Zohran Mamdani

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      Can Democratic socialists get Zohran Mamdani across the finish line?

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      Was it his charisma, communication skills or his captivating short-form videos? His high-profile endorsements or his clothing style? These elements were said to have contributed to Zohran Mamdani’s record-setting success in New York’s June mayoral primary.But another major factor in his win may have been his ties to the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).Known for its endorsement of the Vermont independent senator and socialist Bernie Sanders’s run for president, as well its role in electing the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the group has re-energized US left political movements in recent years, even while eliciting critique and fear from conservatives and some Democrats.In Mamdani’s campaign, a stunning 60,000 volunteers knocked on 1.6m doors across New York City, home to 3.6m housing units. The effort reportedly led to conversations with a quarter of all New Yorkers who voted in the primary.Though the campaign has not yet released data showing how many of those volunteers were mobilized by NYC-DSA itself, Gustavo Gordillo, a co-chair of the chapter, says his organization turned out thousands. Though other organizations, such as the grassroots political group Drum Beats, also brought out volunteers, he said the chapter had an “unparalleled field operation in New York City”.“New York City DSA formed the heart of the field team,” he said.But the road ahead for Mamdani, who is a state assemblymember, may still be bumpy. Mainstream Democrats have been slow to embrace the democratic socialist, who ran on universalist material policies like a rent freeze and fast and free buses.In the past, centrists and conservatives have defeated DSA primary winners in elections that looked eminently winnable, such as India Walton in the 2021 Buffalo mayoral race. And rightwingers have already launched heavy smear campaigns against Mamdani, with polls showing the race could be tight. Fellow Democrat and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, whom Mamdani defeated, switched to an independent party run just to stay in the game, and incumbent Eric Adams is vying to keep his seat.The Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, a centrist, said: “Mamdani’s primary victory in the nation’s cultural financial and media capital is the greatest challenge faced by traditional Democrats in more than 50 years.“The future for the Democrats is unclear,” he said.Asked if mainstream Democrats should embrace the young socialist, he said much of the base the party needs to energize to win elections in New York and elsewhere is moving to the right, and “will not accept” a socialist.View image in fullscreenEven so, NYC-DSA says it is ready for the battle, and if Mamdani wins, it could catapult the group from the sidelines to the center of the party.“The opposition is in total disarray right now [and] their fragmentation is only going to be a source of weakness,” said Gordillo. “We’re ready to mount an offensive campaign that replays a lot of what succeeded in the primary with the army that we’ve amassed.”Electing socialistsWhen formed in 1982, DSA had 6,000 members nationwide; that number grew modestly over the next 25 years. Then, in the mid-2010s, in the wake of democratic socialist Sanders’s run for president – and Donald Trump’s subsequent 2016 presidential victory – membership began to soar.Today, DSA boasts 80,000 members who oppose capitalism and advocate for the public ownership and democratic control of key sectors and resources such as healthcare, and the shift of power to workers from corporations.Though socialism was once a dirty word in the US, especially after crackdowns on socialists and communists in the 1950s, more than half of young Americans hold a positive view of it today, according to the rightwing Cato Institute thinktank.Though DSA factions have often sparred over the role elections and endorsements should play in the movement, the group has increasingly entered the sphere in recent years. The national group is supporting candidates in municipal elections from Ithaca, New York, to Atlanta, Georgia, with local chapters backing additional candidates in Boston’s mayoral race, council runs in Richmond, California, Detroit, Michigan, and others. In Minneapolis, a DSA-backed mayoral candidate, state senator Omar Fateh won his primary this month, ; unlike Mamdani, Fateh has also won endorsement from local party officials.View image in fullscreenThe New York City chapter, now home to 10,000 members, began prioritizing elections in 2017, creating an electoral working group. Since then, it has secured two New York City council seats and six New York state assembly seats, including Mamdani’s, which he has held since 2020. Another 250-plus DSA-backed officials hold office nationwide, including progressive “Squad” democrats in Congress: Rashida Tlaib and Greg Casar, and Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson.NYC-DSA employs a methodical volunteer model for each of its endorsed candidates. It has also been highly selective about who it chooses to support.“You have to go speak to multiple branches of the chapter, talk to the electoral working group, go through multiple rounds of votes within DSA,” said the DSA-backed New York state senator Jabari Brisport, who represents a Brooklyn district.The robust endorsement pays off, Brisport said. “When you’re running with a DSA endorsement, you really have a whole operation of dedicated volunteers who want to advance socialism,” he said. “They help with everything from field organizing to comms to fundraising.”For NYC-DSA, electoral campaigns are not only focused on single candidates but also on building support for their movement, said Phara Souffrant Forrest, another DSA state assemblymember from Brooklyn.“When DSA campaigns for a candidate … we’re organizing their district around shared values like housing justice, healthcare for all and workers’ rights,” she said.The chapter does not use paid canvassers, though Mamdani’s campaign hired roughly 50 for specialized outreach.“Our main asset, which money can never buy, are volunteers who are passionate, who feel ownership over a campaign because the win would be personal for them,” said Sarahana Shrestha, a DSA assemblymember representing a south-eastern New York district.Her campaign brought in many voters who had otherwise “given up on electoral politics”, she said. DSA members appeared to do the same in the mayoral primary, mobilizing thousands of new voters.‘Cadre candidates’Some DSA endorsees – such as Ocasio-Cortez, who the group supported in her 2018 campaign – receive DSA backing upon request once they have launched their campaigns. Others, like Mamdani, are “cadre candidates” who have strong pre-existing ties to the organization and are recruited by and from the chapter.Since joining NYC-DSA in 2017, Mamdani has been deeply involved with the organization, helping lead other electoral campaigns and working closely with the chapter on his successful 2020 assembly run.View image in fullscreenOnce in office, Mamdani became an integral part of NYC-DSA’s socialists in office committee, designed to facilitate chapter communications with elected socialists. Today, many of his staffers are chapter leaders. And when launching his mayoral campaign, “he said that he would not run at all if he did not receive our endorsement,” the NYC-DSA organizer Michael Thomas Carter wrote in Drop Site News.“While the coalition that coalesced around his campaign was much broader than NYC-DSA, in this very direct sense our organization is responsible for his mayoral run,” he wrote.This commitment to the chapter has been a throughline in Mamdani’s career, said Gordillo.“He’s been really tested to learn how to exercise leadership while also being accountable to a base, because he’s done that in DSA pretty often,” he said.Mamdani has championed some NYC-DSA campaigning efforts he did not pioneer, such as the successful fight for a bill to expand publicly owned renewable energy, which Gordillo helmed. But he has been a leader on other initiatives, such as the “Not on Our Dime!” bill, which aims to pressure Israel to follow international law and on which he was the lead sponsor. (Ending US support for Israel’s military is a key issue for DSA, whose national organization ended its support for Ocasio-Cortez and former New York congressman Jamaal Bowman over insufficient support for the issue.)View image in fullscreenThat back-and-forth has continued through the mayoral campaign, with the chapter’s political operatives also helping him make connections and shape his platform.“He met with our Labor Working Group a lot to learn more about what were the top demands for different unions where we have a lot of member density,” said Gordillo, who is a union electrician by day.Transformative changeMamdani won more votes than any other mayoral candidate in New York City primary election history. Brisport said that’s a testament not only to the power of NYC-DSA’s organizational skills, but also to the popularity of their political values.“Clearly there is something in the air that is shifting, because open socialists are running for office and winning, showing that our ideas are good, workable things that people actually need,” he said.Mamdani’s embrace of the democratic socialist label has been a boon for NYC-DSA, with about 4,000 members joining since he launched his mayoral campaign. It will also be a test for the chapter and for American socialism.“Zohran ran as an open democratic socialist and the billionaire class, the most powerful forces in the world and in the city, are aligning against him,” Gordillo said. “They will be finding every moment to amplify anything that they can say is a mistake or a failure, and because he ran in a way that was so tied to the movement, I think that any of his shortcomings will also be attributed to us.”The chapter is now preparing to mobilize volunteers around the general election, but also organizing to support Mamdani’s key policies like a proposal to increase taxes on the rich. The organization is prepared to hold Mamdani accountable to socialist values, but also to communicate his successes to the public, said Gordillo.“We will make sure that the billionaire class and corporate interests can’t just fearmonger about him, or hide it when he fulfills his campaign promises,” he said.“The fate of the left in New York rests on the success of the Mamdani administration, so ensuring that there is a successful mayoralty is going to have to become our top priority.” More

