NY FOCUS: Zohran Mamdani’s Next Big Battle is in Albany

This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here .

Mamdani convinced New York City voters to back his agenda. Now he needs to convince Albany politicians.

By Sam Mellins and Chris Bragg , New York Focus

Zohran Mamdani made history last night, romping to a decisive victory over former Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s mayoral election. In January, he will become New York’s first Muslim mayor, first immigrant mayor in 50 years, and youngest mayor in a century.

Mamdani won more than 50 percent of the vote in a three-way race. He won four boroughs, propelled especially by a tidal wave of enthusiasm from young voters, despite unprecedented super PAC spending against him. He won over a million votes — the first candidate to do so since John Lindsay in 1969.

Mamdani now faces tremendous pressure to deliver on his agenda. “When we enter City Hall in 58 days, expectations will be high,” he said in his victory speech. “We will meet them.”

To do it, he’ll need Governor Kathy Hochul and the leaders of the Democratic majorities in the legislature to get on board.

That’s because the governor and state lawmakers — not the mayor or the New York City Council — are the ones who decide whether to give the Mamdani administration the billions of dollars it’ll need to realize his signature proposals of free buses and universal child care.

But Hochul has so far said she’s opposed to income tax increases. Even if she does agree to them, the additional revenue may be spent filling holes left by the Trump administration’s deep funding cuts to New York. The money Mamdani needs to fund his priorities will not be won without a fight.

Mamdani’s plan for universal child care — which Hochul says she supports getting to eventually — may be the area where he and the governor can make the most common cause.

Hochul’s upcoming reelection fight next year might add an incentive for her to act. She’s expected to face Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican who has called Mamdani “pro-terrorist” and an “antisemitic communist.” Early polling shows that it could be a competitive race.

“Hochul is facing an incredibly tough re-election fight. … She needs to be able to deliver a big win for New Yorkers,” said Amit Singh Bagga, who worked in the Hochul administration and advised Mamdani’s campaign. “And Zohran Mamdani needs to deliver a real win quickly for New Yorkers who have placed an enormous amount of trust in him.”

Whether Mamdani can convince Hochul to see things his way — on taxes, child care, buses, and other issues — may depend on how much pressure his allies can bring to bear.

Unions hold significant sway in Albany. Cuomo racked up more union endorsements in the Democratic primary than Mamdani did, but many shifted to Mamdani’s camp in the general election.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents New York City’s school teachers, said that his members’ interests align with Mamdani’s focus on affordability, particularly when it comes to child care.

“We are really very happy and ready to roll up our sleeves on the child care piece, because it’s just so tough to live in this city,” he said.

James Davis, president of the union representing City University of New York employees, said that this feeling is broadly shared. “I think that there’s more full-throated labor support from Mamdani than we’ve seen in a minute,” he said. “Labor unions want Mayor Mamdani to be successful, because the central message of the campaign is affordability.”

“We’re trying to send the movement to Albany, literally.”

—Gustavo Gordillo, NYC Democratic Socialists of America

Another major force behind Mamdani’s upset win was New York City’s Democratic Socialists of America, which powered his insurgent campaign to the state Assembly in 2020 and has been one of his closest collaborators ever since. They are known by both friends and enemies as tireless canvassers and have racked up election victories in the past five years, some against entrenched incumbents.

Co-chair Gustavo Gordillo said that the group recently voted to adopt Mamdani’s platform as its own political agenda and plans to push heavily for it next year.

“We’re trying to send the movement to Albany, literally. We’ll be organizing rallies up there, and bringing our supporter base to the capitol,” he said.

That base has grown from about 5,000 members when Mamdani announced his candidacy to over 11,000 now, Gordillo said.

The group also plans to facilitate close coordination between the Mamdani administration and the handful of DSA members serving in the state legislature.

And others may hop on the bandwagon.

