Asher Gibbons
The Southern Editor
The New York City mayoral race is officially over, with the voters deciding that the young, enthusiastic Zohran Mamdani can lead their city to a brighter future.
Mamdani’s victory marks many firsts for the city’s political landscape. He’s NYC’s first Muslim mayor, first south asian mayor and, most importantly, the first socialist mayor in over 100 years.
The mayor-elect has prolific plans to improve the lives of citizens through the five boroughs. That includes: universal childcare, free bus servicing, city-owned grocery stores and the tightening of restrictions on landlords.
The true question lies within Mamdani’s own political philosophy of socialism and whether it can work on a large scale within the modern United States.
Up to this point, the Ugandan native has proven that he’s a passionate, charismatic figure, but now it’s time to see if he can solve the problems of the big apple.
I believe the main reason Mamdani won the election was because of his masterful campaign strategies. The movement was largely based in social media and its target market of the younger generation.
According to nycvotes.org, “Voters aged 18 to 29 had the highest turnout of any age group at 35.2%, about twice their turnout in 2021 at 17.9%.”
His appearances in various NYC locations such as soccer games, night clubs and the city transportation through social media greatly increased his exposure.
All of his campaigning obviously worked to get him into office, but the city has taken their own passion one step further. The new administration posted a portal for people to apply for a job in city hall, in which 19,000 applications flooded the system in less than a day. That number has now grown to over 50,000.
According to Mamdani, all of the aforementioned plans can be financially supported by two main taxes on the citizens and corporations in the city.
The first of which is a 2% increase in income tax for millionaires within NYC. Essentially, any millionaire living in the city would be forking over between 8.85% and 12.9% of their earnings for the greater good of the city.
The second tax would be raising the state corporate tax to match that of the neighboring New Jersey. This would mean that NYC’s top businesses would see a tax increase from 7.25% to 11.5%.
Based on the mayor-elect’s math, those two levies alone would raise nine billion dollars for the city.
This isn’t the first time NYC has had a mayor that considers himself a socialist. In 1911, socialist candidate George R. Lunn was elected in a four way race for mayor, where his one term turned out fairly positive for the city.
Similar to Mamdani, Lunn also ran on the proposal of city run grocery stores, affordability and reducing prices of local transportation.
As mayor, Lunn was successful in reducing the prices of coal by creating a city run coal dealership and increased the public health system, which decreased the infant mortality rate.
Despite promising city-run grocery stores in his campaign, he was overruled by the courts since they were deemed unconstitutional. I believe the courts will also give Mamdani troubles in his term as mayor, most likely for similar reasons.
In terms of modern day socialist mayors, there’s one man who has given Mamdani some wisdom: current United States Senator Bernie Sanders.
In 1981, a 39-year-old Sanders won a blisteringly close mayoral race in Burlington, Vermont by just ten votes against the incumbent Democrat Gordon Paquette.
Sanders held the position of mayor for eight years and was very positively received by the community. During his tenure he preserved affordability for the people, improved funding for education and created an arts council which still stands today.
New York City is looking for a trusted individual to bring the city to new heights. To commit to promises of affordability and bring results. To change the city for the better.
I believe Mamdani will indefinitely make the bus systems free and will be able to freeze the rents when and where it’s needed. Both of these changes will make the city a more viable living space for those just barely getting by.
He will certainly run into blockades in the courts with his proposed city-run grocery stores, but I believe he will do everything he can to aid the economy within the city to alleviate the wallets of its citizens.
So long as Mamdani isn’t frozen in the courts, he will polish up the big apple and make an immediate positive change.
