Along the Hudson, Democracy Holds Fast

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Speaking at a DSA 101 Meeting at the Church of the Village in NYC on November 11, 2024. Image courtesy of Bingjiefu He.

After New York City polls closed at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, November 4th, I expected a protracted counting process, involving too many cans of Diet Coke, lots of anxious pacing, and a reluctant but hopeful bedtime well past three in the morning. Much to my surprise, not even an hour after polls closed—34 minutes, to be exact—the Associated Press had already called the race for Mamdani. Much to my delight, any hopes of a Cuomo mayoral term next January and the reigning self-denial of Sliwa supporters came to a swift, decisive conclusion, and without any of the panicking or restless waiting I had anticipated. Regardless of how you feel about the results, the historic voter turnout on Election Day and the clear victory of the Mamdani campaign are of crucial importance. It occurred to me immediately that the next four years in New York City—and even throughout the U.S.—are bound to be radically different from what we have ever come to expect of city politics. The relationship our city has with the federal government and peer cities around the U.S. is going to change. If you are working in the White House or your name happens to be Donald Trump, this is scary. 

Before I dive into what this election means for New York City and perhaps the nation at large, I want to clarify why mayoral elections in general and this mayoral election in particular are of special importance to me. From late-September of last year to mid-April of this spring, I spent nearly sixteen hours per week working in the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) under the supervision of commissioners, policy advisors, and community liaisons employed by the Eric Adams Administration. During my time there, I learned about the web of sanctuary city laws established more than a decade ago, the Arabic word for “IDNYC,” and how an entire city budget gets passed. But beyond building my language skills or seeing the ins and outs of city politics, I came to understand how critical cities like New York are in the fight for democracy, representation, and the fundamental civil rights of newly immigrated Americans. For me, then, Mamdani’s win represents a remarkable new era for the country. I have hope that it is the beginning of a larger wave of democratic leadership across America’s cities that are more willing and committed to standing up against the Trump administration’s aggressive, dictatorial agenda. For this reason, I am certain that Trump has every reason to be afraid. The misinformation he has spread and threats he has wielded at Mamdani before and following his mayoral victory are a symptom of the greater unease that is rattling the White House. 

As of fiscal year 2026, New York City has the largest budget of any city in the nation: a whopping $116 billion, which substantially eclipses the budgets of the next two largest U.S. cities by population, Los Angeles (only $14 billion) and Chicago (just $16.6 billion). Mamdani will supervise a staff of more than 300,000 people and a city GDP of more than $1.3 trillion come January 1, 2026. The power that he will wield is, needless to say, immense, and the implications of his new role as the figurehead of the largest and most economically powerful city in the United States are hard to ignore. His ambitious political plans to advance affordability and economic redistribution sharply contrast federal policies that favor wealthy Americans and gut critical social programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicare.

But the larger political and psychological valence of Mamdani’s win is perhaps even more interesting. For a president who once used New York City to fuel his business enterprises, the profound loss of the city to someone who embodies everything his administration opposes is symbolic. Mamdani’s New York will define itself in opposition to Trump’s vision of America and turn the former hometown of the President into the capital of a different political agenda. His win on Tuesday became more than a simple victory on the ballot, but a referendum on the type of moral politics that this nation has been subjected to by the Trump Administration and his dictatorial ethos. Of course, there might be doubts about Mamdani’s ability to deliver on the promises he made during his campaign. But the energy he has and the ambition he carries to transform New York City into the ideological rival of Trump’s strange new America is refreshing.

For Trump, who has since been alienated from New York City and the nation as a whole following a twenty-day streak without a single positive approval rating in any poll, Mamdani’s win over the city that he used to command is debilitating. His threats to target Mamdani and last-ditch endorsement of Cuomo—a candidate who himself has challenged Trump when asked during a debate—show a president so desperate to keep the most promising democratic challenger out of the election that he supported his own critic. Despite Trump’s best efforts, Mamdani secured a powerful victory throughout the city; the programmatic anti-Trump measures he campaigned on and later promised show that the entire city, over the course of four months of fierce campaigning and historic days of voting, has come to agree with our new Mayor. The anger and frustration that Trump is no doubt experiencing after a dismal off-cycle election for the GOP is only fueled by the political envy that comes from seeing more than a million voters throw their support behind an ambitious, idealistic new candidate just before the record-breakingly long government shutdown came to a rocky and uncertain end. 

