Ranked-choice voting in the New York City mayoral primary gave a victory to Zohran Mamdani, a member of the New York State Assembly from the 36th district, based in Queens, since 2021. He is a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. (see previous article referencing the Democratic Socialists of America.) 

Here are a few of Zohran Mamdani’s ideas according to his campaign website:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

He may provide living proof of the Margaret Thatcher quote, “The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” The only question is going to be how long that will take in New York City. The city avoided bankruptcy in 1975 (article here).

Just to add some perspective, the following headline was posted at The New York Post on Wednesday:

Luxury real estate brokers say wealthy New Yorkers are already looking to flee after Zohran Mamdani’s primary win

The Republican candidate for Mayor is Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels. However, generally speaking, Republicans do not win mayoral races in New York City. Eric Adams is running as an independent candidate.