Zohran Mamdani is running for Mayor to lower the cost of living for working class New Yorkers.
Election Day: November 4
Vote Early
October 25 - November 2
Vote Early
October 25 - November 2
Photo credit: Madison Swart
Meet Zohran
Zohran Kwame Mamdani is a New York State Assemblymember and democratic socialist running for Mayor. Born in Uganda and raised in New York City, he has fought for the working class in and outside the legislature: hunger striking alongside taxi drivers to achieve more than $450 million in transformative debt relief, winning over $100 million in the state budget for increased subway service and a successful fare-free bus pilot, and organizing New Yorkers to defeat a proposed dirty power plant. The cost of living is crushing working people but Zohran believes that government can lower costs and make life easier in our city — he’ll use every tool available to bring down the rent, create world class public transit, and make it easier to raise a family.
Get involved
Join Zohran for NYC
Join the over 50,000 volunteers who paved the path to our victory in the primary to keep the Zohmentum flowing. We've already knocked over 1.6 million doors and made over 2 million phone calls — let's see what we can do in the general!
Sign up here and we'll contact you when we've resumed volunteer events. We can't wait to see you!
Zohran Kwame Mamdani is a New York State Assemblymember and democratic socialist running for Mayor. Born in Uganda and raised in New York City, he has fought for the working class in and outside the legislature: hunger striking alongside taxi drivers to achieve more than $450 million in transformative debt relief, winning over $100 million in the state budget for increased subway service and a successful fare-free bus pilot, and organizing New Yorkers to defeat a proposed dirty power plant. The cost of living is crushing working people but Zohran believes that government can lower costs and make life easier in our city — he’ll use every tool available to bring down the rent, create world class public transit, and make it easier to raise a family.
Get involved
Join Zohran for NYC
Join the over 50,000 volunteers who paved the path to our victory in the primary to keep the Zohmentum flowing. We've already knocked over 1.6 million doors and made over 2 million phone calls — let's see what we can do in the general!
Sign up here and we'll contact you when we've resumed volunteer events. We can't wait to see you!
Join the biggest grassroots campaign in NYC history!
The Platform
New York is too expensive. Zohran will lower costs and make life easier.
Freeze the rent.
A majority of New Yorkers are tenants, and more than two million of them live in rent stabilized apartments. These homes should be the bedrock of economic security for the city’s working class. Instead, Eric Adams has taken every opportunity to squeeze tenants, with his hand-picked appointees to the Rent Guidelines Board jacking up rents on stabilized apartments by 9% (and counting)–the most since a Republican ran City Hall.
As Mayor, Zohran will immediately freeze the rent for all stabilized tenants, and use every available resource to build the housing New Yorkers need and bring down the rent. The number one reason working families are leaving our city is the housing crisis. The Mayor has the power to change that.
Fast, fare free buses.
Public transit should be reliable, safe and universally accessible. But one in five New Yorkers struggle to afford the ever rising fare. Adding insult to injury: our city’s buses are the slowest in the nation, robbing working people of precious time for family, leisure and rest.
Zohran won New York’s first fare-free bus pilot on five lines across the city. As Mayor, he’ll permanently eliminate the fare on every city bus – and make them faster by rapidly building priority lanes, expanding bus queue jump signals, and dedicated loading zones to keep double parkers out of the way. Fast and free buses will not only make buses reliable and accessible but will improve safety for riders and operators – creating the world-class service New Yorkers deserve.
Read More at The Nation
The Department of Community Safety
All New Yorkers deserve to be safe. But the Adams administration has failed to deliver the sense of safety and security that everyone should feel walking down our streets, riding our subways, or taking our buses. Zohran will create the Department of Community Safety to prevent violence before it happens by prioritizing solutions which have been consistently shown to improve safety. Police have a critical role to play. But right now, we’re relying on them to deal with the failures of our social safety net—which prevents them from doing their actual jobs. Through this new city agency and whole-of-government approach, community safety will be prioritized like never before in NYC. The Department will invest in citywide mental health programs and crisis response—including deploying dedicated outreach workers in 100 subway stations, providing medical services in vacant commercial units, and increasing Transit Ambassadors to assist New Yorkers on their journeys—expand evidence-based gun violence prevention programs, and increase funding to hate violence prevention programs by 800%. Read more in the NYT, and the full proposal here.
Read our full proposal here
No cost childcare.
After rent, the biggest cost for New York’s working families is childcare. It’s literally driving them out of the city: New Yorkers with children under six are leaving at double the rate of all others. The burden falls heaviest on mothers, who are giving up paying jobs to do unpaid childcare.
Zohran will implement free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years, ensuring high quality programming for all families. And he will bring up wages for childcare workers – a quarter of whom currently live in poverty – to be at parity with public school teachers. It will foster early childhood development, save parents money and keep our families in the city they call home.