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      Leftists are determined to date each other – and not settle for liberals: ‘Politics are the new religion’

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      Zohran Mamdani gave Hinge an unofficial boost last month when the New York mayoral candidate revealed that he met his wife, Rama Duwaji, through swiping. “There is still hope on those dating apps,” he said on the Bulwark podcast a week before his stunning victory in the Democratic primary. The tidbit spread over social media, cementing the 33-year-old democratic socialist’s status as a millennial everyman. A subsequent Cosmopolitan headline read: “Zohran Mamdani could make history (as the first NYC mayor to meet his wife on Hinge).”Representatives for Hinge would not comment, but plenty of eligible New Yorkers did, claiming they would redownload the app due to Mamdani’s success, in spite of their dating fatigue. “Now I’m clocking in like it’s a full-time job,” one user posted on TikTok. “If he can find love on that app maybe I can,” another wrote in a caption.However, they could run into an ideological hurdle while filling out their profiles. Alongside answering basic questions – “Do you smoke, drink or do drugs? Where did you go to college?” – Hinge ask singles to choose their political affiliation: liberal, conservative, moderate, not political, or the mysterious “other”.Some people to the left say the label “liberal” does not encapsulate their socialist views. They associate it with establishment figures such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – or Mamdani’s rival, former governor Andrew Cuomo. Many liberals deem proposals by Hinge’s golden boy (freezing rent, taxing the super-rich, making buses free) too radical. A socialist might want to distance themselves from such center-leaning liberalism and instead embrace the “hot commie summer” that hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb warned his fellow billionaires of.“There’s a real appetite to date leftists now,” said Abby Beauregard, fundraising chair for Democratic Socialists of America’s New York chapter. She said that Mamdani’s victory reinvigorated the dating scene in in the city, “but it’s really hard to find explicitly leftist dating spaces. Most dating apps have a liberal option, but no leftist option, and it’s not a turn-on to see ‘other’, because that could mean anything.” (For instance, far-right or communist.)So lefty singles are finding more explicit ways to signal their politics to like-minded love matches, on Hinge and beyond.View image in fullscreenSome have turned their dating profiles into mini-manifestos, writing out their entire belief system as answers to the apps’ prompts. It’s common to see watermelon emojis as euphemisms for solidarity with the Palestinian people. Some users will warn that they’ll swipe left on Terfs (the acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminists), cops or Donald Trump supporters.“It’s important for me to see those signifiers,” said Caroline, a 38-year-old florist who lives in Queens. (She and other sources are going by their first name for privacy reasons.) “There’s a nice feeling on the apps right now with people being proud to be communists or leftists, and they’re saying that.”But she’s wary of anyone who comes off as too lefty. “That seems kind of tryhard,” she said. “It can read as too performative, that you’re fishing for alt-girls or you’re a centrist who just wants someone freaky from Bushwick.”Tinder, OK Cupid and the kink-friendly app Feeld allow users to write their own bios, unlike Hinge, and they can choose within those bios whether they reveal their political affiliations. In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Tinder also launched profile “stickers” so users could signal the issues they felt strongly about, such as “voting for reproductive rights”.For her part, Caroline, who uses Feeld, wrote in her profile that she’s “far left” and “COVID-cautious”. That feels like enough for her. “Saying ‘I love vaccines!’, ‘free Palestine!’ or ‘fuck Trump!’ would be trite. It’s all implied.”Dennis Mulvena describes himself as “very left-leaning”. He used to keep his affiliations private on Hinge because he believed there was room for nuance in discussing politics, but recently listed himself as liberal.“With the return of Trump in the last two years, it’s important to have that out there,” said Mulvena, 30, who works in customer service for a car manufacturer. “Admittedly gay people who live in Brooklyn tend to lean left, but I have had the experience of going on a date with someone who then revealed he was part of his college’s Young Republicans club.” That was the last time he assumed that everyone he matched with would share the same views as him.According to an NBC News poll from April, the partisan gap between gen Z women, who are more likely to say they are Democrat, and gen Z men, who have shifted right, is the widest of all generations. And, increasingly, a person’s politics have an impact on their perceived desirability. While past generations may have thought nothing about a conservative and liberal romantic pairing (“don’t talk about politics or religion at the dinner table”), 60% of 18- to 24-year-olds think it’s important to date or marry someone who shares their political beliefs.“Politics is the new religion,” said Dr Jess Carbino, a former sociologist for Bumble and Tinder who studies dating apps. “It’s become the way that people choose to frame how they look at the world and their values.”Lily, a 23 year-old socialist who was recently laid off, is wary of seeing someone identify as “not political” on Hinge. “I’m immediately scared of what that means,” they said. “As a queer person living through everything that’s happening in this country, I need to know someone has a baseline care for people and their community.”In New York, more voters between the ages of 25 and 34 – a mix of gen Z and younger millennials – turned out to vote in the Democratic primary than any other age cohort, indicating a vigor for leftist politics. Recently, Lily has seen young people write on Hinge that they’d only go out with someone who voted for Mamdani or that they’d never go out with a Cuomo supporter. They have seen multiple people answer the Hinge prompt “when was the last time you cried?” with: “when Zohran won”. (They presume these were happy tears.)This is not to say New York is a young Bolshevik paradise: conservatives in the city are also trying to find each other. Some have gone into voluntary exile from mainstream dating apps, creating their own options. “Our dating apps have gone woke,” reads the description for Date Right Stuff, one such app backed by Peter Thiel. “Connect with people who aren’t offended by everything.”In March, Date Right Stuff hosted a singles event at New York’s Trump Tower called “make America hot again”. It was a coming-out night for what the app’s former chief marketing officer Raquel Debono called “city conservatives”, or Republicans who prefer urban life to small towns and tradwifedom.They are not the only ones going off-app: the Mamdani effect on New York’s lefties could not be contained to Hinge.In early July, young people gathered inside a cocktail bar on the Lower East Side for a “sexy socialist singles” event hosted by New York’s DSA. Those looking for something casual – or, as the host put it, “if you just want fast and free, like Zohran’s buses” – were sent to one part of the bar, while those who wanted “a slow burn, like taxing the fucking rich” went to another. At one point, organizers directed polyamorous attendees to a room upstairs, where they could mingle with other non-monogamous individuals.Upstairs, Sven, 25, an economics master’s student who lives in Bushwick, said that young people view the DSA as a social club just as much as a platform for socialist candidates. “I saw a post on Reddit talking about how all Zohran’s canvassers are hot, and we have soccer leagues and book clubs,” they said. “It’s a great way to make friends.”Downstairs, back in monogamyville, Lauren, a video editor who lives in Astoria (the Queens neighborhood Mamdani represents as a New York assemblymember), waited for a friend who was off flirting. “There’s definitely an energy when I wear my Zohran T-shirt out,” she said. “People are revved up. They’ll call you from across the street saying, ‘What’s up?’ or ‘I love that guy.’ It’s a real conversation starter.”New York’s DSA will continue its sexy socialist mixers in youth hubs Bushwick and Williamsburg, and in the Upper West Side for those over 30. In the meantime, singles will have to keep parsing political signifiers on dating apps. More

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      For Muslims, Mamdani’s rise signifies a new way of looking at who represents America

