about. But on Tuesday, another matter is hitting closer to home: the Democratic primary for New York City’s mayor.

The latest poll suggested that Andrew Cuomo could ultimately lose to Zohran Mamdani, an assemblyman and democratic socialist. Executives are concerned that could have negative potential consequences for the city.

Why executives fear Mamdani: While Cuomo carries baggage like his resignation as governor over a sexual harassment scandal, Mamdani is proposing ambitious and expensive ideas, like a rent freeze, free city buses and the creation of city-owned grocery stores.

How he could fund them is causing agita: raising the corporate tax rate and income taxes for the city’s millionaires by 2 percent. He also wants New York to borrow $70 billion over the next decade, on top of billions in additional planned debt-raising.

Cuomo has drawn support from a who’s who of the city’s business elite, including:

• Mike Bloomberg, who has given $8.3 million to a super PAC tied to Cuomo

• Republican-leaning executives like the financiers Bill Ackman (who called Mamdani “a dangerous and catastrophic choice”) and Dan Loeb, as well as John Catsimatidis, the supermarket mogul

• Wall Street deal makers such as Blair Effron, Steve Rattner and Antonio Weiss

• Alex Karp, the Palantir co-founder and C.E.O.

“Terror is the feeling,” Kathryn Wylde, the chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, which represents top business leaders, told Andrew on CNBC on Tuesday.

Mamdani opponents say businesses and top taxpayers will flee New York if he wins:

• “We may consider closing our supermarkets and selling the business,” Catsimatidis, who owns the Gristedes chain, told The Free Press.

• “I will never move from New York, but there’s a lot of other people that will and are leaving New York,” Neil Blumenthal, the co-founder and co-C.E.O. of the eyewear brand Warby Parker, also told The Free Press.

• Writing about wealthy elites criticizing Mamdani, Loeb wrote on X, “Another possibility is that they love New York and don’t want it to turn into a hellscape like San Francisco, Chicago or Portland.”

Mamdani says he doesn’t oppose private industry. He told The Times, for instance, that he now believes the private market has “a very important role” in housing construction.