What are Zohran Mamdani's policies? Where he stands on rent, city-owned stores, more
Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old assemblyman and democratic socialist, defied expectations when he pulled well ahead to presumed victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New York City's June 24 Democratic mayoral primary.
While there were 11 candidates on the ranked-choice ballot, preliminary polling named Cuomo and Mamdani the front-runners by a large margin. Cuomo frequently polled above Mamdani in the weeks leading up to voting day, but the former governor ultimately ended up calling his opponent on Tuesday night to concede.
Mamdani led Cuomo 44% to 36% among first-place votes, with 96% of ballots counted as of around 1 p.m. on Wednesday, June 25.
The Democratic nominee will begin the general election as the favorite in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. Considered the more progressive candidate of the two, Mamdani's platform has included stances on rent and housing, cost of living, safety, infrastructure and relations between the city and President Donald Trump.
Here is a brief look at Mamdani's stance on major city issues, based on his campaign page and reporting from Paste BN.
Who is Zohran Mamdani?
Mamdani is a 33-year-old politician and member of the Democratic Socialists of America party. He was born in Kampala, Uganda but moved to New York City with his family when he was 7 years old, where he attended the Bronx High School of Science, according to his assembly biography.
Mamdani is currently the three-term representative for Assembly District 36, located in Queens, in the New York State Assembly. He is the first South Asian man and Ugandan to serve in the assembly and the third Muslim person to do so.
He worked as a foreclosure-prevention housing counselor prior to serving in the assembly, according to his biography. Interestingly, he also worked a stint in film, writing and as a rap music producer.
He is the son of Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, and Mira Nair, an Indian filmmaker.
If elected, he would become New York's first Muslim mayor, as well as the city's first Asian and Millennial mayor.
Where does Zohran Mamdani stand on issues?
Rent and housing
In a city with sky-high rent prices, cost of housing was a major tentpole in all mayoral candidates' campaigns. Mamdani's vision includes freezing rent on rent-stabilized apartments and building more affordable housing.
Besides "immediately" freezing rent for rent-stabilized tenants, Mamdani's platform also outlines a plan for constructing 200,000 new "affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized" units over 10 years and fast-tracking approval for "affordable" developments.
It also promises a "revamp" of the mayor's tenant protection efforts to bolster 311 services (non-emergency city services), allow tenants to request and track inspections and enable the city to step in when landlords are not meeting city standards. It would also create a new "Office of Deed Theft Prevention" for homeowners.
Public transportation
Free and faster buses are a major talking point in Mamdani's campaign. He says he would eliminate fares on all city buses and would improve their speed by building and expanding priority lanes, bus queue jump signals and dedicated loading zones.
Health and safety
Watch any NYC campaign commercial and you'll hear candidates talking about safety on the streets and subways. Mamdani plans to create the Department of Community Safety, a proposal that includes increased investment in mental health programs and crisis response, expanding "evidence-based gun violence prevention programs" and increasing funding to "hate violence prevention programs" by 800%.
Cost of living and labor; city-owned grocery stores
Another cost of living strain on New York families, beyond rent, is the price of essentials, like groceries. Mamdani has said he plans to address the cost of food by creating city-owned grocery stores that will pay no rent or property taxes, buy and sell at wholesale prices from centralized warehouses and partner with local vendors to keep prices down.
On childcare, Mamdani's campaign says it will offer free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years. He will also seek to implement the distribution of baby baskets to parents of newborns, which would include items like diapers, baby wipes, nursing pads, post-partum pads, swaddles, books and local resource guides.
Mamdani has also said he will aim to raise NYC's minimum wage to $30 by 2030 and regulate delivery apps like DoorDash, GrubHub and Uber Eats to strengthen licensure requirements and expand resources to assist app workers.
Education
Mamdani's plans surrounding K-12 education, as outlined in his campaign, include ensuring equal distribution of money and resources to city schools, creating car-free "School Streets," expanding the Bronx pilot Every Child and Family Is Known program to address homelessness in the school system and, on a collegiate level, investing in the CUNY system.
He also champions the Green Schools for a Healthier New York City initiative that seeks to renovate 500 public schools with renewable energy infrastructure and HVAC upgrades, make asphalt schoolyards into green spaces and build hubs in 50 schools for community emergency situations.
Taxation, bills and fees
Running on a platform of pushing back against the proverbial "big guys," Mamdani has proposed a 2% tax on residents earning above $1 million annually and raising the corporate tax rate to 11.5%.
Mamdani has also promised to "fight corporate exploration" by banning "hidden fees" and non-compete clauses, "fighting" misleading advertising and predatory contracts, limiting tax dollars given to companies under NDA agreements and funding challenges to ConEd's price increases. He plans to do so via enforcement of consumer protection laws, pushing legislation in Albany and working with the City Council, according to his campaign's policy memo.
Responding to Donald Trump
Another topline talking point among all of the mayoral candidates was handling relations with President Donald Trump and, in many cases, laying out plans to resist or respond to his policies.
Among Mamdani's plans to "resist" Trump are strengthening sanctuary city protections by ending cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and barring them from city facilities, increasing legal support for migrants, preventing personal data from being given to ICE, protecting abortion rights and increasing the budgets of the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and the NYC Commission on Human Rights.