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      Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor has a group of Pakistani American aunties and uncles so excited that they are wondering if they should have given their own children more freedom in choosing their careers. “What if we let our kids become politicians, and not just doctors and engineers?” a member of the grassroots political organizing group, DRUM Beats, asked at a small celebration held at an Islamic school last month in south Brooklyn.DRUM Beats, which represents New York City’s working class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean populations, was one of the first grassroots groups to endorse Mamdani, when he launched his campaign in October – long before he became a household name. More than 300 volunteers, who spoke near a dozen languages, knocked on at least 10,000 doors to support him. DRUM Beats says these efforts helped increase voter turnout by almost 90% among Indo Caribbean and South Asians in some neighborhoods.The unabashed 33-year-old assemblyman ranked near the bottom of the pack when he began campaigning. Now, Mamdani has a chance to be New York City’s first Asian American and Muslim mayor. His family came to the United States when he was seven, and he became a citizen in 2018. He was born to Indian parents in Kampala, Uganda.View image in fullscreenMamdani’s campaign has piqued the interest of many South Asian Americans, as well as a diverse population of Muslims – not only because of his identity, but his platform, too. Many Muslims, even those who may not fully agree with Mamdani’s approach on every issue, see his rise as a sign of hope in a city where racism and Islamophobia erupted following the September 11 terrorist attacks.“We are stepping into leadership roles that challenge long-standing assumptions about who can represent the city of New York and Americans more broadly,” says Youssef Chouhoud, an associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University and expert on Muslim Americans.A leader for Muslims across the USSince winning the Democratic primary, Mamdani has faced Islamophobic smears online, and from both sides of the political aisle. Republican Congressman Andy Ogles demanded the use of material support for terrorism charges against Mamdani, without providing evidence, and urged that he be deported. (The Bush administration used these charges after 9/11 to shut down the nation’s biggest Muslim and pro-Palestinian charities, in what civil rights groups argue were often politically motivated investigations.) Donald Trump has since falsely questioned Mamdani’s citizenship and the administration’s Homeland Security Advisory Council is already looking into him.While New York City’s roughly 1 million Muslims aren’t enough to decide November’s election, Mamdani has become wildly popular with Muslims nationwide. Polling shows that Muslim Americans rank issues related to Gaza and affordability as their top priorities, which are reflective of broader trends and shifts within the Democratic base. It also aligns with the highpoints of Mamdani’s campaign such as affordable housing, and his frequent protest against US military support for Israel, said Nazita Lajevardi, an associate professor of political science at Michigan State University. She noted that Muslims – as well as many Democrats, including some Jewish Americans – were horrified by Israel’s attacks on Gaza and did not think they had good choices in the 2024 presidential election.View image in fullscreenMamdani’s campaign won almost over one-third of districts that Trump won in 2024, according to an analysis by the Gothamist.Mamdani’s advocacy for Palestinian rights includes authoring legislation that would have banned the city’s organizations from sending money to charities supporting Israeli settlement activity.He has been grilled repeatedly about his stance on Israel and whether he will condemn calls to “globalize the intifada”. He frequently responds with affirmations that he will protect Jewish New Yorkers. He has recognized Israel’s right to exist – but only as a state that enforces equal rights for its citizens.For some pro-Palestinian advocates, a formal recognition of Israel veers closely towards legitimizing the Nakba – when more than 750,000 Palestinians were permanently expelled from their homeland. Others say it’s largely a matter of semantics. And even Mamdani’s critics on this issue have appreciated his refusal to support a crack down on speech and his explanation that “intifada” also means “legitimate protest”. The Palestinian Youth Movement said in an Instagram statement that Mamdani’s victory shows that “being anti-genocide is not, in and of itself, politically costly with American voters in 2025”.‘He supported us at a critical moment’Asad Dandia, who successfully sued the NYPD in 2013 for illegally spying on Muslim New Yorkers, connected Mamdani’s campaign to dozens of mosques and imams across the city. The key message was still affordability, Dandia said. His campaign team visited more than 100 mosques, of which Mamdani personally visited almost 25, said Zara Rahim, a senior adviser for Mamdani’s campaign. “Many of the tenets of this campaign are inherently Muslim: justice, mercy, commitment to community,” she said.View image in fullscreenMamdani’s embrace of being Muslim and South Asian helped build excitement with many voters, from adopting the psychedelic aesthetic of Eid Mubarak WhatsApp forwards to using nostalgic Bollywood references. His strong support of LGBTQ+ and trans rights has not appeared to cost him votes among his more conservative Muslim supporters either.Still, Mamdani’s identity, alone, wasn’t enough. “One lesson the left needs to learn is that identity politics cannot win you elections,” said Raza Gillani, an organizer with DRUM Beats. “You need a political program for people that speaks to the grave inequalities in society.”SK M Mobinul Hoque, a Muslim Bangladeshi taxi driver who lives in Queens, said he voted for Mamdani in the Democratic primary – but he didn’t even know Mamdani was Muslim until after he cast his ballot. “I didn’t even care. He supported us at a critical moment; that’s why I’m supporting him,” he said.View image in fullscreenHoque fondly remembers Mamdani’s advocacy for taxi drivers like himself, who were wrecked by mounting debt caused by the city’s controversial medallion program. By 2021, Hoque had accumulated $800,000 of debt and had already heard about five fellow drivers who died by suicide. Mamdani went on a hunger strike for more than two weeks and joined the TWA Taxi Alliance, as they protested in front of City Hall. The city subsequently made a deal with the union for debt forgiveness.‘If you don’t keep your promises, we will hold you accountable’New York City possibly getting its first Muslim mayor is notable, given its history of surveilling Muslim Americans after 9/11. Many DRUM members in New York City were deeply affected by the NYPD and FBI’s sprawling infiltration of student groups and mosques. The federal government ran elaborate sting operations in which informants sometimes pressured vulnerable Muslims to agree to take part in violent plots – and used their subsequent cooperation to throw them in prison.The Homeland Security Act of 2002 was passed in response to rhetoric that conflated Muslims with terrorists–and paved the way for the creation of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice). “Ice was born out of anti-Muslim hate,” said Heba Gowayed, an associate professor of sociology at CUNY Hunter College.Ice’s sweeping detentions of immigrants, and ability to operate at Rikers Island after a deal was struck between Eric Adams, New York City’s current mayor, and the Trump administration, have triggered old fears about law enforcement. In Astoria, undocumented Middle Eastern and North African immigrants are scared that Ice will try to deport them, said Rana Abdelhamid, who runs Malikah – a local anti-violence nonprofit that operates in Mamdani’s assembly district, and has worked closely with him. Earlier this year, a street vendor ran into Malikah’s office after Ice’s increased activity in Astoria. “He was coming in frantic–asking, ‘can I take the train to go to work today?’”, she said.View image in fullscreenSouth Asian immigrants with DRUM Beats are scared, too. After 9/11, some Muslim communities based their electoral support on whichever candidate they thought would win, hoping that it could help them get something in return, said Gillani, with DRUM Beats. The organization is trying to move voters in a different direction –“a new politics rooted in community defense”, Gillani said. Mamdani has promised to protect immigrants – in part, by expanding the budget for legal representation.DRUM Beats is already thinking about turning out voters in November. At the June meeting, Gillani urged members: “Don’t let this energy die down.” He also emphasized the longterm goal of building power for working-class communities. “We don’t support (Mamdani) because we think he’s a messiah who will save New York City,” Gillani said. “If you don’t keep your promises, we will hold you accountable – regardless of whether you are Zohran, Cuomo or Eric Adams.” More

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      I was on New York’s rent board. Zohran Mamdani’s ideas aren’t pie in the sky | Leah Goodridge

