Could this pro-Palestinian socialist really be NYC’s next mayor?

It’s official: Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani is running for mayor of New York City. Mamdani, a state legislator representing western Queens, formally launched his campaign on Wednesday, a little over three months after City & State first broke the news that he was considering a mayoral run. 

Mamdani is the fifth Democrat – and the first socialist – to announce a primary challenge against the incumbent mayor. While other mayoral candidates like city Comptroller Brad Lander and state Sens. Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos are trying to appeal to both progressives and moderates, Mamdani has the far-left lane all to himself. 

Mamdani is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and he was formally endorsed by the organization during its annual convention on Saturday (though some of his fellow socialist elected officials reportedly opposed the endorsement). His candidacy will test whether political positions that are marginal at best within New York political circles – such as freezing rents, slashing the budget of the New York City Police Department and ending U.S. arms shipments to Israel – are appealing to actual voters. City & State caught up with Mamdani shortly before he launched his campaign. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you talk a little about why you decided to run for mayor? 

City Hall is engulfed in corruption, but it's the outrageous cost of living that most New Yorkers are talking about. New Yorkers are being crushed by rent and child care. Working people are getting pushed out of the city they built, and Eric Adams has no answers to this crisis. This city deserves a mayor who gets to work every day squarely focused on how to make this city more affordable, more livable and more dignified for the working class. I believe I can be that mayor, and this can be that campaign. 

There are already four people who are running against Adams, many on a campaign of making the city more affordable. Why do you feel the need for you specifically to run? 

I think that our campaign will offer a distinct approach, set of proposals and politics that will resonate with New Yorkers across the city. The first (proposal is) to freeze the rent for every single rent stabilized tenant across New York City, for every year of the mayoralty. Eric Adams has raised the rent on those tenants by 9% and counting. That's the most since a Republican was in City Hall. Second, we're going to make buses across New York City fast and free. To some, $2.90 may not seem like a lot, but more than a fifth of New Yorkers struggle to afford the fare. Finally, after housing, it's the cost of child care that's driving people out of the city. We can make it free for every family.

Does the mayor have the power to make bus fares free or is that something that would have to be done by the state, since the state controls the MTA?

You know, mayors in the past have been creative around what falls within their jurisdiction with regards to the MTA. Mayor (Mike) Bloomberg, for example, paid for an entire subway station, even though that's typically a cost that is borne by the state, but he made the decision to undertake more than $1 billion of expenses with the expansion of the 7 train. There is clearly scope for the city to put up some of the funding towards making buses free. I do envision this as a partnership between the city and the state. 

What would you do as far as the police and carceral system? Would you commit to closing Rikers?

I would absolutely commit to closing Rikers. I think the first commitment that I would have in coming into office is to take every step to decarcerate because right now what we've had is an administration whose only approach to the police department has often been one of impunity. 

Public safety is created by dignified work, economic stability and well-resourced neighborhoods, but for decades all that's been offered to communities facing violence is more policing and incarceration. These institutions do little to prevent harm. The best they can do is to try to figure out who perpetrated it after it already happened. These are not just my thoughts on the situation, but many police officers and some police leaders themselves have also said that by the time that they are called onto the scene, it's clear that something else has failed that brought them to that moment. What we need to do is address inequality, exploitation and the disinvestment that fuels crime.

Would you slash the NYPD budget?

There are certainly areas where police funding has become totally unaccountable. We are now spending almost $1 billion in overtime. The NYPD’s press office is grossly overstaffed. We have a Strategic Response Group that has been found to violate New Yorkers’ very basic civil rights in moments of civil disobedience, and we do not need to spend more than $200 million on a “Cop City” training facility in Queens. 

You would be the city’s first Muslim mayor. What is the coalition you’re hoping to build, and what do you see as your path to victory?

I would be the first immigrant mayor, the first Muslim, first South Asian, first Ugandan – there are many of these firsts, but fundamentally, what this campaign is about is not me as an individual. It is about putting the interest of the working class first. Our path to victory in this campaign is one that brings together progressives across the city, rent-stabilized tenants, young people, Muslims and South Asians and, fundamentally, the working class of the city in every single borough who have found themselves left behind by the policies that have been embarked upon by a city government whose ultimate interest has been to serve the wealthy at the expense of the many. 

