Tough choices are piling up for the man who would be mayor.
Two months remain in the New York City mayoral election, which is plenty of time for something unexpected to happen and change everything (for example, there are reports this week that the Trump administration may offer jobs to both Mayor Eric Adams and GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa to get them off the ballot). But assuming that Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani holds his lead and wins the general election, it’s worth thinking about what comes next. Starting before he’s even sworn in, Mamdani will immediately head into a series of very tough choices and challenges — decisions that will define both his approach to the mayoralty and how we see him as mayor.
Factors he will face:
1.) A significant deficit. Right now, the City’s FY 2026 deficit is projected to be $4.2 billion (out of a total operating budget of $112 billion), and it’s likely to get worse. The $4.2 billion gap does not factor in any of the pending federal cuts to Medicaid funding. The City Comptroller’s office estimates the deficit will double to $8.83 billion in FY 27 and to $9.95 billion in FY 2028 (that’s still pre-Medicaid cuts). Eliminating these deficits just gets the City’s budget books back to zero; it does not factor in a single penny for new spending on anything Mamdani wants to do, let alone the $3-5 billion in estimated costs for his child care program, so he will have to make hard choices in areas that are generally spared.
2.) An uncertain economy. Inflation is rising, unemployment is rising and consumer spending is flatlining — and this is before the impact of Trump’s tariffs is fully absorbed (assuming the Supreme Court upholds the president’s authority to impose the tariffs). In the first seven months of this year, New York City added just 5,047 new private sector jobs — the lowest gain in 30 years. No city in the country fares worse during a recession than New York because so much of our job base and revenue depends on the financial services sector. If we enter even a mild recession, the FY 2026 deficit grows by another $1.3 billion. If it’s a severe recession, the deficit could double. Now do the same math for the subsequent years when the problem gets even worse.
3.) 2026 state elections. Gov. Kathy Hochul is up for re-election next year. She has a clear path to the Democratic nomination, but the general election, likely against Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, won’t be easy. Hochul has already said she will not raise taxes, which both complicates Mamdani’s budget and severely limits his plan to fund free child-care through a state income tax increase and a corporate tax increase. In the legislature, gerrymandering means that the vast majority of seats are safe no matter what, but the handful of swing seats could make the Assembly speaker and Senate majority leader wary of aggressively pushing Mamdani’s agenda. With that said, the first year for any mayor is typically a honeymoon and he will get something from Albany — likely either funding to pay for either a portion of his child care plan or for free buses for one or two groups like senior citizens. He’ll have to decide what half a loaf to ask for if the whole loaf isn’t on the shelf.
4.) Donald Trump. If Mamdani wins, he immediately becomes the symbol that Trump uses everywhere as shorthand for the decay of the left. Whether it’s sending in federal troops or cutting federal funding or just attacking New York City on a constant basis, Trump is going to play a bigger role in this mayoralty than any president has in a long time (if not ever). This could all easily work to Mamdani’s advantage, but either way, it will take up a lot of his time and energy.
5.) The Wildcard. In year one, something crazy or terrible will invariably happen. A natural disaster. An act of terrorism. A terrible fire or shooting or tragedy of some kind. A scandal involving city workers. And it will be an opportunity for Mamdani to either handle it well and shine or mishandle it and face accusations that he’s not up to the job.
Choices he will have to make:
1.) How should he pursue taxes in Albany? Mamdani is committed to seeking an income tax increase on the wealthy in Albany and a higher corporate tax. (As with Bill de Blasio, it’s a feature of his campaign, not a bug). Hochul is committed to blocking it, as then-Gov. Cuomo was with de Blasio’s proposed tax increase, so it’s very unlikely to happen. Mamdani can decide to make the pursuit of higher taxes on the rich his major issue and make Albany the villain — or he can decide not to waste political capital on something that can’t happen and focus on getting something else instead. His allies in the Democratic Socialists of America will want the fight, but his budget and policy needs argue for cooperation and common ground. Given his firsthand knowledge of Albany, odds are he opts for comity, but who knows
Meanwhile, at the City level, the mayor and the Council can increase property taxes. However, this may be even more difficult politically. Unlike raising income taxes on the top 1%, who will never support him anyway, a lot of New Yorkers are house-rich and cash-poor. For someone whose home is valued in the low seven figures but with annual income in the low six figures, facing a $3,000 new tax bill is a very big deal and could easily spark a lot of new voters in the next Council primary to vote against the incumbent. Overall property tax reform may be warranted, but even if it does happen, it will likely take a few years.
2.) What can he do without meaningful new revenue? By law, the City's deficit has to be eliminated — which makes free child care very tough to offer even if Mamdani is truly willing to take on labor and find meaningful savings in the budget. He can order his appointees to the Rent Guidelines Board to vote to freeze rent increases, but the impact will be far less than people think. De Blasio did it three times. A freeze doesn’t mean that everyone’s rent is automatically frozen — it only applies to rent-stabilized apartments (of which there are a million). He can come up with creative ways to fund a City-owned grocery store in every borough, but that’s small bore. And if he were willing to aggressively demand that the MTA and NYPD enforce fare evasion, that could free up the funds to make the buses free — but it would be directly at odds with the DSA platform of decriminalizing most misdemeanors. Tradeoffs are tricky indeed.