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      During the New York City mayoral primary campaign, Zohran Mamdani’s proposal for a citywide rent freeze became a contentious topic. The Democratic nominee says to achieve a cap on annual rent increases for the city’s 1m rent-stabilized apartments, he would appoint members to the city’s rent guidelines board who support it. Critics decry a rent freeze as a pie-in-the-sky, unrealistic proposal.I served as a rent guidelines board member for nearly four years, appointed by then mayor Bill de Blasio in 2018. And it’s clear this controversy isn’t just about rent freezes – there’s a larger agenda to deregulate rent-stabilized housing, under which rent ceilings prevent landlords from raising the rent too high and tenants must be offered renewal leases (unless the landlord shows legal reason not to).Rent freezes are lifelinesIn 2023, a report revealed that half of New Yorkers couldn’t afford basic needs such as housing, transportation, food and healthcare. This is the New York that I grew to know intimately before I joined the board. I’d been a tenants’ rights attorney for years under the city’s right-to-counsel program, representing hundreds of low-income families facing eviction who could not afford their own attorneys. Each week, I entered housing court to find my clients – families with toddlers, seniors with disabilities and food delivery drivers – anxiously awaiting possible eviction. It’s not just low-income tenants at the mercy of landlords. Over the last 12 years, I’ve listened to thousands of stories and the one common thread is how easy it is for a moderate-income person to wind up homeless. Sudden unemployment, unexpected disability coupled with a rent increase, and now you’re fighting like hell to survive housing court and not join the 350,000 homeless New Yorkers. For these New Yorkers, a rent freeze isn’t some out-of-touch idea; it’s a lifeline.The people who make that decision are nine board members, all appointed by the mayor – two tenant members (my former role), two landlord members and five public members whom the tenants and landlord members vie to win over to reach a majority vote. We don’t rely on feelings or vibes – we’re poring over reports and hours of public testimony, and engaging in spirited policy debates. In 2020, those reports revealed record unemployment spurred by the pandemic and an already high homelessness rate and rent burden (most tenants were paying 30% or more of their income on rent). Weighing that with landlord operating costs, the board voted to approve a rent freeze that year, and a partial rent freeze (for six months) the following year. In fact, the board voted for a rent freeze four times over the last 10 years under the de Blasio administration (the board votes every summer on these rent levels and they take effect in the fall). This is why criticisms of Mamdani’s rent freeze ring hollow for me – it’s painted as out of touch, yet there’s already a precedent, backed by government reports and data.Rent stabilization is under attackIt is essential for the public to understand that there is a broader agenda behind the “rent freezes are bad” argument. Undermining freezes is part of a larger goal to weaken rent stabilization, which landlords have consistently sought to do – and they were nearly successful recently.While I was on the board, landlords sued the rent guidelines board and all of its members (including me!) in federal court, claiming that rent stabilization amounted to an “unconstitutional taking”: if the government tells me how much I can increase my rent by and when I can terminate a lease, then the government is interfering with my private property without just compensation, the argument goes.For years, there had been whispers that New York landlords were rubbing their hands together, eager to devise ways to get such a case before the US supreme court – and this one came dangerously close. I still remember when I got the call four years after the case traveled its way up the federal appeals court chain: “The court declined to hear the case!”Supreme court cases aren’t selected in a vacuum – the court often grants certiorari , or agrees to hear a case, when there is a broad public interest, leading some parties to drum up support for their cause strategically. When I was on the board, I often heard the dichotomy of the good landlord versus the bad tenant. It’s become so popular, you’ve probably been inundated with these stories too. “Professional tenants” who sign a lease, then never pay rent. TikToks about tenants leaving an apartment in disarray. Squatters. Rent-stabilized tenants who are secretly wealthy, gaming the system by paying low rent. All designed to lead you to the conclusion that “rent stabilization shouldn’t exist”. You’d never know that the median household income for rent-stabilized tenants is a modest $60,000. Or that eviction rates are so high that the New York City housing court doesn’t have enough judges to handle the volume of cases it sees daily.Just last year, in yet another case that landlords asked the supreme court to review, the court declined, but Justice Clarence Thomas signaled the court would be interested in hearing a rent stabilization challenge and even provided a legal roadmap for how to bring it. Landlords don’t want to reform rent stabilization – they want it done away with.At the end of the day, when the goal is profit and power is unchecked, it will be profits over people. Mamdani’s proposals are a threat to the real estate industry because they signal a mayorship that doesn’t ascribe to the tenet that government must sit back and let the market come to its own conclusion – all while millions of New Yorkers are trying to avoid housing court.

      Leah Goodridge is a former member of the New York City rent guidelines board and an attorney who spent 12 years in legal services representing tenants More

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      Zohran Mamdani’s campaign proposes free childcare. Is it finally a winning policy?