City-owned grocery stores.
Food prices are out of control. Nearly 9 in 10 New Yorkers say the cost of groceries is rising faster than their income. Only the very wealthiest aren’t feeling squeezed at the register.
As Mayor, Zohran will create a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low, not making a profit. Without having to pay rent or property taxes, they will reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers. They will buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing. With New York City already spending millions of dollars to subsidize private grocery store operators (which are not even required to take SNAP/WIC!), we should redirect public money to a real “public option.”
Read More at The New York Times
Housing by and for New York.
We need a lot more affordable housing. But for decades, New York City has relied almost entirely on changing the zoning code to entice private development – with results that can fall short of the big promises. And the housing that does get built is often out of reach for the working class who need it the most.
As Mayor, Zohran will put our public dollars to work and triple the City’s production of permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes – constructing 200,000 new units over the next 10 years. Any 100% affordable development gets fast-tracked: no more pointless delays. And Zohran will fully staff our City’s housing agencies so we can actually get the work done.
For the additional housing we need, Zohran will initiate a Comprehensive Plan for New York City to create a holistic vision for affordability, equity, and growth. This planning will allow NYC to address the legacy of racially discriminatory zoning, increase density near transit hubs, end the requirement to build parking lots and proactively chart our future.
Read more in our policy memo
Cracking down on bad landlords.
One in ten renter households reported a lack of adequate heat last winter. One in four reported mice or rats in their homes. Half a million live in poor quality housing.
Every New Yorker deserves a safe and healthy place to call home. That’s why Zohran will overhaul the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants and coordinate code enforcement under one roof, making sure agencies work together to hold owners responsible for the conditions of their buildings. Tenants will be able to schedule and track inspections with a revamped 311. If a landlord refuses to make a repair, the City will do it and send them the bill. And in the most extreme cases, when an owner demonstrates consistent neglect for their tenants, the City will decisively step in and take control of their properties. The worst landlords will be put out of business.
Read more in our policy memo
Taxes on big corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers
Zohran has a plan to bring down the cost-of-living through city-owned grocery stores, universal childcare, and other bold proposals, and he knows exactly how to pay for it, too. Zohran’s revenue plan will raise the corporate tax rate to match New Jersey’s 11.5%, bringing in $5 billion. And he will tax the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers—those earning above $1 million annually—a flat 2% tax (right now city income tax rates are essentially the same whether you make $50,000 or $50 million). Zohran will also implement common-sense procurement reform, end senseless no-bid contracts, hire more tax auditors, and crack down on fine collection from corrupt landlords to raise an additional $1 billion.
Read the full plan here
Read Zohran’s platform on all of the issues New Yorkers are facing HERE.
Zohran has a plan to bring down the cost-of-living through city-owned grocery stores, universal childcare, and other bold proposals, and he knows exactly how to pay for it, too. Zohran’s revenue plan will raise the corporate tax rate to match New Jersey’s 11.5%, bringing in $5 billion. And he will tax the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers—those earning above $1 million annually—a flat 2% tax (right now city income tax rates are essentially the same whether you make $50,000 or $50 million). Zohran will also implement common-sense procurement reform, end senseless no-bid contracts, hire more tax auditors, and crack down on fine collection from corrupt landlords to raise an additional $1 billion.
Read the full plan here
Read Zohran’s platform on all of the issues New Yorkers are facing HERE.
Endorsements
Senator
Bernie Sanders
Senator
Elizabeth Warren
Congressman
Jerry Nadler
Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Congresswoman
Nydia Velásquez
Former Congressman
Jamaal Bowman
Attorney General
Letitia James
City Comptroller
Brad Lander
New York Working Families Party
DC37
NYC DSA
UNITEHERE! Local 100
Sunrise Movement National
United Auto Workers - Region 9A
Hotel Gaming and Trades Council
New York State Nurses Association
32BJ SEIU
New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO
IATSE Local 161
PSC-CUNY
Local 372
1199SEIU
United Federation of Teachers
CAAAV Voice
DRUM Beats
New York Communities for Change
Jewish Voice for Peace Action
New York Progressive Action Network
The Jewish Vote
Sunrise NYC
Muslim Democratic Club of New York
Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn
Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club
Stonewall Democratic Club of NYC
NYS Tenant Bloc
Committee of Interns and Residents - SEIU Healthcare
Teamsters Local 804
Alliance of South Asian American Labor
YAMA Action
VOCAL Action Fund
StreetsPAC
Make the Road Action
Citizen Action of NY
Community Voices Heard Power
The Nation
Human Services Action
See all of Zohran’s endorsements here.
