In recent days, Zohran Mamdani, the socialist candidate for mayor, spoke on the phone with an unlikely person: Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City and an advocate for the city’s CEO class.
The conversation was cordial, said Mamdani, a state Assemblyman from Queens whose affordability-focused campaign and charismatic online presence have won him a devoted following and propelled him to second place in recent polls of the June 24 Democratic primary.
“It was an opportunity to share the same vision I’ve been speaking about, and to hear about [how] the lack of affordable rent, child care, public transit has also impacted the business community — and what concerns there might be around this platform,” Mamdani told Crain’s. (Wylde said the conversation was brief, but that Mamdani “has reached out and been in open discussion with representatives of the business community.”)
That their conversation happened at all is a reflection of the particular campaign Mamdani is running — characterized by big, costly proposals that his critics deride as pipe dreams, but also by an emphasis on competence and an openness to the private sector that distinguishes him from a previous generation of left-wing candidates.
“An idea is only as good as its implementation,” Mamdani said. “As much as I care about public goods, I also care about public excellence and holding ourselves in the public sector to extremely high standards.”
Mamdani’s agenda includes freezing rent for all rent-stabilized tenants, making the city’s buses fare-free, constructing 200,000 new affordable housing units, and opening five city-owned grocery stores to lower prices for consumers. To pay for it, Mamdani would ask the state Legislature to raise New York’s 7.25% corporate tax rate to at least New Jersey’s level of 11.5%. (Mamdani believes that tax hike would pay for most of his agenda, while the rest would be covered by hiring more auditors to improve collections of existing city taxes and spending city dollars more efficiently.)
Those stances have not won him many friends in the business world. Several prominent executives who spoke to Crain’s in recent days said they are paying attention to Mamdani’s momentum but do not believe he will threaten the current front-runner, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has largely consolidated business-world support. (Two late March polls, taken before Eric Adams switched to an independent bid, showed Cuomo leading the 10-person primary field with just under 40% support; Mamdani is hovering between 10% and 15%.)
“It’s not a shock that somebody who’s promising a chicken in every pot and a lot of free goodies is generating some momentum,” said David Lombino, managing director for Brooklyn real estate developer Two Trees, who donated $250 to Cuomo’s campaign.
James Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said he is confident Mamdani cannot win citywide.
“A candidate polling at 18% shows that an overwhelming majority of city Democratic voters don’t buy policy proposals based on fantasy,” said Whelan, who has solicited donations for Cuomo.
If the socialist lawmaker shows further momentum in the polls, though, it could begin to stoke anxiety among the city’s business class. After eight restive years under progressive Mayor Bill de Blasio, the real estate industry in particular has relished the friendly policies of Eric Adams since he took office in 2022. With Adams’ re-election in doubt, developers and landlords are anxious to find a successor who will continue that legacy.
“I think there’s shared consensus that [Mamdani] needs to be taken seriously, but it’s not as though people are in panic mode,” said another prominent executive who requested anonymity to speak freely. “The notion of him being elected, if that were to become grounded in a horse race, would inexorably lead to a lot of anxiety on behalf of the business community.”
Mamdani, for his part, argues that business leaders have less to fear from his campaign than they might think, given his emphasis on an affordability crisis that threatens to stall the city’s economy. He has toned down prior calls to defund the Police Department, instead proposing a $1.1 billion “Department of Community Safety” that would complement the NYPD. And his housing agenda, while emphasizing city-subsidized projects, also calls for loosening zoning limits in wealthy neighborhoods and near transit in order to boost supply — a proposal that echoes Adams’ City of Yes plan and would rely on for-profit developers.
“My position today is one that acknowledges a clear role for the private sector,” said Mamdani, who agreed that like other progressives, he has softened his prior hostility to market-rate development as the city’s housing shortage has grown worse.
Mamdani’s strident support of Palestine and criticism of Israel’s destructive war in Gaza have contributed to his unpopularity among business leaders, who are generally supportive of Israel, several executives said. Many of Mamdani’s opponents, including Adams and Cuomo, have sought to paint him as anti-Semitic, a characterization he strongly denies.
“Every single one of my positions is built upon a commitment to universal human rights, to peace, to freedom, to dignity for all people without exception,” said Mamdani, who noted that his public safety plan calls for increasing funding to combat hate crimes including anti-Semitism.
Flush with cash
In any case, Mamdani hardly needs the business world’s financial support, given the surge in small-dollar donations that has fueled his campaign so far. Last month, he became the first mayoral candidate to stop fundraising, announcing that he had raised the $8 million that his campaign could legally spend before the June primary after accounting for public matching funds he expects to receive this month.
Mamdani is also one of just two candidates, along with Cuomo, whose campaign will be boosted by a state-level super PAC unconstrained by spending limits. The pro-Mamdani PAC, which he cannot legally coordinate with, has raised $56,500 from donors including actress Cynthia Nixon. (The pro-Cuomo PAC has raised more than $9 million, and has booked $5 million in television advertisements set to air starting April 8.)
For now, supporters of Cuomo are perfectly content to have Mamdani occupying the number-two spot. Cuomo supporters believe Mamdani, given his hard-left views, has an even slimmer chance of beating the ex-governor than more mainstream progressive candidates like Comptroller Brad Lander, who is less-than-beloved among the business class. Cuomo advisers have taken to social media to amplify polls showing Mamdani as the second-leading candidate.
“To see [Mamdani] out front on the left, ahead of some Democratic primary candidates that seemingly could pick off more moderate voters, could be viewed as a positive development for those that are rooting for Andrew,” said Lombino of Two Trees.
Mamdani’s ascendancy comes at an awkward time for the left in New York. After socialist candidates won upset victories during the first Trump administration — including Mamdani himself, who unseated a more moderate incumbent to win his Queens Assembly seat in 2020 — left-wing candidates have found themselves on the back foot amid a rightward turn in the electorate and backlash over the 2020 defund-the-police movement.
Mamdani said he is confident in his chances of victory, arguing that he has already far exceeded the expectations of his doubters.
Wylde, of the Partnership, said the city’s business elites are still mostly focused on Cuomo.
“No one in my world really pays attention to anybody but the front-runner,” she said.
