What Zohran Mamdani Is Up Against

According to the New York City Department of Records and Information, Zoran Mamdani will not in fact be the city's 111th mayor, as many have speculated. A historian named Paul Hortenstein recently came across references to a previously unrecorded mayoral term held in 1674 by one Matthias Nicholls. Therefore, on New Year's Day, after Mamdani places his right hand on the Koran and takes the oath of office at City Hall, he will become our one hundred and twelfth mayor—or perhaps even one hundred and thirty-third, according to the department's best estimates. “The numbering of New York City 'mayors' has been somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent,” a department spokesperson said in a blog post this month. “There may even be other missing mayors.”

New York City has already had young mayors (John Purroy Mitchell, aka the Boy Mayor), ideological mayors (Bill de Blasio), famous mayors (Jimmy Walker, aka Bo James), idealistic mayors (John Lindsay), tough mayors (Fiorello La Guardia), mayors with little or no experience in elected office (Michael Bloomberg), immigrant mayors (Abe Beam), and even one who supported the Democratic Party. Socialists of America. (That would be David Dinkins.) Whether Mamdani turns out to be a good or bad mayor, he won't be alone in either regard, either. However, he will be the city's first Muslim mayor and the first mayor with family roots in Asia. He is as openly left-wing as any mayor in the city's history. And the speed of his rise to power is the fastest anyone in the city can remember.

After Mamdani trounced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the general election, he prepared for the hard-nosed realities of governing—appointments, negotiations, coalition management, policymaking. While trying to maintain the movement energy he harnessed during the campaign, he also made efforts to continue the inventive outreach activities that brought him to the attention of the general public. Just last Sunday, for example, he sat in a room at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria (a few blocks from the rent-stabilized apartment he refuses to move to Gracie Mansion) for twelve hours, meeting with New Yorkers for three minutes at a time. It was a gesture showing that he could look his voters in the eyes and listen to them.

Mamdani ran a disciplined campaign and a disciplined transition. He didn't take the bait when Mayor Eric Adams criticized him, told Jews to fear him and made other last-minute maneuvers seemingly designed to undermine his authority. Mamdani met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and the two wowed everyone with a seemingly productive meeting. (Trump happily told Mamdani it was okay to call him a “fascist.”) Mamdani dissuaded young DSA City Councilman Chi Osse from mounting a primary challenge to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries next year—a generous move given Jeffries’s continued coldness toward Mamdani. In rooms full of wealthy business leaders and others filled with donors, he tried to win over skeptics among New York's elite. (“They suddenly find themselves fascinated,” Time reported recently.) The city's political establishment was relieved when it asked Jessica Tisch, the current police commissioner whom Adams had appointed, to remain in her post. Last week, when old anti-Semitic tweets from a senior official resurfaced, Mamdani accepted her resignation within hours.

Mamdani, who has risen from one percent in the polls to become mayor in a matter of months, appears comfortable facing his doubters. But what he faces cannot be overstated. For centuries it has been an open question whether New York is “governable” in any positive, municipal sense. For a long time, the city government here was considered little more than a trough for Tammany Hall. In the last century, the city has proven that it can (more or less) pick up its own trash, deal with crime, and run large schools and hospitals, albeit sometimes with difficulty. Sure, he can do more, but can he lastingly make life in New York better, not just more tolerable, for the bulk of its residents? In trying to answer in the affirmative, Mamdani will have to deal with management, budget and bureaucracy issues within City Hall, as well as Trump (does anyone think their friendliness will last?) ICE raids, irreconcilable billionaires, public impatience over missteps and inconsistencies, and twists of fate and nature. The exodus of billionaires predicted during his election campaign has shown no signs of materializing, but one major snowstorm in January could derail Mamdani's ambitious agenda for months.