A Republican politician, OTOH, votes against a popular bill then when it passes anyway brags about how they worked hard to see it pass.
It’s to be seen if he’s a skilled politician. He’s basically a novice politician. He was on the council for a few years but that job rarely gets you in front of cameras even in New York.
He wants taxes raised on what he considers the wealthy. He needs the governor and state legislature to do that. She is running for reelection. You don’t get reelected as a tax raiser. It’s been 20 years since there was a Republican governor in New York but it’s not impossible. If he doesn’t get that he’s threatening a 9.5% hike in property taxes. That doesn’t just affect the wealthy. He need the city council to do that. That’s not going to happen. Maybe a skilled politician would have done more negotiating before getting in front of a camera. Maybe he thinks he has a mandate because of his victory and the people will rally behind him. He might want to remember how awful the candidates were that he ran against.
This seems only slightly less bonkers than saying Obama was a “novice politician” after he won the presidency. Yes, he’s relatively new at this, but at pretty much every move possible, he’s slammed it out of the park, politically speaking. What more could you possibly expect from someone with his experience running for NYC mayor, up to this point?
He’s a generational political talent, just as a historic star rookie RB is clearly a generational NFL talent even after a year.
Promises that are actually within the mayor’s power to carry out?
He’s still doing the whole “student body president promises free pizza in the cafeteria every day and no homework” thing.
He’s been mayor for less than 2 months. He’s accomplished nothing so far. He ran a good campaign and speaks well in front of a camera. Let’s wait for him to do something before he’s declared the new Messiah.
Right, only high school presidents make promises that might (or might not – we don’t know yet) be beyond their capabilities…
“Generational political talents” are amazing at campaigning and winning elections. Governing is a different skill. I’ll happily admit we don’t yet know what kind of governing office-holder he will be.
But political talent? Campaigning talent? Election-winning talent? Yes, he’s as good as it gets. As good as Obama. As good as anyone I’ve ever seen.
No, populists of all stripes tend to do that. See also: Donald Trump.
In the same sense that we don’t know whether Mamdani is capable of firing laser beams out of his eyes, I suppose this is true.
The office of mayor does not have the power to raise the state’s corporate tax rate nor does it have the power to raise the property tax rate. These aren’t untested theories, they are facts about New York’s legal system.
Because he beat Cuomo and Silwa? I’ll wait for him to win a challenging election before I declare him to be a “generational talent”.
And Lander in the primary!
My earlier point exactly. Sliwa is a clown. I could have beat him. No one takes him seriously. Cuomo has slightly less baggage than Harvey Weinstein.
Oh, well, I forgot about that absolute titan of electoral politics, it truly took generational levels of talent to defeat him. 
Mamdani got more votes just for himself than the total votes of any NYC mayor election in twenty years. And he dominated a crowded primary filled with experienced pols.
His campaign and communications talent should be blindingly obvious to anyone without preconceived notions about him.
I don’t remember, are you from the New York area?
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this claim is false. Mamdani got just over 1.15 million votes but the 2017 election had 1.17 million voters.
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Even if we take the softer claim, “Mamdani got nearly as many votes for himself as total votes in high turnout elections in NYC’s past”, this doesn’t actually mean he is that great of a candidate. He won with just over 50% of the vote, which means that Mamdani also mobilized nearly as many votes against his mayorship as total votes in past high turnout elections as well.
I retract the first claim, I guess I was looking at top two and forgot about third party candidates. But I was close!
I’ll back off from the argument. I feel strongly about it but ultimately it doesn’t matter, of course. We’ll see in the long run who is correct about him.
Do you still have a bad feeling about the NJ governor’s race? Was your earlier bad feeling remotely justified? Seems about as relevant a question… (I’m not from NYC, to answer your question)
And, out of curiosity, who did you vote for?
I had reason to be concerned about the governor’s race. She started off very slow. For months she didn’t put out any campaign information to the public other than “I’m a helicopter pilot”. The polls got really tight for awhile. She was running against someone who barely lost in the previous election. She had to ally herself with an incumbent governor who people were sick of. But after the polls got tight she really stepped up her campaign. She crushed the debates. And her opponent who had run twice before and should have known better really ran a bad campaign at the end.
Are you asking who I voted for in the NYC election? I don’t live there. I live close enough that about 75% of my news is NYC news. I only get local news because I seek it out. We were inundated with news and ads about the mayor race. Much more than the NJ governor’s race which was happening at the same time and I would argue is more important to the country. I don’t know what the hell my mayor is doing but I see what Mandani is doing daily.
How are actual New Yorkers reacting to this news?
BlueSky is boiling over this, with Mamdani portrayed as a Liberal betrayer of Progressive values. But I assume the reaction in NYC proper is probably more favorable?
This man knows how to mayor.
(30-second video, worth watching)
And yes, it’s a PR bit–but that’s also an important part of mayoring, keeping people engaged with and aware of what the government is doing. Trump has given us one model of how to use social media to keep people dialed in, and we desperately need another model, which I think Mamdani is building.
He missed the chance to say “I hereby declare this day to be Snow Day, the funnest day in the history of New York!”