#zohran-mamdani

More than half (55%) said they have a favorable view of the new mayor, while 75% said they believe Mamdani is working hard.

Also, at least 60% of NYC residents see Mamdani as:

A good leader Fulfilling campaign promises Working to represent all New Yorkers Understanding the city's problems Doing more to unite the city than divide it Despite all that good news for the mayor, less than half of New Yorkers approve of his job performance thus far. But if the majority holds all the aforementioned beliefs, why is his overall approval rating floundering at less than half?

With the state budget unresolved, and Mamdani so far unable to deliver his tax on the rich, many of his bigger campaign promises like free buses and affordable housing remain up in the air too.

Mamdani's approval rating is lower than that of Eric Adams (61%) and Bill de Blasio (49%) at the same time during their administrations.

on his first day in office he created two taskforces aimed at creating new development: one will review city-owned land to see if it is suitable for construction, another aims to “identify and remove bureaucratic and permitting barriers” which slow down the building of homes.

A highlight, and a thumb in the eye to those who said Mamdani would be thwarted by the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, came when that pair released a plan on Thursday to provide free childcare for two-year-olds in New York City.

Elsewhere, Mamdani has been conducting small but meaningful fixes. Thousands of people cycle across the Williamsburg Bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn every day, yet for years cyclists have been forced to negotiate a skatepark-esque dip at the Manhattan exit.

Pleas to fix the ramp have gone unheard for years, but on Tuesday Mamdani simply popped up at the Manhattan side of the bridge, with a spade and a crew of department of transport workers, and had the aggressive dip smoothed into a nice, gentle incline.

Mamdani, a Democrat, was sworn in as the first Muslim leader of America’s biggest city, placing his hand on a Quran as he took his oath.

Kind of a shitty, misrepresented framing for this article, but those that bother to read may see that his positions are more nuanced and dare we say open-minded than the title might lead one to believe. Just like any media coverage of a politician, the media reports on the most extreme things you can probably find an inflates them. Yet if you see the guy speak in an interview or even bother to read beyond the sound bite you see he’s quite well informed.

During a lengthy interview on the Odd Lots podcast, Mamdani went into more detail about the kinds of deregulation he supported to enable more housing construction, such as ending parking minimums and two-stair requirements. He also criticized the New York City Council's practice of "member deference," whereby the Council will reject housing projects that are opposed by the councilmember whose district they'd be built in.

It would go much too far to say that Mamdani has had a deeper ideological shift to a more market-oriented perspective. He has continued to insist that rent freezes and faster permitting of new housing can coexist as complementary policies.

HOPE. TURN THE VOLUME UP.

New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants. And as of tonight, led by an immigrant.

His primary win was a spectacular repudiation of the pollsters, who with glossy charts and graphs try to induce the public to consent to middle-of-the-road, incrementalist politicians who give up before the negotiations have even started. Meanwhile? The median age of first-time homebuyers has soared from 33 years old during the pandemic to 38 in 2024. If that’s pragmatism, is it any surprise that no one’s interested? “It’s not about money, it’s about will,” Mamdani told Stewart.

• 90K volunteers on his campaign!

Politics is not something that you have, it's something that you do.

It's an opportunity to actually show that this whole campaign where we've talked about freezing the rent, making buses faster, free delivering universal childcare, these are not just slogans. These are commitments. And when we deliver them here in New York City, it will be also the delivery of a politics that can actually aspire for more than what you're living through. And for so many people across the city, politics has just become synonymous with an argument of celebrate the little you have or lose that.

It's not about money, it's about will.

One position Mamdani has stood firm on is his criticism of Israel and lifelong support for Palestinian rights. It represents a break from the Democratic party establishment and could be a deciding factor for many voters in a city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.