Featured Press
Zohran Mamdani Wants You to Have More Money in Your Pocket
There’s a reason he resonates with so many New Yorkers, and it’s not just because he’s relatable—he grew up here, almost failed Mandarin class, and got sent to detention one too many times in high school—it’s because he’s straightforward, funny, and sincere. He is the antithesis of politics for show. He has proven to be what many voters now think is impossible: an elected official for the people.
Read more
Mamdani surges in new poll, leading Cuomo for first time in New York mayor’s race
Zohran Mamdani, the young democratic socialist who has been rising in the mayor’s race, is now ahead of Andrew Cuomo with just two weeks until the Democratic primary, a new poll reviewed in full by POLITICO found.
Read more
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Endorses Zohran Mamdani as Top Choice for Mayor
In elevating the assemblyman, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 35, chose the candidate closest to her own mold. Mr. Mamdani, 33, is a leftist representing Queens, a millennial and a person of color who entered the race as a long shot only to jump to second place by igniting grass-roots support with memorable policy proposals and viral videos. His platform echoes the congresswoman’s…He wants to make city buses free, freeze rent increases on rent-stabilized apartments and open city-run grocery stores — all funded by a $10 billion tax hike on businesses and the superrich.
Read more
Bernie Sanders Endorses Zohran Mamdani for N.Y.C. Mayor
Sanders said in a statement that Mr. Mamdani was running an “inspirational” campaign and was a “visionary” leader. He praised his plan to tax the wealthy. “Our nation faces a fundamental choice: Will we continue with a corporate-dominated politics driven by billionaires or will we build a grass-roots movement fueled by everyday people, committed to fighting oligarchy, authoritarianism and kleptocracy?” Mr. Sanders said.
Read more
‘Working-class New Yorkers are being pushed out of the city they built’: why Zohran Mamdani is running for mayor
In 2021, Mamdani went on a 15-day hunger strike to protest predatory loans that targeted the taxi drivers who purchased “medallions”, the physical certificate required to operate a yellow cab. The city eventually caved and struck a deal with medallion loan guarantors, securing $450m in transformative debt relief for these drivers.
Read more
N.Y.C. Grocery Prices Are High. Could City-Owned Stores Help?
A New York City mayoral candidate wants the city to open its own, more affordable grocery stores. The idea has gained momentum in Chicago and other cities.
Read more
Mamdani unveils ‘$30 by ‘30’ minimum wage push as part of mayoral campaign
Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist from Queens who is running for mayor, wants to raise New York City’s minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030.
Read more
Mayoral hopeful Mamdani proposes building 200,000 new ‘affordable’ homes with city dollars
Mamdani’s multifaceted housing plan… involves the city taking the lead on paying for new housing production rather than private developers. It builds on Mamdani’s marquee housing proposal, which he rolled out when he announced his candidacy last fall: Freezing the rent for all stabilized tenants.
Read more
Zohran Mamdani Tackles Climate Change and New York City’s Cost-of-Living Crisis
Green Schools for a Healthier New York City is meant, Mamdani said, “to showcase that taking on the climate crisis is also an opportunity to transform the quality of life for working-class New Yorkers, and to do so specifically at the point where so many interact with government the most, which is our public school system.”
Read more
The Democrats Are Losing the Social Media Wars. This Young Socialist Is Changing That.
As Democrats around the country debate moderation, doing nothing or pursuing a politics of abundance — calling for government to stop getting in the way of things like building housing with over-regulation — Mamdani is an example of another path, one that follows in the footsteps of Sanders by lifting up concrete leftist policies toward a social safety net and affordable cost of living.
Read more
The Happiest Democrat in America
A recent surge of glowing profiles and features have underlined the New York state assemblyman’s unlikely No. 2 position in polls for mayor, behind only Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor who leads the race. They tend to point to his acumen online, especially on TikTok—this kind of video is a prime example—and his ambidextrous appeal to different voters despite his unapologetic democratic socialist politics. His fundraising, driven by small donors, has topped $8 million. He is the rare Democrat who is meeting the most stark and uncertain moment in the party’s recent history with a message that’s both urgent and, against all odds, upbeat.
Read more
VIDEO:
Trump Threatens to Cut All Federal Funds to NYC If Mamdani Is Elected
Trump falsely labeled Mamdani a “communist” and said his ideology “has failed, always, for thousands of years.”
by Brad Reed
September 29, 2025
Common Dreams
Trump then elaborated on the “problems” Mamdani would face.
“Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises,” Trump wrote. “He won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him? This ideology has failed, always, for thousands of years. It will fail again, and that’s guaranteed!”
Trump has not made a formal endorsement in the New York City mayoral election, although various reports have suggested he and his allies have been working behind the scenes to boost former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom polls show is in second place behind Mamdani.
“Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises,” Trump wrote. “He won’t be getting any of it, so what’s the point of voting for him? This ideology has failed, always, for thousands of years. It will fail again, and that’s guaranteed!”
Trump has not made a formal endorsement in the New York City mayoral election, although various reports have suggested he and his allies have been working behind the scenes to boost former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom polls show is in second place behind Mamdani.
Cuomo’s campaign got a potential boost this weekend when incumbent New York Mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race, although Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa remains in the race.
Mamdani on Sunday put out a video in which he linked Cuomo to Trump, who is deeply unpopular in the city.
“Andrew Cuomo, you got your wish,” he said. “You wanted Trump and your billionaire friends to help you clear the field. But don’t forget: You wanted me as your opponent in the primary too. And we beat you by 13 points. Looking forward to doing it again.”
The mayoral election is set to take place on November 4.The city’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year included nearly $10 billion in federal funds, with the New York City Department of Education receiving more federal funding than any other agency. Significant federal dollars also go to the city’s housing and social services agencies and its Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
Last week, the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights notified New York City schools that it would strip them of $15 billion in funding allocated last year to create six magnet high schools unless it committed to ending transgender protections.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/zohran-mamdani-bernie-sanders-democrats-left-populism-new-york
Viewpoint Cover Story Politics
Zohran’s Political Revolution
Mamdani’s win in the New York City Democratic primary shows that the old tricks of the political establishment are dying out—and something new is being born.
by Miles Kampf-Lassin
August 12, 2025
In These Times
Zohran Mamdani waves to supporters at the NYC Pride March on June 29. Photo by ANDREW LICHTENSTEIN/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
When Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders launched his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2015, he called for a “political revolution” against “the billionaire class.” He didn’t win the presidency the next year, or in 2020, but he did plant seeds for a new kind of left electoral movement.
When Zohran Mamdani — a 33-year-old Muslim democratic socialist and state assemblymember — swept the Democratic primary for New York City mayor in late June, echoes of Sanders’ runs and the promise of a revived political revolution came with it.
Mamdani didn’t just upend conventional wisdom about who could win the race; he flung open the doors of mainstream U.S. politics and kicked the establishment to the curb. Disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a conservative Democrat, was favored to win, but he conceded well before all of the votes had even been counted.
Running on an unapologetic, laser-focused agenda of material relief for the working class, Mamdani rejected the neoliberal centrist playbook long dominant in the Democratic Party, refusing to shy away from taking firm progressive positions on issues ranging from opposing Israel’s genocide and forced famine in Gaza to staunchly defending immigrants from raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
By teaming up with comptroller Brad Lander and other progressives in the race, Mamdani took advantage of the city’s ranked-choice voting system to build a winning left coalition. And the movement that galvanized behind Mamdani — led by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America—worked tirelessly to get him over the finish line.
Ten years after Sanders’ first presidential announcement, the Vermont socialist’s vision of a broad grassroots movement for left economic populism scored one of its most significant victories in the country’s largest city, where Mamdani was able to realize Sanders’ previously unfulfilled mission of expanding the electorate by bringing in droves of new voters under a banner of taxing the rich to fund social programs. A surge of young voters and new voters of color, including those in Hispanic, Muslim, Asian and South Asian communities, as well as younger Black voters, helped propel Mamdani to victory.
Mamdani also won 30% of the districts that voted for Donald Trump in 2024, and he performed well in areas of the city that had shifted right in last year’s presidential election.
Much like the strikingly popular Fight Oligarchy tour led by Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez earlier this year, Mamdani’s win suggests an unabashed, fighting left politics can gain the support of those hungry for an alternative to both MAGA and feckless Democrats, one that will directly take on Trump’s far-right, authoritarian rule.
Mamdani’s win suggests an unabashed, fighting left politics can gain the support of those hungry for an alternative to both MAGA and feckless Democrats, one that will directly take on Trump’s far-right, authoritarian rule.
In November, Mamdani will face off against incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, as well as Cuomo; both are now in the race as independents. Already, billionaires and reactionary hardliners are training their sights on Mamdani, attempting to tar him with bogus charges of antisemitism, while elites in the Democratic Party and mainstream media fearmonger that his agenda is too extreme.
Still, the young, charismatic democratic socialist with social media prowess and a relentless focus on affordability appears to have what his opponents in the political establishment and corporate class don’t: backing from organized labor, the support of working people and an army of avid volunteers. Recent polls show him trouncing his opponents.
Whether Mamdani can win — and, if he does, how he governs — will ultimately determine the legacy of his stunning upset. The challenges of delivering on a platform of improving people’s lives will be steep in a city where the interests of Wall Street and finance capital have long reigned supreme.
But then, real political change often happens when and where it’s least expected.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Miles Kampf-Lassin is Senior Editor at In These Times. Follow him at @MilesKLassin
