New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is eight months into his term of office, and reality has stepped up and whacked him upside the head.
He had a decent start. After fulfilling a campaign promise to "tax the rich," Mamdani saw three of his endorsed candidates coast to primary victories. He also presided over a feel-good moment when he joined the celebration of the New York Knicks' first championship in more than 50 years.
But at some point, Mamdani had to come back to Earth. His anti-Israel rhetoric has become more toxic since the election, leading to a drop in his popularity ratings. He's insulted the business community by making high-profile public appearances that directly target prominent corporate leaders, such as filming a promotional video outside the Manhattan residence of Citadel CEO Ken Griffin to announce new tax policy proposals. He also stacked the Rent Guidelines Board with allies to enforce rent freezes across roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments, publicly arguing that "landlords are doing just fine" and positioning real estate investors as profit-driven obstacles to affordable housing.
Leaders across real estate and finance have voiced frustration over his rhetoric, with CEOs arguing his messaging paints success as inherently suspect and actively drives investment and corporate headquarters out of the city.
What possessed Mamdani to post a list of more than 900,000 properties he claims "might" be subject to the new tax, but many more than likely won't?
Justice Wayne Ozzi questioned why the list needed to be so broad. “I’m sure it caused concern amongst people,” the judge said. “Some may be embarrassed, some may be quizzical.” He also pointed out that the city had made “missteps” and criticized the administration for doing a poor job of vetting before sending out the mail notices.
His rabid supporters are still "all in" with his socialist agenda. But others are not.
A Siena Research Institute poll released Wednesday appeared to show a growing divide between Mamdani supporters and detractors. A record high of 44% of likely New York voters held an unfavorable opinion of the mayor, according to the poll, which was conducted the week after the bungled tax rollout. In previous Siena polls of registered New York voters, his unfavorability rating had never gone above 40%. The latest Siena poll also showed the mayor’s favorability rating at 47%, up slightly from a June poll.
Juan Carlos Polanco, a political strategist and professor at the University of Mount Saint Vincent, said that while every mayor has dealt with highs and lows in office, they are amplified for Mamdani. His meteoric rise from a relative political unknown to the winner of last year’s mayoral race turned him into an international sensation, Polanco said, but his résumé was thin before taking office.
“I think that he’s going to experience this roller coaster more intensely, because he had no track record and a lot of us are still uncomfortable with him being mayor because he had no experience to sit there,” Polanco said. “Now he’s in charge, and we are walking on eggshells, making sure that this doesn’t go too crazy.”
To the good people of New York (and the bad ones too), to quote the good Ronald Reagan, "You ain't seen nothin' yet."
A mayoral spokesperson told the WSJ that the mayor was reducing regulations on small businesses and fixed "170,000 potholes." Receipts, please.
“This is what it looks like when government works: balancing the books without balancing them on the backs of New Yorkers, making life more affordable, protecting workers and consumers and delivering the services people rely on every day,” the spokesperson crowed.
Horsehockey. Aside from the usual political blather about "making life more affordable," we might want to take a closer look at how Mamdani balanced the city budget, which was $12 billion in the hole.
In fact, the entire process of "balancing the budget" was a combination of smoke and mirrors and simple begging.
About $8 billion of that budget hole was closed thanks to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who leaned on the state legislature to pass a funding bill over two years.
Some of the other budget adjustments:
- Adjusted timelines for specific state school class-size mandates and managed other program spending growth;
- Extended the amortization schedule for the city's unfunded pension liabilities, delaying portions of payments through 2037; and
- Trimmed administrative waste, such as cutting expensive external consulting contracts and reducing unnecessary overtime.
The state has legally capped class sizes, which would have forced Mamdani and New York City schools to spend about $1.8 billion on new teacher salaries and more than $6 billion on new classrooms and infrastructure. Long-term capital construction costs are estimated at $17 billion to $28 billion for full compliance.
The administration identified about $1.77 billion in internal savings through reduced overtime, technology upgrades, lease consolidations, and contract renegotiations.
It's all smoke and mirrors, of course. Mamdani doesn't have to cut a penny and gets to keep spending as much as possible.
After all, it's not his money.
Related: Mamdani and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week (and It’s Only Wednesday)
This shell game Mamdani is playing with the budget can only last a few years. Chicago relied on this "budget balancing" going all the way back to Rahm Emanuel, who took money from pensions to pay for his spending schemes. Now the public employee pensions are near collapse, and the state has gotten tired of bailing Chicago out.
We can expect the same fate to befall Mamdani.
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