New York’s political realignment, which has put Mamdani at the helm, coincides with a federal government that is, in many ways, paralyzed, and a national democratic party that is weakened by internal defections. The two-month shutdown demonstrated the severe level of gridlock in Congress and the persistent struggles it faced to govern on even the most basic terms. While that gridlock is now thawing after eight Senate Democrats broke ranks to pass a temporary funding measure, their choice exposed fragile relationships within the party and, more urgently, Chuck Schumer’s weakening leadership for the future over it. Despite their holdouts, the fact that the Democrats were unable to achieve even the small victory they sought during the shutdown invites more questions than answers about the efficacy of their national leadership. Meanwhile, progressive cities—Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston (where democratic incumbent Michelle Wu secured her second term) and New York—are beginning to assert themselves in that vacuum of political action and leadership, showing that they can differentiate themselves from national Democrats on the basis of effective, ambitious governance. That is not to say that cities like New York are unaffected by the government shutdown itself. But the undeniable energy and campaign values that coasted Mamdani to a sweeping victory show a future characterized by responsive policy rather than endless gridlock. Local leaders like Mamdani are the ones leading the way and doubling down on progressive values in their city. 

Consequently, Mamdani’s win represents a shift away from local incompetence and complicity and a promising turn towards decisive action. Thinking back to my months at MOIA, I remember how much of city governance felt suspended between emergency and paralysis. The heat of the September 2024 indictment of Mayor Adams overshadowed almost everything that we did. There was always another meeting, event, or policy change to navigate that contended with the larger and more tenuous fallout of mayoral politics in the city. To feel even the smallest inch of progress was made more challenging when Trump took office for the second time in January 2025. Our work was squeezed on two fronts: on one side, a legally embattled mayor; on the other, a new dictatorial president. It also meant that the sanctuary we were working to preserve, in practice, became less of a policy position than a posture; it was a way of affording a sense of survival to new arrivals in the city amidst constant constraint. 

Mamdani’s election excites me because it disrupts the swinging of the pendulum between hurried action and restless stagnation. He incorporates a vision of sanctuary that goes beyond the passive offering of social support and broaches the active, forceful question of how to stand up to horrific federal immigration policies. I see resolve and determination within Mamdani’s policy proposals that Trump has every right to fear. Expanding social mobility, deepening tenant protections, building affordable housing, and disentangling our city from the throes of federal control are radically different from the Adams-era policies of before. Beyond that, Mamdani has organized a campaign around local issues that are directly relevant to New Yorkers and drawn largely in opposition to policies from a Republican-led Congress and White House. Such an approach means that New York can expect responsive policies that address ground-level issues but also compensate for institutional shortcomings at the national level. 

Under a Mamdani administration, our city can finally become the moral center that it has the potential to be, rather than being frozen by disarray, mayoral corruption, and administrative flight. If implemented properly, Mamdani’s New York could define what it means for a city to govern out of conscience rather than fear and will signal to the nation that a new, bright line exists between democracy and dictatorship. For better or worse, that new line now runs along the Hudson, and I hope it is here to stay. 

Ishaan Barrett (CC ‘26) is a senior studying urban studies and political science. His previous writing has been featured in URBAN Magazine at Columbia GSAPP, the Harvard Urban Review, the Barnard-Columbia Urban Review, the Columbia Policy Journal, and the Columbia Daily Spectator. A current Rose Research Ambassador and Gilder Lehrman Institute grantee, Barrett has previously held fellowships at the IRCPL, Harriman Institute, and the Holder Initiative, where he currently serves on the board. He can be reached at i.barrett@columbia.edu.