3.) How does he hire? There are two possible answers here: pragmatically or dogmatically. If he sees the role of mayor as mainly an operational job — making sure the trash is picked up, making sure the lights turn from green to red, making sure clean water comes through the taps — he will hire the most experienced and talented operators possible, regardless of their politics. (Mike Bloomberg used to say he wanted the best person for each job even if they were a communist; the same would apply here with an amended caveat, even if they’re a capitalist.) Having a few unexpected, highly respected commissioners and deputy mayors lined up to announce on day one of the transition would send a strong signal and speed the recruiting process.
But that requires being able to recruit top people with the assurance that an ideological agenda will not dominate every decision, which is not what Mamdani’s base wants. If he feels like each major hire has to pass a progressive purity test, then the talent pool narrows dramatically and what he gains in likes on Bluesky, he loses in operational competence.
4.) Does he worry about the tax base? Zohran can’t implement most of his affordability agenda without new revenue, most of which comes from people with lots of money — as about 1% of residents pay 40% of the income taxes. Pursuing policies that risk losing more high-income taxpayers would satisfy the DSA agenda but cost his budget dearly. The Citizens Budget Commission just released a new report that showed that New York’s failure to retain and attract millionaires at the rate of other states meant a $13 billion loss in tax revenue in just one year alone. Imagine that — enough money to cover any deficit, any loss of federal funding and all of Mamdani’s affordability agenda. The more millionaires you lose, the more tax revenue you lose. Less revenue means less ability to help the poor, to fund social services, to combat homelessness, to fund NYCHA and to offer health care.
Beyond the tax question, Mamdani may or may not realize that many DSA priorities — ending mayoral control of schools, essentially eliminating accountability for teachers, placing more restrictions on NYPD, eliminating the gang database, ending enforcement of low-level crimes — result in exactly what drives away high-income residents: worse schools and worse quality of life. So pursuing his affordability agenda may require Zohran to ignore the DSA’s quality of life agenda.
Even beyond the risk of losing more taxpayers, New Yorkers don’t like it when the city feels dangerous, dirty and poorly run. That’s why Eric Adams, fairly or not, has such low approval ratings and is trailing so badly in the election. Mamdani knows this because he’s about to win because of it; otherwise, the incumbent virtually always wins re-election. So achieving one part of his agenda may require spurning another. And it’s unclear which priorities matter more to his voters.
5.) What does he do about housing, the homeless, Rikers and more? Freezing the rent for some apartments doesn’t increase the supply of affordable housing. Doing that will mean not just fighting with developers but saying no to groups that are usually sacred cows on the left: unions, community groups and environmentalists. Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein made the case well in their book “Abundance” that most of the blame for the failure to build affordable housing in blue cities and states lies with the left — and ironically, that failure may lead to even fewer electoral college votes for blue states and even more GOP presidents. Will Zohran do what it takes to force through more affordable housing, or will he just blame landlords without actually making any progress?
By keeping the focus on affordability, Zohran has been able to avoid other, equally complicated issues that he won’t be able to duck as mayor. The number of homeless New Yorkers is going down some right now because of the shrinking migrant inflow, but the shelter system is still bursting at the seams and Adams hasn’t really taken on street homelessness in the way that the public demands. Mamdani may try to thread the needle between compassion for people with problems that keep them from seeking help and the need to keep the streets safe. This will cost money in the short term but save over time; it will for sure mean pushing back on activist impulses. We will see how much appetite he has for that.
Mismanagement has turned Rikers Island into an unmanaged prison camp. If the federal judge in charge of the case appoints a receiver, the mayor will still have to cooperate, and it will be at least in part on the City to execute the measures they impose. Will Mamdani be able to resist calls for more progressive solutions like large-scale early release, which would play into the narrative that he is against public safety?
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No one has ever said that being mayor is easy. And few mayors have run for office both promising so many new programs that require so much new funding while facing large budget deficits, a shaky economy, an emotionally unstable president with real hangups about his hometown and an uncooperative Albany.
If Mamdani can thread the needle and somehow manage to deliver on his big promises — free child care, free buses, a lot more affordable housing — while still keeping the city clean, safe and well run, keeping the tax base stable and keeping his own allies from constantly attacking him for not fully pursuing their agenda, he will ascend to the ranks of the city’s greats.
It’s not going to be easy. It would be hard for anyone, let alone a 33-year-old with no management experience. For the sake of all 8.5 million New Yorkers, let’s hope he has what it takes.
Note: Several employees of Tusk Strategies worked on Andrew Cuomo’s 2025 mayoral primary campaign, separate from their work at Tusk. None of them are still involved.