Mayor
Vote For
Zohran
Mamdani
New York’s mayor determines the direction of the city and whether the gears of government work: that trash gets picked up, that crimes are stopped or solved, that our kids are educated. After four years of chaos and corruption—and against the backdrop of turmoil in Washington—New Yorkers are looking for steady leadership. But after decades of being stuck, as rents have gone up and quality of life has gone down, we also need vision. We need transformative change for the city and its politics.
Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani’s joyful, energetic campaign enthralled a generation of New Yorkers and delivered the 33-year-old assemblymember a shocking, decisive primary election victory. His slogans—“freeze the rent,” “fast, free buses”—are clear, simple, and appealing to a city hit hard by rising costs. Mamdani is charismatically leading a movement, a talent that could translate to leadership of the city at large.
Of course, a Mamdani mayoralty could also give way to the mismanagement of inexperience—or to the privileging of close allies over the best people for the job, a tendency that proved fatal to the Adams administration. Encouragingly, Mamdani appears attuned to concerns about executive management and bridge-building across divides. His outreach to communities outside his core DSA allies, his persistent evocation of service delivery and outcomes-oriented governance, his tempering of more extreme past plans on public safety and education, and his enlarging of his inner circle with respected civic leaders are all promising signs of a candidate hoping to lead with seriousness.
On policy, Mamdani is right to point to affordability as the critical crisis facing New Yorkers—and to the role that the government can play in solving it. Unfortunately, his policy prescriptions often miss the mark. Most seriously, his housing plan cannot solve our affordability problems. A rent freeze for rent stabilized tenants may be a short-term balm, but it is not sustainable—and there are real negative impacts of rent freezes on the availability and quality of rent-stabilized homes.
Additionally, a rent freeze for stabilized units does nothing for tenants in the rest of the city’s apartments. Mamdani’s proposal to invest $70 billion in 200,000 new rent-stabilized units is financially untenable. It will not happen, and it is also ideologically rigid—minimizing market-rate development that New York can pursue, and which would much more broadly address supply shortages and increase affordability for everyone.
More broadly, while Mamdani frequently pairs service delivery and subsidy in his policy proposals, his emphasis falls squarely on the latter. He decries red tape hampering small business owners, then proposes fee discounts and a liaison to help them navigate the red tape—instead of removing the red tape altogether. He talks about “fast, free buses,” but is far more interested in using political capital to make them free rather than to increase speeds and service quality. Mamdani is properly diagnosing the problems—but he’s deprioritizing the best solutions.
However, Mamdani is open to ideas that challenge his worldview and is conversant in policy details, indicating an adaptability he will need to be successful. For example, on housing, he told the New York Times that the most important issue he has changed his mind about is the necessity of market-rate housing development to combat the affordability crisis. Unlike his opponents, he has been clear about the need to build on the recent City of Yes for Housing Opportunity rezoning to legalize more homes throughout the city. He points to up-zoning high-opportunity neighborhoods, building near transit, and eliminating parking mandates as steps he will embrace.
In this moment, New York needs big ideas; but those big ideas should offer the right answers to our problems, and they should be ideas that can become reality. Many of Mamdani’s ideas are far from realistic. But, while his main rival is calcified in his worldview and offers more of the same kind of politics that led to our current crises, Mamdani has the potential to grow.
Ultimately, it is clear that the Democratic nominee appreciates the scale of New York’s challenges and wants to use the power of the office to benefit all New Yorkers—not just himself. For New Yorkers looking for idealistic, transformative change—but also for the candidate most likely to lead with seriousness and open-mindedness—Zohran Mamdani is the wisest choice to make.
Andrew Cuomo
Former governor Andrew Cuomo is the only candidate who appears to have any chance of catching up to the frontrunner, and so he deserves the most careful consideration as an alternative.
Talking to voters who chose him in the primary or who are planning to vote for him now, the reasons are straightforward: his decade as governor is remembered with fondness, as Cuomo spent most of those years appearing solidly in control of what had previously been an ungovernable state capital. Cuomo delivered budgets on time, signed into law many groundbreaking bills, and oversaw pre-pandemic years when New York felt more affordable, safer, and more vibrant.