As a Muslim New Yorker, I'm keenly aware of the presence of Muslims across the city and just how much of this city’s fabric we make and maintain and are a part of. Yet the more than a million Muslims in New York City are typically erased from the political fabric of the place that we call home. There is tremendous anger and alienation right now, both within the Muslim community but also beyond. Whether it's these corruption scandals or the failure to do anything about our cost-of-living crisis or the fact that our tax dollars are going to fund a genocide in Palestine, restoring civic trust means speaking clearly about these issues and offering New Yorkers a vision that's worth believing in. 

You’re the only candidate so far who has called what’s happening in Palestine a “genocide.” Are you concerned that your outspoken criticism of Israel could potentially turn off many voters or do you think it will inspire other voters who currently feel disengaged from politics?

Too often when you speak up for Palestinian rights, it's framed as if you're speaking in favor of denying anyone rights, when in fact you are simply calling for the expansion of those rights and the application of them. I think that when you look across New York City, there are far more New Yorkers who cannot understand how we have enough money to kill kids across Palestine and Lebanon and Yemen and Syria while we are told there isn't enough money to take care of our basic needs across this city. (The federal government has spent $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, though no city funds have gone to Israeli aid.)

I think that you can see that amongst many Democrats – the majority of whom across this country describe what is going on rightfully as a genocide, are in favor of a cease-fire, and many of whom are calling for an arms embargo. These are positions that, while not commonplace in politics, are common outside of the corridors of power, and they are actually reflective of where New Yorkers are in this moment. I do believe that a majority of New Yorkers want to see an end to this genocide and they will not find it disqualifying that I believe in applying the same principles of freedom and safety and justice and liberation to Palestinians, as well as any other people across the world.

You introduced the sponsor of the “Not on Our Dime!” Act, a bill that would prohibit New York charities from funding certain Israeli organizations. The bill received intense pushback from some of your colleagues who said it was antisemitic. Are you concerned that will alienate voters?

It is legislation that would make it illegal for New York charities to fund Israeli war crimes. I think oftentimes when you stand up for Palestinian human rights, and you stand up for making so-called universal principles truly universal in their application, you are caricatured because it is easier to critique a caricature than it is to critique a conviction. 

I am not worried in the slightest about how New Yorkers will respond to my legislation because it is in fact in line with the sentiments of most New Yorkers that charitable purposes cannot and should not include subsidies for the funding of war crimes. We have a system right now where there are organizations set up in New York state that are providing the very settlers that the Biden administration has deemed too extreme, and therefore worthy of being on a sanction list, and yet New York state considers those settlers and their actions as being charitable.

You’re a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Are you concerned that voters will think you’re too radical because you’re a socialist?

Not at all. I think that what voters will see is that I belong to a tradition of democratic socialism, and it is that tradition that provides me with the proposals and the ideas of how we can reckon with this crisis. I think that is critically important to voters because, far too often, politics is made to seem as if it's a competition between individuals. This race is not about me as one person. It's not about me having all the answers to the myriad crises that face us. 

Instead, I am proposing that many of these crises are in fact systemic, and if we truly want to make the city one that the working class can afford to live in, then it's time we start to reimagine who we put at the center of our politics and why. I believe it should be the working class, and I believe that anything that is necessary to live a dignified life in the city is one that should be guaranteed to people, as opposed to one that we leave to the market to price people out of.

What does that mean for New York’s business community and landlords? Do you welcome their opposition or are you hoping to find a way to appeal to them in addition to the working class?

If there is a landlord who is opposed to this campaign because of the fact that I am calling for a rent freeze, that is an opposition that I welcome because I want to be direct and honest about what it is that I'm proposing. That is a return to a time when rent-stabilized tenants did not have to worry whether their mayor was going to continue to raise their rents at the rate of a Republican, and instead these units could live up to their name and stabilize the lives of working families across New York City.