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State assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a self-described “Muslim lefty from the other side of Queens,” has surged in the campaign for New York mayor. That’s thanks to a simple message: life here is too expensive, and those in power aren’t doing enough about it. His candidacy is gathering strength and now represents the most serious socialist run at New York’s City Hall since 1917.
Mamdani may be right that affordability is the biggest issue for New York’s residents this election cycle, competing only with crime in polling. Last year, center-based child care in New York City cost an average of $26,000 per child, up 43 percent since 2019. Median asking rents remain above $3,500 a month. Those are huge numbers for anyone at or below the city’s median household income, which is under $80,000 a year.
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But while he has his eyes on the right problems, Mamdani is bringing the wrong solutions. His plans may appeal to voters, but they would face serious roadblocks in the state legislature—in part because, if implemented, they could bankrupt the city.
Mamdani’s campaign is almost singularly focused on the promise to lower the cost of living in New York. He wants to freeze rents in the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments—roughly 45 percent of all rentals. He aims to make child care and buses free and promises to open government-run grocery stores. He also says he will build lots of public housing.
Mamdani’s rise has been aided by political savvy and strong connections. He inherited one of the city’s few effective political machines: the Democratic Socialists of America, which helped elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a district overlapping his own. He has leveraged social media and a knack for blending policy talk with personal storytelling to build a large, engaged following—especially among younger, politically active New Yorkers. Polling suggests voters under 45, for whom affordability is by far the biggest concern, would overwhelmingly pick him as mayor right now. As a result, Mamdani is fast emerging as former governor Andrew Cuomo’s chief rival. Critics who dismiss his populist proposals without offering clear, compelling alternatives only strengthen his appeal.
What should we expect if a Mayor Mamdani, however unlikely, gets sworn in next January? He would have a mandate to make good on his affordability agenda. But those proposals would be absurdly expensive, and the city’s fiscal condition in 2025 leaves little room for any new spending, especially with looming uncertainties about federal and state funding.
Mamdani’s plans for large-scale public housing would cost $100 billion—about the size of the city’s annual budget—and require more than doubling the debt limit. Developers have openly called the plan an “unmitigated disaster” that makes zero financial sense. His proposals for a Comprehensive City plan and zoning changes could theoretically lead to more housing—if they weren’t burdened with restrictions on market-rate construction.
His other proposals aren’t free, either. Mamdani would likely need to find a lot more than the $5 billion he has estimated for free child care, and close to another billion dollars to pay for free buses each year.
His go-to answer on how he’s going to fund all of these initiatives is to tax the rich. Mamdani proposes raising New York State’s corporate tax rate (7.25 percent) to match those of surrounding states like New Jersey, where the current 9 percent rate is one of the nation’s highest. This could be a hard sell to Governor Kathy Hochul, who is up for reelection in 2026 and is already considering hiking the payroll tax on large employers to fund the city’s perennially struggling Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Tax hikes risk accelerating the exodus of New York’s wealthier elites to the sunnier climes of Florida and Texas.
The other major obstacle to Mamdani’s agenda: most of his signature proposals require state legislative support. The mayor has no control over the city’s debt limits (imposed in 1975, when it could no longer meet its obligations) or over MTA bus fares. Nor can the mayor unilaterally raise taxes—and legislative cooperation is far from guaranteed.
Even his rent proposals face institutional constraints. The Rent Guidelines Board is required to factor in landlords’ operating costs when setting rate increases and may not align with Mamdani’s approach. In fact, the only campaign promise he may be able to fulfill is his plan for five city-run, taxpayer-subsidized grocery stores.
Still, Mamdani is gaining traction because he’s speaking to real and pressing problems. The challenge for other candidates—especially Cuomo—is to offer equally compelling, but more practical, alternatives to his populist platform.
All mayoral contenders support building more housing. Some, like Zellnor Myrie and Brad Lander, have laid out plans both more ambitious and more feasible without requiring massive government subsidies. Most also want to reduce child-care costs, though they acknowledge the budgetary limits. And unlike Mamdani, they seem to understand that grocery prices—and inflation more broadly—lie largely outside the mayor’s control.
To win Gracie Mansion, every candidate will need to address affordability, as Mamdani has. But they’ll also need to pair that message with fiscal realism—something Mamdani has yet to do, and voters may soon demand.
But while the majority of the city’s residents say affordability is their main concern, most voters care more about crime—an issue Mamdani is not talking about, and likely the reason why Cuomo would win the election if it were held today, with 70 percent in the final round of a ranked-choice matchup.
Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images News via Getty Images