However, a closer review of his record and disposition suggest that he is not well-positioned to deliver on the promises of that fond recollection—and that New Yorkers hoping for a rejuvenation of the city’s fortunes should look elsewhere.
Cuomo did not address the housing shortage as governor and does not appear committed to solving it now; his proposals set a headline goal of 500,000 units but without serious engagement with how to get there. (To his credit, his team did call the charter amendments to speed affordable housing creation "no brainers.")
On transit, Cuomo oversaw the MTA’s 2017 “Summer of Hell” service problems, deflected blame to Mayor Bill de Blasio, and ran widely respected NYC Transit President Andy Byford out of town. Cuomo signed congestion pricing into law but distanced himself when the program appeared unpopular before its launch.
Cuomo did not address the housing shortage as governor and does not appear committed to solving it now; his proposals set a headline goal of 500,000 units but without serious engagement with how to get there. (To his credit, his team did call the charter amendments to speed affordable housing creation "no brainers.")
On transit, Cuomo oversaw the MTA’s 2017 “Summer of Hell” service problems, deflected blame to Mayor Bill de Blasio, and ran widely respected NYC Transit President Andy Byford out of town. Cuomo signed congestion pricing into law but distanced himself when the program appeared unpopular before its launch.
Cuomo helped prop up Republican control of the State Senate even though Democrats held a majority of seats; landmark bills on reproductive freedom, climate emissions, and voting rights only passed after that split control ended. Helping Republicans keep control undermined the will of the people, an undemocratic outcome consistent with other Cuomo actions—from weakening an ethics commission to the pattern of harassment requiring his resignation.
During the primary, he avoided the press, threatened his critics and accusers with legal action, and missed out on matching funds due to illegal coordination with his Super PAC. Instead of taking responsibility for past missteps, he has rejected accountability and falsely claimed exoneration. Increasing closeness to Donald Trump, and to Trump donors, is out of step with the city’s rejection of MAGA politics in a moment of national distress.
The ex-governor has a reputation for effectiveness. In some cases, such as same-sex marriage and large-scale infrastructure projects, it is earned. In others, like Covid management, it seems more superficial than real. Ultimately, it is misguided to entrust the future of New York City to the ex-governor in the belief that “he is a bully, but he will be a bully for us.” It is far more likely he will be a bully on behalf of his primary career-long constituent—himself.
Curtis Sliwa
Perennial candidate and New York personality Curtis Sliwa is increasingly seen without his signature red beret these days, a sign of an attempted seriousness in his latest pursuit of the mayoralty. Long known to city residents as the vigilante founder of the Guardian Angels, as a noted cat person, and as a bombastic television personality, Sliwa is attempting to remake himself as the “adult in the room” beside the frustrated ex-governor and telegenic Democratic nominee.
Sliwa lost decisively to Eric Adams in the last general election, but this year he has outlasted the current mayor in the race. Even Democratic elected officials who do not want to see a Mamdani mayoralty have compared Sliwa favorably to Andrew Cuomo, noting that Sliwa is actually a major-party nominee without a record of disappointing moderate New Yorkers.
Even without the beret, however, Sliwa is not a serious alternative. His policy proposals reflect the worst of GOP opposition to cities—unacceptable for a candidate who wants to lead the country’s largest. His primary housing commitment is to reverse the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan to legalize 80,000 new homes citywide amidst a generational housing shortage. Reverting the zoning code to its exclusionary 1961 status quo would undermine affordability while perpetuating segregation. Further, Sliwa is vociferous about ending congestion pricing—a landmark achievement to fund public transit, speed buses, cut down carbon emissions, and reduce traffic violence.
Overall, Sliwa is committed to protecting the interests of homeowners and car owners over the majority of the city’s renters and riders. Moreover, he has no new innovative ideas for addressing New York’s most profound and persistent problems—from affordability to street homelessness to social disorder to climate change.
He is better relegated to talking head appearances than to Gracie Mansion.