The Driving Force Behind Zohran Mamdani’s NYC Primary Victory
New York City’s 2025 Primary Election came to a closure at 9 PM on Tuesday, June 24th, delivering a result the surprised many. Despite former Governor Andrew Cuomo maintaining a solid lead in the polls as the potential Democratic mayoral nominee it gradually began to narrow as primary voting drew closer, with Zohran Mamdani the likely victor. Fueling the path to victory was the “deep economic frustrations that for decades plagued the working classes of the city,” that has now grown in numbers to include many of the young, college-educated voters battling “steep rents and the lowest housing availability in more than half a century.” Young college graduates seeking to make their mark in the world have always been drawn to New York City. However, the increasing struggle to keep up with the city’s rising costs is making it harder for many to see a future of living in New York where even a low six figure income doesn’t go far in 2025 New York City. Mayoral hopeful Mamdani is reportedly leveraging the promise of rent freezes for rent-stabilized apartments, city-owned grocery stores, and free bus rides to win over voters in November. Although “New York saw lower inflation than other parts of the country immediately after the pandemic,” over the last two years the 7.5% rise in consumer prices between May 2023 and May 2025 was well above the national rate of 5.7%. In addition, the median monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the city rose to $5,500, or 15.8% in the past year, representing the fastest increase among U.S. cities according to reported statistics compiled by listing site Zumper; while a report by the New York State Comptroller’s Office indicated that “food costs in the New York metro area rose by 56% in the 10 years between 2012-2013 and 2022-2023,” surpassing the 46% increase nationwide.
The suggestion of implementing a rent freeze is not new and continues to be controversial. A recent article by AMNY noted that while housing advocate groups state it is necessary to address New York City’s affordability crisis, on the other side of the table, landlord advocacy groups point out that the “same inflationary costs hurting tenants are hitting landlords” in addition, the added regulations of the Housing Stability & Tenant Protection Act of 2019 has made it more financially challenging to properly maintain buildings, since it essentially eliminated avenues for landlords to make money to fund projects. More importantly, the city continues to spend an increasing amount of taxpayer dollars on affordable housing-related programs such as the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) rental voucher program launched in 2018. According to the February 2025 report by the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC), the “entirely city-funded program that already exceeds the total size of federally-funded housing programs in all other major cities” has not reduced the demand for shelter, and as the CBC further notes, “the city cannot voucher its way out of the housing affordability crisis.” According to CBC data, the CityFHEPS program is currently “serving 52,000 existing voucher holders and will “cost more than $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2025, more than twice the cost in fiscal year 2023’s anticipated $636 million. Perhaps it is time to recognize that these high-cost programs are not working and return to the drawing board. A recent article by City Journal revealed that the idea of city-owned, taxpayer-funded grocery stores has sparked skepticism, with some store operators not convinced that the city could implement the suggested network effectively, considering its lack of experience in running retail operations. There are also concerns about corruption that could result as seen happen in some of the other agencies; and it was further pointed out that Mamdani’s plan to “operate stores at lower costs by using vacant city land” would create unfair competition, while having little impact on the high cost of living and not addressing “the underlying forces driving grocery store closures in parts of the city — namely, crime and poverty.”
Last year Mamdani was successful in getting the state Legislature and Gov. Hochul to approve a one-year pilot of a free bus route in each borough, but a citywide expansion would come at an annual 2026 cost of approximately $650 million to $778 million in a revenue loss by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) due to the elimination of the $2.90 bus fare. Payroll taxes of large businesses were already raised this year by the Legislature to help fund $68-billion worth of MTA projects to prevent the city’s mass transit from falling into disrepair; and combined with looming federal aid cuts creating both city and state budget gaps makes government watchdogs and political observers skeptical of Mamdani securing a state buy-in. There also exists the potential of the fare-free bus negatively impacting the MTA’s revenue generated by subway fares if a notable volume of riders shift to take advantage of the free-fare option. Although Mamdani has floated a few ideas for tax increases that would affect businesses and high-income New Yorkers, or even property owners, which would be an unpopular move with voters, another hurdle in pushing the program forward is that since the MTA is a state agency, the mayor of New York City does not have direct control over it. Moving past highlights of Mamdani’s campaign platform, other concerns and questions arise —is a rookie politician that has served just four years in the New York State Assembly and admittedly has no experience in local government the best candidate to serve as mayor of New York City. Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran political strategist with over 35 years of experience in the political campaign arena spoke out in a recent interview with the New York Post stating, Mamdani “has no idea how the city works, how to run a jail, how to run a subway system and the biggest sanitation department in the country.” While recognizing that “his campaign has been effective, especially among young voters,” critics reportedly say that Mamdani is “ill-prepared to preside over a city of more than eight million people,” with George Arzt, political strategist of over 30 years further noting, “he’s young and totally lacks credential for the job.”
Source: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/zohran-mamdani-nyc-election-voters-economy-ead5d808
Source: https://cbcny.org/sites/default/files/media/files/CBCREPORT_FHEPS_02242025.pdf