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      Maggie Stockdale hadn’t given much thought to childcare before welcoming her first child last year. But once she learned the high price of full-time daycare tuition in Brooklyn, New York, she knew she had to find another solution.Now, her care duties are split between Stockdale’s parents, who relocated from Wisconsin to help out, and her husband, who cut his hours down to part time and arranged with his employer to let him bring their 10-month-old to work several days a week.“You feel fragile,” said Stockdale, lamenting that so many families have to choose between financial stability and their child’s wellbeing.So when Zohran Mamdani campaigned on a platform of affordability, proposing free childcare for children aged six weeks and older, it made her feel that the pain she and other parents had experienced had not gone unnoticed.Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assemblymember who won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor last month, has put forth a variety of kid- and family-focused ideas, including distributing baby baskets containing formula and postpartum supplies to new parents, building up mental health infrastructure in schools and closing off high-traffic streets adjacent to school zones. But what’s garnered the most attention is his promise of free childcare, a system he plans to fund by raising taxes on corporations and the city’s richest residents.As he told supporters in his victory speech: “We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford. A city where they can do more than just struggle … where childcare doesn’t cost more than [college].”For Stockdale, seeing these policies at the center of a major political campaign has underscored how childcare affordability is not only a core concern for voters – but also a winning issue.“It’s got so much support,” said Stockdale, also an organizer with the advocacy group New Yorkers United for Childcare. “People have started to realize that this should be a key component of any candidate’s platform.”In many ways, Mamdani’s platform responds to the surge of activism that New York has seen in favor of making childcare a public good – activism that first emerged at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the importance and fragility of the country’s childcare system was laid bare. Since then, elected officials have begun to take the issue seriously, explained Allison Lew, senior organizer with New Yorkers United for Child Care.A report released from the New York City comptroller’s office this year shows the average cost of center-based care across the five boroughs was $26,000 a year, and that to afford the cost of care for a two-year-old in New York City, a family would need to earn $334,000 annually. “People are draining their savings, going into debt, borrowing on their 401ks [retirement funds],” said Lew. “You have to be wealthy in order for childcare to not be an issue.”For many would-be parents, the inaccessibility is affecting their family-planning decisions, causing them to delay having kids or to only have one child, despite wanting more. “We would love to have another, but financially, we don’t know if we can afford it,” said Nancy Keith, who is raising a 15-month-old in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. Keith says that she and her husband waited until they were in their late 30s, and more settled in their career, to have a child. Even still, they need financial assistance from their parents to afford the $26,000 a year they pay for childcare.Should Mamdani win the mayoral election in November and make his childcare vision a reality, these challenges could become things of the past, experts say.Most immediately, parents and childcare workers alike would experience improved financial security. Families would see thousands more dollars in their bank accounts every month, while childcare workers would be paid salaries and receive benefits at parity with New York public school employees.Gregory Brender, chief policy and innovation officer at the Day Care Council of New York, explains that pay parity has been a priority for the provider network for decades, making it a relief to finally see it be a legislative priority. “Early childhood education depends on a talented and educated workforce, and they need to be compensated appropriately,” he said.These family-focused policies would also improve equity in the city, as more parents – especially women – would be able to remain in the workforce. And in making the city more affordable for everyone, families from diverse backgrounds with a range of incomes would be able to remain in their communities.Down the line, such policies would also bolster the city’s economy. Collectively, New Yorkers spend as much as $15bn on childcare every year. And in 2022, families not being able to afford childcare cost the city $23bn between lost tax revenues and workplace departures as parents were forced to drop out of the workforce.“We just cannot afford to not have universal childcare,” Lew said.Universal childcare isn’t cheap. But the city has the money, said Justin Brannan, a New York City councilmember representing parts of Brooklyn and chair of the city’s committee on finance. “We have been stuck in this cycle of false austerity where we are supposed to believe that we have to choose between little and even less, and it’s just not true,” Brannan said, noting that the city’s budget totals almost $116bn (universal childcare would cost $12bn per year). “We just need to do a better job of spending our money,” he said.Implementing such a system may not be as simple as carving out room in the budget, however. Some facets of the plan – like raising taxes – need to be approved by the state legislature and the governor. Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, has already said she will not raise income taxes. Mamdani has acknowledged these challenges, saying in an interview with Morning Edition, “Any mayor that has an ambition that meets the scale of the crisis of the people that they’re seeking to represent will have to work with [the state].”Still, the ideas have momentum.New York has been a pioneer in accessible childcare infrastructure for several years, including universal preschool for three- and four-year-olds (known as pre-K and 3-K). And although many doubted Bill de Blasio’s ability to pull off his promise of universal preschool when he ran for mayor more than a decade ago, the program is now a national model. Before that, the city instituted a voucher program that enabled low-income families to access childcare for children aged six weeks to 15 years – although seats are limited. As a result of those developments, advocates like Lew say some degree of publicly funded childcare is now a “non-negotiable” for many New Yorkers.Mamdani says his campaign promises to build on those past successes. “These platform planks are rooted in very recent New York City history,” he said in an interview with the Nation. “Universal childcare is something that many candidates are in support of because of the success of universal pre-K.”New York isn’t alone in its quest for solutions to the nationwide childcare crisis. In 2022, New Mexico made childcare free for most families. That same year, Washington DC raised childcare workers’ wages through a tax on the district’s wealthiest residents. And in 2023, Vermont guaranteed financial support for childcare for all families with incomes below 575% of the federal poverty level – amounting to 90% of families in the state.Hailey Gibbs, associate director of early childhood policy at the Center for American Progress, said it’s an issue that crosses the political aisle. “Folks, regardless of what state they represent or how far they sit in the political extremes, understand that the lack is meaningful,” she said.“It’s a unifying issue,” echoed Karen Schulman, senior director of state childcare policy at the National Women’s Law Center, pointing out that even staunchly Republican states like Alabama, Georgia and Montana have created early childhood education funds.But Mamdani’s campaign is the first in the country to put children and childcare front and center – and win, at least at the primary level. “That’s pretty bold for the US,” Gibbs said. More