“Legislators who wanted nothing to do with us in the past are much more interested in our politics and working together, and that’ll make Zohran’s agenda much more viable,” Gordillo said. Some attendees at Mamdani’s victory party after the primary election were legislators that the group had previously considered trying to unseat, he noted.

State Senator John Liu said that there is “palpable enthusiasm and optimism” about Mamdani among Democratic state legislators.

“Every week, more and more colleagues come on to Zohran’s side,” he said.

Both houses of the state legislature have supported increasing taxes on the wealthy for the past several years, a fact that progressives hope to capitalize on as they pressure Hochul — to “put her on an island of one in Albany,” said Rebecca Garrard, co-executive director at the activist organization Citizen Action of New York.

Mamdani’s efforts are likely to face opposition from the business world, since they rely on tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations. Federal cuts may require the state to devote its resources to maintaining existing programs rather than starting new ones, said Kathryn Wylde, who leads the business advocacy group Partnership for New York City.

But Wylde is sympathetic to his goal of expanded child care. “Obviously child care costs are off the charts, so I think that affordable child care for those who need it is important.”

Wylde has brokered meetings between Mamdani and leading business executives and says he’s far more open to hearing them out than the last left-wing mayor, Bill de Blasio, had been. As Mamdani seeks to win over state leaders, there may be lessons for him from how de Blasio approached Albany politicking, too.

De Blasio won the mayoralty in 2013 running on a platform of universal Pre-K paid for by raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy.

In early 2014, Cuomo announced that he’d find $300 million a year in the state budget to fund a statewide version of the universal prekindergarten — without hiking taxes.

Instead of accepting Cuomo’s proposal, de Blasio continued fighting for the tax increase, arguing that the prekindergarten program was jeopardized without a consistent funding source behind it.

Cuomo and the legislature ultimately implemented the program without the tax hike, and the episode began a years-long feud between the erstwhile allies.

“You saw that de Blasio really stuck with raising taxes, rather than claiming the win, and I think it affected the rest of his mayoralty,” said veteran Albany lobbyist Jack O’Donnell. “And I think if the governor and Zohran Mamdani can find ways to work together and see some wins, people are going to care less about how you get there.”

While Hochul continues to oppose income taxes, she told reporters last month that Mamdani is “eminently rational” and that the two were working together to “get to yes” on many of their shared goals.

“He’s already demonstrating a desire to work with non-traditional allies and deal with the actual political dynamics as they exist, as opposed to what a perfect world might be,” longtime Albany lobbyist Evan Stavisky said. “Certainly, if you’ve been a member of the Assembly the last several years, you can see how powerful the governor is in the budget process.”

Not everyone believes de Blasio’s more adversarial approach was misguided.

Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the New York Working Families Party, said that de Blasio’s 2013 campaign had led Cuomo to adopt universal prekindergarten. Cuomo subsequently did agree to hike taxes on high-income earners in 2021, amid a major budget deficit and the legislature’s resistance to making cuts. (By that time, Cuomo had been politically weakened by several scandals, including sexual harassment allegations that led to his resignation later that year.)

Gripper sees a similar situation playing out next year, when New York is expected to face a multi-billion dollar deficit caused by federal cuts.

The Working Families Party is open to backing a challenger to Hochul in the 2026 Democratic primary, including Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, who is running a longshot campaign to Hochul’s left.

“We will make that decision, likely in late January or early February, shortly after we see the governor’s executive budget proposal,” Gripper said. “She’s going to have to prove to her own party why she shouldn’t be primaried.”

Nine days before the election, Mamdani shared a stage with Hochul and the top legislative Democrats at a massive campaign rally in Forest Hills, Queens.

A hype video played to introduce Hochul — and to tout Mamdani’s signature campaign pledges. Mamdani’s face flashed onto the screen as the crowd cheered.

“These are not just slogans, these are commitments,” he said in a prerecorded message that played on the jumbotron, and Hochul and the heads of each legislative house are “the leaders who will help us bring these home.”

And then they walked on stage to a 10,000-strong crowd chanting “tax the rich.”