One word that characterized Mamdani鈥檚 campaign was 鈥渇ree.鈥 He promised free bus rides, free child care, and free healthcare. He also promised lower housing costs through more stringent rent control and lower food costs through government-run grocery stores. These policies would be a disaster for the city.
NYC鈥檚 bus system is already not self-sufficient. It requires billions of dollars in aid from the government, and would only become less safe as the city鈥檚 already large homeless population would enjoy a new mobile shelter from the elements. A universal child care benefit would also be prohibitively expensive, as would Mamdani鈥檚 pledge to abolish private health insurance. In Chicago, Johnson鈥檚 government-run grocery store plan has already been abandoned, while his similar promise to build affordable housing has proved infeasible with single units costing over a million dollars each. Mamdani鈥檚 rent control plan would further discourage private investment in new housing, which would only raise rents overall as the city鈥檚 existing housing stock ages and declines.
Johnson has raised taxes to pay for his socialist promises, and, in turn, both wealthy individuals and major corporations have fled the city to more sane jurisdictions. NYC is a special place, but so is Chicago, and more and more individuals and businesses have realized life is better in other locations. Mamdani鈥檚 NYC will most likely suffer the same fate.
Then, there are all of the social justice features of Mamdani鈥檚 platform. While he walked back his earlier support for the 鈥渄efund the police鈥 movement, he supports creating a new 鈥淒epartment of Community Safety鈥 that he says would take over certain tasks performed by the police, including 鈥渧iolence interruption鈥 programs and responding to mental health-related 911 calls. While Mamdani says, 鈥淭he police have a critical role to play,鈥 in a world of limited government resources, this new department would only subtract from current police budgets. It is 鈥渄efund鈥 by another name.
Mamdani also supports other proven disasters, such as legalizing prostitution, decriminalizing drug possession, and an end to cash bail. New Yorkers should expect Mayor Eric Adams鈥檚 successes in lowering crime to be reversed.
We do not have any exit polling data to work with, but judging from preelection polls and precinct data, it appears Mamdani did best with young single college graduate voters who are seemingly whiter than the rest of the Democratic Party primary electorate. These are exactly the same voters that 2028 Democratic Party presidential primary candidates will have to excite and engage if they hope to secure the nomination. It is also the same group that powered the Sanders campaign in 2016.
The two non-socialists most happy with Tuesday鈥檚 results have to be Adams and Vice President JD Vance. Adams, who is running as an independent, believes his best chance of mounting a political comeback and winning reelection is against an avowed soft-on-crime socialist such as Mamdani. However, NYC is still far to the left of the average American voter, and Mamdani is likely considered the favorite heading into this November鈥檚 general election.
The same is not true of the 2028 presidential election. Former Vice President Kamala Harris could not run fast enough from the far-left positions she took in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, and Vance must be eager to see the 2028 field weigh in on the Johnson and Mamdani regimes. Mamdani is a far better communicator than Harris and is willing to own his socialist beliefs in a way she declined. However, defending the DSA platform in swing states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will be much more difficult than in New York.