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      Zohran Mamdani’s videos are a masterclass. Eric Adams’ posts are getting more bizarre | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Eric Adams, possible resident of New Jersey and mayor of New York City, is a man of many talents. He is the city’s “most famous vegan”, albeit one who eats fish. He has a knack for scoring freebies from foreign governments. He managed the great feat of being the first mayor in the city’s history to be indicted while in office. And, on top of all that, he may well be the most unintentionally hilarious man on the internet.Please see, as exhibit one, a classic piece of Adams surrealism from 2011, shot when the mayor was just a humble state senator. Dressed like an undertaker, Adams instructs viewers to search their child’s room for contraband. Per Adams, a jewelry box may have a gun in it, and the bullets may be behind a picture frame. Unappreciated for many years, the video finally found an audience when it went viral during Adams’s indictment.More recently, the mayor posted a very weird Instagram video of him listening to Katy Perry, and another one captioned, “Make an important call with me,” in which he fake chats to Usher to announce a free concert series in New York City. And, of course, there was his famous “trash revolution” press conference where he helpfully demonstrated how to use a wheelie bin. You open the lid and then you close it: magic!In another Instagram video, Adam shares his morning routine. The mayor once told an audience: “I get out of the shower sometimes and I say: ‘Damn!’” This little bit of the routine, alas, did not make it into the cut. Instead he irons a shirt, munches a carrot stick in his bizarre industrial kitchen, and rants about how he is being guided by his GPS (“God positioning satellite”). The video was posted a month ago but it really took off this week after internet detectives pointed out that a clock in the footage tells a completely different time than the purported time on the screen. In other words, the whole “routine” was about as natural as a ski slope in Dubai.One glaring reason for Adams suddenly trying to up his Instagram game is the rise of Zohran Mamdani, the Queens assemblyman whose socialist ideas and (admittedly elite) TikTok strategy recently propelled him to victory in New York City’s mayoral primary. Adams is currently slated to run as an independent in the general election against Mamdani, and he’s clearly running scared.Adams is not the only Democrat making headlines this week for attempting to make waves on the internet. There’s an influential web series called Subway Takes in which the New York-based comedian Kareem Rahma solicits hot takes from strangers, and the occasional celebrity, on the train. Kamala Harris was on it last year, but you wouldn’t have seen the segment because it was reportedly so bad that it didn’t run. “Her take was really confusing and weird, not good, and so [we] mutually agreed we shouldn’t publish it,” Rahma told Forbes. One day it may fall out of a coconut tree, but right now it is hidden from scrutiny.Then there’s the Democratic house minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, who was recently mocked for posting what appeared to be a badly photoshopped picture of himself, altered to make his waist thinner, on Instagram. (He seems to have deleted the photo on Thursday.)Jeffries was also just ridiculed (mainly by conservatives) for an Instagram photo in which he holds a baseball bat in metaphoric opposition to Donald Trump’s “One Big Ugly Bill”. The 82-year-old congresswoman Virginia Foxx was not impressed by this; Foxx tweeted the photo with the caption “low energy”.Jeffries certainly does seem to have a few energy issues. He can give record-breaking long speeches but he, along with other senior Democratic figures, can’t seem to summon up the energy to endorse Mamdani. Democrats love saying “vote blue no matter who” – except in situations where they have got a charismatic candidate who resonates with ordinary people.Meanwhile, Mamdani has no trouble with social media: his TikTok videos are one of the reasons the Queens assemblyman has surged from relative obscurity to mayoral frontrunner. Some of his rivals seem to think they are the cause for his success. “I regret not running for mayor in 2021,” state senator Jessica Ramos said during the mayoral primary debate. “I had been in the senate for two years. I’d already passed over a dozen bills. I thought I needed more experience. But turns out you just need to make good videos.”Of course, Mamdani doesn’t resonate with so many people because he’s studied vertical videos strategies. He’s successful because his core messaging connects with the needs of normal New Yorkers rather than the 1%. He’s been successful because he seems to genuinely want to fight for people rather than just collect a paycheck and then head off for a cushy job at whatever lobbying company donates the most to him. He’s relatable and authentic and those are two things that are very hard to manufacture. Although that hasn’t stopped the Democrats from trying: they have discussed throwing millions of dollars into creating a “Joe Rogan of the left”.This isn’t to say that you can’t buy yourself a great social media strategy. John Fetterman, the soulless ghoul who is senator of Pennsylvania, certainly did. He made some brilliant hires, who ran a very entertaining campaign against Dr Oz in 2022. Now that Fetterman seems more obsessed with bombing Gaza than serving his constituents, many of those staffers have left, however. I doubt he’ll be able to pull off another campaign like his first.Speaking of pulling things off, now that Adams has posted his morning routine I wouldn’t mind seeing other politicians post theirs. Please Cuomo, and every other establishment politician: stream the 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People over TikTok. I can’t wait to see Cuomo walk to a bagel shop and order an English muffin before telling passersby “I’m not perverted, I’m just Italian.” Surely that will convince New Yorkers to Pokémon Go to the polls. More

