Zohran Mamdani, Mayor of New York. A year ago he was anonymous, today he rules the metropolis
To make a good impression on New Yorkers and get off to a strong start, Mamdani will have to avoid a dense network of traps — both obvious and surprising ones — that many aspiring mayors have already stumbled upon.
– As in [prezydenta] Franklin D. Roosevelt, it is the first 100 days that people remember – says George Arzt, lobbyist and PR expert, long-time spokesman for the late Mayor Ed Koch. — Every day I walked into the town hall and wondered what was going to happen today.
Arzt recalls one of Koch's sayings, maybe not entirely precise, but right to the point. “He used to say: if a sparrow dies of a heart attack somewhere in the city, it's my fault,” she recalls.
Based on early successes and failures – both culpable and unfavorable – New Yorkers quickly form strong opinions about the man who rules the city.
In Mamdani's case, the stakes are double. On January 1, he took the oath and became mayor of New York. He took over the reins of a city divided by the attitude towards his candidacy and will immediately find himself under the microscope of public opinion, especially since the whole world is watching his career.
The stakes are even greater because Mamdani – a 34-year-old democratic socialist with no management experience – has so far managed only a team of a few people in the New York State Legislature. Now he will head a vast urban bureaucratic machine, the country's largest school system and police forcehaving only a minimal margin of error. Any mistakes will give his political opponents another argument to support the thesis that he should not have taken this position from the beginning.
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Also on standby is President Donald Trump, who — despite a polite White House meeting with Mamdani in November — threatened to cut federal subsidies and send the National Guard to the city. Problems related to crime or the deteriorating economic situation may provide an impulsive president with an excuse to interfere in the affairs of the new mayor.
Challenges will arise immediately
Mamdani's ambitious — and expensive — program is based on the assumption that a leftist mayor can effectively manage a city that is often considered ungovernable. Any mistake may threaten his bold plans introducing free childcare, public transport and supermarkets run by the authorities.
The team responsible for Mamdani's takeover did not respond to a request for comment.
Mamdani starts his term with several advantages. There is a historically broad and mobilized coalition behind it. It has a clear program and the support of key circles. He has managed — at least for now — to neutralize the riskiest political threats to his young administration. He will also take over one of the most important podiums in the country as an exceptionally skilled communicator, whose strategy Democrats across the United States are already benefiting from.
However, the challenges awaiting Mamdani will emerge immediately. His agenda depends almost entirely on officials in Albany, the state capital, where budget season usually starts just a few weeks after a new mayor takes office. This means that the newly completed city hall will have to immediately enter into behind-the-scenes negotiationsand in which Mamdani's team has not yet had time to prove itself.
Zohran Mamdani and Kathy Hochul, Governor of New York State, at a rally. New York, October 26, 2025PAP/EPA/SARAH YENESEL / PAP
An alliance with Gov. Kathy Hochul, who endorsed him in September and expressed interest in being part of his affordable housing agenda, may play to his advantage. However, the moderate Democratic governor, who will run for re-election this year, must calculate political gains and lossesespecially since opponents are eager to use Mamdani's character against her.
Her main rival — deputy governor Antonio Delgado — is trying to mobilize the left-wing electorate on the wave of Mamdani's victory. On the Republican side, Bruce Blakeman, head of Nassau County, he can't wait to lump Hochul and the radical leftist mayoral administration into one bagwhich could cause New York Democrats a headache.
But Mamdani's agenda — universal child care, tax increases on the wealthy and free buses — must pass through Albany, where even the most experienced mayors found themselves lost in the convoluted corridors of power.
“You have to have low expectations for Albany.”
The state capital has long been a source of disappointment for mayors. Michael Bloomberg's attempts to get approval to build a stadium on Manhattan's West Side were blocked by the adamant Speaker of the State Legislature, Sheldon Silver. Governor Andrew Cuomo's dispute with Mayor de Blasio has resulted a series of conflicts, including for access to necessary vaccines. De Blasio has had to return to Albany every year to try to maintain control of the city's schools.
Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio during a news conference on the first known case of COVID-19 in New York, March 2, 2020.EPA/JUSTIN LANE / PAP
“You have to have low expectations for Albany,” says Rory Whalen, a special adviser to Adams who previously worked for Republicans in the New York State Senate. “It's been that way since the days of the Tammany Hall Association [powstałeego w 1789 r. poprzednika Partii Demokratycznej w Nowym Jorku — red.] not much has changed. The Legislature will play with him and will not allow him to implement the entire agenda. He won't get everything.
At the federal level, the young mayor has developed a cordial relationship with Trump during their last joint meeting and press conference he lavished praise on the democratic socialist.
For now, this alliance has neutralized the threat of sending the National Guard into the city. However, this will not stop routine raids by federal immigration authorities, which can easily ignite public outrage New Yorkers expecting more decisive action from Mamdani than from his predecessors. Such an alliance is unlikely to last long, given the political gulf between the two politicians.
Will Mamdani avoid the mistakes of his predecessors?
The city's financial situation also does not give Mamdani reasons for optimism. The city council published slightly more optimistic revenue forecasts, however the new mayor will have to face billion-dollar deficits in the coming years and underestimated spending that could add hidden costs to the city's $118 billion budget. [ok. 425 mld zł]
A person in crisis of homelessness transports his belongings in a stroller through the streets of New York, January 29, 2024.PAP/EPA/SARAH YENESEL / PAP
And these are only the problems that are already known. The most difficult challenges for new mayors can be completely unpredictable. An unexpected snowstorm paralyzed the city just weeks after de Blasio took office. Adams successfully weathered the first winter storm, but later drew criticism for traveling out of town during heavy rain. And there are already forecasts of snowstorms in January and February, the first two months of Mamdani's term.
Adams and de Blasio share another grim experience: in the first year of their rule, two policemen were murdered. For de Blasio — whose campaign was based, among other things, on on demands for police reform – the angry reaction of ordinary officers turned out to be one of the turning points of his term. In turn, Adams, a former police officer, often cited the deaths of officers to emphasize the importance of public safety and the hardships of his previous profession.
Both of them also had to deal with crises on an unprecedented scale that put their management skills to the test. For de Blasio, it was COVID-19 in the latter half of his second term, a public health crisis that in New York it consumed almost 50,000. victims and forced him to act in the face of excited public opinion and a hostile governor trying to undermine his decisions.
New York under Adams was flooded with a wave of migrants from the southern border just a few months after he took office in 2022. The total number of new arrivals exceeded 200,000. people, which pushed the city's social welfare system to its limits and cost the metropolis approximately USD 7 billion. [obecnie ok. 25 mld zł]. As a result, Adams has worsened his relationship with President Joe Biden and the national Democratic Party.
Mayor Eric Adams during a press conference following the police officer's death. New York, January 21, 2022EPA/CAITLIN OCHS / PAP
There are also mistakes made at one's own request. Already in the first month of Adams's term, speculations about corruption in City Hall appeared. The mayor appointed his longtime friend, Phil Banks, who left the NYPD in 2014 when he was named as deputy security officer. an unindicted accomplice in a federal police corruption investigation.
These allegations dogged Adams throughout his term, especially since several of his colleagues left under suspicion. Sam Adams was indicted on bribery chargeswhich was ultimately discontinued following a highly unusual intervention by the Trump administration. And the mayor's closest associate was charged with corruption by the Manhattan prosecutor's office.
In turn, dissatisfaction with de Blasio's constant delays reached its peak already in the first year of his term, when He was late for the Queens plane crash memorial service and missed the symbolic ringing of the bell at the time the plane crashed.
Mamdani will have to cope with whatever fate throws at him and at the same time face it possibly a strained relationship with the New York Post, a conservative tabloidwho delighted in tormenting de Blasio with altered covers, cutting humor and biting articles.
However, the new mayor skillfully uses the strategy of “self-ironic diss” in the style of Eminem – He himself posts his own mockery suggestions online that could be featured on the coverthus weakening the attacks. He used a similar tactic when he apologized to the New York Police Department for past critical statements while appearing on right-wing Fox News.
— The Post itself in 2026 is not strong enough to bring down the mayor says Trip Yang, a Democratic Party strategist. — But poor relations with journalists, including the Post, may determine the limits of the mayor's success or failure. Mamdani immediately showed that he can deal with the media, especially the conservative ones, much better than his predecessors.