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      Is the New York Times trying to wreck Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral bid? | Margaret Sullivan

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      A recent New York Times news story immediately drew fire from readers – and for very good reason.Headlined “Mamdani Identified as Asian and African American on College Application,” the article centered on Zohran Mamdani, the candidate for New York City mayor who drew national attention recently with his stunning win in the Democratic primary election.Its gist was that as a high school senior in New York City, Mamdani – who was born in Uganda and is of Indian descent – checked a couple of different boxes about race when applying for admission to Columbia University.So what, you might ask. Why is this even a story, you might also ask.Excellent questions.Whatever its news value, or lack thereof, the story certainly got the attention of one of Mamdani’s rivals – current New York City mayor Eric Adams, who will run in the general election as an independent candidate.Adams, who is Black, called it “deeply offensive” that Mamdani would try to “exploit” an African American identity even though he is not Black.And on Fox News, talkshow hosts used the Times story to trash Mamdani. Charlie Hurt, for one, called the mayoral candidate a racist on Fox & Friends and claimed that Mamdani despises America “and everything that we stand for”.The rightwing cable network was having a field day with Mamdani, a Muslim and social democrat, even before the Times story. President Trump has called him a communist and suggested he should be deported. Other rightwing outlets picked up the story, too, presenting it as a DEI scandal – that Mamdani lied about his race in order to take advantage of the affirmative action admission policy at Columbia. (Making the story even more absurd is the fact that Mamdani didn’t get in.)In print, the would-be scandal got some help from headline writers: “Mamdani Faces Scrutiny Over College Application.”Mamdani has explained that he was trying to communicate his complicated background. His father is Indian Ugandan and his mother is Indian American; Mamdani himself was born in Uganda and lived briefly in South Africa before moving to New York City as a child.“Most college applications don’t have a box for Indian-Ugandans so I checked multiple boxes trying to capture the fullness of my background,” he told the Times.The Times’s decision to pursue and publish the story was, at the very least, unwise.For one thing, it came to the Times due to a widespread hack into Columbia’s databases, transmitted to the paper through an intermediary who was given anonymity by the paper. That source turns out to be Jordan Lasker, who – as the Guardian has reported – is a well-known and much criticized “eugenicist”, AKA white supremacist.Traditional journalism ethics suggests that when news organizations base a story on hacked or stolen information, there should be an extra high bar of newsworthiness to justify publication. Much of Big Journalism, for example, turned their noses up at insider documents offered to them about JD Vance during last year’s presidential campaign, in part because the source was Iranian hackers; in some cases, they wrote about the hack but not the documents.The Mamdani story, however, fell far short of the newsworthiness bar.A ranking Times editor, Patrick Healy, responded to criticism of the story in a thread on X, justifying it as part of the paper’s mission “to help readers better know and understand top candidates for major offices”.Soledad O’Brien, the prominent media entrepreneur and journalist, called that explanation “a joke”. The publication of the Mamdani story is “an absolute embarrassment” for the Times, charged O’Brien, who herself is of mixed-race ancestry and identifies as Black.Plenty of others agreed, seeing Healy’s explanation not as admirable transparency but as damage control.The incident raises a larger issue: the Times’s apparent opposition to Mamdani’s candidacy.On the opinion side of the paper, there’s little question about that. Even though the Times no longer makes endorsements for mayor, they published an editorial urging voters to avoid ranking Mamdani at all on their ballots because he was so unqualified. (New York City uses ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to list several candidates in order of preference.)Remarkably, the Times stopped short of giving the same “don’t rank him” advice about disgraced governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned his office in 2021 and then ran for mayor against Mamdani in the primary.The opinion side of the Times is entitled to its opinion, however misguided. But straight news articles, by contrast, aren’t supposed to go to bat for or against candidates. They’re supposed to be neutral and non-partisan, not cheering on one candidate or kneecapping another.In practice, of course, that’s often not the case.With this made-up scandal, combined with the pre-election editorial, the Times looks like it’s on a crusade against Mamdani.And no lofty explanation about the mission can disguise it.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      The other winner in New York’s mayoral contest: ranked-choice voting | David Daley

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      The polls did not look good for New York progressives this winter when the Working Families party began making its endorsements for city elections. An early February poll from Emerson College showed Andrew Cuomo with a 23-point lead in a hypothetical Democratic primary matchup. None of the four leading progressives even approached double-digit support – including the then unknown assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. He polled at 1%.In the days before ranked-choice voting, the Working Families party’s endorsement process might have looked quite different. Like-minded candidates would have drawn sharp distinctions between each other. Party officials might have looked to nudge candidates toward the exits, behind closed doors. Before any votes had been cast in the primary, the party would consolidate behind just one choice. It would have been bloody and left a bitter taste for everyone.Instead, the opposite happened. Working Families, knowing that majorities rule and that no one can spoil a ranked-choice race, endorsed four candidates. Instead of a single endorsement that served as a kiss of death for other progressives, they backed a slate, allowing voters time to tune in and for candidates to make their pitches. Now Mamdani is the Democratic nominee and the overwhelming favorite to go from 1% all the way to Gracie Mansion.There are many reasons why this 33-year-old pulled off a seemingly unthinkable upset and soared from obscurity to the most talked about Democrat in the nation overnight. He energized young people, reached voters where they are on social media and built an unstoppable coalition. He and his volunteers talked to everyone, everywhere.Ranked-choice voting (RCV) encouraged and incentivized that joyous, barnstorming approach. And while Mamdani ultimately would have won a plurality contest or a ranked-choice one, his super-long-shot candidacy might have been squelched at the very beginning under the old system with its different electoral incentives. His victory shows how much more real power voters have under ranked-choice voting.To be clear: RCV is a party-neutral and candidate-neutral tool. Its job is to produce a majority winner with the widest and deepest support from any field of more than two candidates. It puts an end to spoilers and to the impossible, wish-and-a-prayer calculation that voters otherwise have to make when faced with multiple candidates, some of whom they really like and some of whom they do not. Liberals, conservatives, independents and moderates have run and won under RCV, from coast to coast.But while RCV might be strictly non-partisan, it is decidedly pro-voter – and almost always produces a more positive, issue-focused campaign that looks to drive up turnout and appeal to as many people as possible. A ranked-choice campaign rewards engagement and encourages coalitions; it’s a race where instead of tearing down opponents, candidates point out areas of agreement and ask to be a voter’s second choice.Voters love RCV and find it easy to use. According to a new SurveyUSA poll of New York voters, 96% said their ballot was easy to fill out. More than three-quarters of voters want to keep or expand RCV. And 82% said they had taken advantage of RCV and ranked at least two candidates. (These numbers are similar across RCV elections, and a powerful rejoinder to critics who insist, despite evidence to the contrary, that it’s too confusing.)A remarkable number of New Yorkers saw first-hand how RCV makes our votes more powerful – they had the freedom to express themselves and rank a long-shot first, but still had their vote count for either Mamdani or Cuomo in the ranked choice tally.Perhaps the high marks are of little surprise: voters received a campaign unlike most any other. The tone remained positive and issue-based. Instead of cutting each other down, candidates lifted each other up: Mamdani and Brad Lander cross-endorsed each other, cutting joint ads, riding bicycles together to shared events, sharing the couch on Stephen Colbert, and even sharing a stage at Mamdani’s victory party. Jessica Ramos and Whitney Tilson endorsed Cuomo and said that they would rank him second. Mamdani helped Adrienne Adams with fundraising.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVoters always say that they want more choice at the polls, candidates who engage with them, and a genuine, issue-based campaign. They got exactly that in New York City because of ranked choice. And the historic turnout levels – more than 1 million New Yorkers cast ballots, the highest number since the 1980s – shows that when voters get that kind of elevated, engaging campaign, they show up and get involved.When voters have the opportunity to consider new candidates campaigning in creative new ways, the frontrunner with the early name recognition and largest donors can be eclipsed by a newcomer who started at 1%. And instead of going scorched-earth on each other before the general election, even some of the “losers” seem to have had their status elevated: Lander finished third, and instead of being an asterisk, he has now expanded his base and likability for a future campaign.The majority winner in this race was Zohran Mamdani. But it’s also easy to suggest the real winner might be ranked-choice voting. In a moment when so many of our elections are fraught and polarized, all of us looking for a more unified and hopeful path forward – the “politics of the future”, as Mamdani called it when he declared victory – should take a close look at what just happened in New York as proof that stronger elections are truly possible.What’s giving me hope nowOutside of Washington, cities and states are becoming laboratories of democracy once again. New York’s adoption of ranked-choice voting led to just the kind of campaign our politics so desperately needs: a giant field of candidates presenting their vision of the future, building coalitions, without any time squandered on “spoilers” or anyone pushed to drop out and consolidate early. In Portland, Oregon, meanwhile, voters modernized government and moved to proportional representation to elect the city council, broadening representation to groups and neighborhoods that have never before had a seat at the table. When voters make these changes, they like them, defend them, and expand them, as we have seen in New York, Maine and Alaska. And it won’t take long for people to ask why they can’t have ranked choice and proportionality in all their elections.

      David Daley is the author of Antidemocratic: Inside the Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections as well as Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count More