After a Week of Wins, Kingmaker Mamdani Holds Democratic Party and New York City in His Grip

The New York City Rent Guidelines Board’s overwhelming vote to approve a rent freeze for one- and two-year leases of rent-stabilized apartments — the first ever vote of its kind — was the proverbial icing on the cake for New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s week-long run of victories.Over the past week, the mayor enjoyed a series of sweeping successes — from his endorsement of victorious Democratic Socialist primary candidates, his soaring approval ratings in the city, and the rent freeze.However, while the rent freeze is a short-term win, housing analysts warn that the quality of existing affordable housing can only worsen. Landlords already squeezed by rising property taxes, insurance rates, and maintenance costs will have little incentive to invest in their properties with no guarantee of a return. Instead, they are “going to get hammered,” a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Howard Husock, told The New York Sun. “Many of them will just have units in very poor condition, because they can’t afford to fix them up, and they don’t get any revenue,” Mr. Husock added.“It’s not entirely shocking what was delivered,” New York Apartment Association chief executive Kenny Burgos told The Sun. “But this is absolutely not how you deliver affordable housing to the city, and in fact, this is how you work against that.”The win for Mr. Mamdani came with great fanfare. The mayor celebrated the rent stabilization vote at the Lenox Hill Terrace in East Harlem, where the board — six of whose nine members were appointed by Mr. Mamdani — voted seven to one in favor of a rent freeze for one- and two-year leases on nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments. The ninth member, an appointee of Mayor Eric Adams, Christina Smyth, resigned in protest days before the vote.As is his custom, Mr. Mamdani punctuated his victory with one of his cinéma vérité-style videos, shot from inside a freezer, showing the 34-year-old mayor taking out an ice cream bar and announcing frozen rents for the more than two million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments. The Democratic Socialist also shared pictures of himself on X serving ice cream cake as a late-morning snack to residents of Lenox Hill Terrace. One of Mr. Mamdani’s biggest critics, Pershing Square CEO and co-trustee Bill Ackman, accused the board of violating its mandate by not representing landlords in addition to tenants. Mr. Ackman noted that rental increases are supposed to be tied to inflationary costs of owning and operating commercial property. Frozen rents and inflating expenses will “cause property cash flows to plummet,” he said on X, resulting in “hundreds if not thousands of small NYC property owners who are now or will shortly be underwater on their mortgages, and without any cash flow to maintain their assets.”Indeed, the increasingly burdensome cost of owning a commercial rental property at New York City did not begin with Mr. Mamdani. Among the most damaging blows to landlords was the state’s 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, which prevented them from raising rents enough to recoup the costs of a renovation. The law also eliminated a rule permitting 20 percent rent increases on apartments sitting vacant between tenants and barred several exceptions that previously allowed landlords to raise rents without prior approval from the state’s Department of Housing and Community Renewal.“If a long-term tenant moves out after decades, the apartment often requires $50,000 to $100,000 in lead abatement, new wiring, plumbing, and structural renovations,” host of the “Afford Anything” podcast, Paula Pant, said on X. Much of that cost can’t be passed on to the next tenant. It would be “more cost-effective to just leave the unit vacant,” hence why 57,421 units currently sit vacant throughout New York City. “That number is about to get much worse,” Ms. Pant added.In a rare display of sympathy for the city’s building owners, Mr. Mamdani also acknowledged that landlords are struggling with the rising costs of property and liability insurance for rent-stabilized buildings. Perhaps as a mea culpa, Mr. Mamdani recently unveiled his city-backed housing insurance program, which aims to reduce premiums for these landlords by at least 20 percent. But a rent freeze was always an inevitability, especially after Mr. Mamdani installed six new board members on the Rent Guidelines Board in February. In her resignation from the Rent Guidelines Board, Ms. Smyth claimed Mr. Mamdani’s appointees were “required to deliver a rent freeze,” and the board has become “a body that starts with an answer and vibe codes its way backward to justify it.”“Everything since has been theater,” she added. Despite her accusations, Mr. Mamdani emerged victorious — and his week of “wins” didn’t stop at the rent freeze. All three of his endorsed congressional candidates — Brad Lander, a member of the Working Families Party, and Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, both Democratic Socialists — won their primaries against “establishment” Democrats, including Congressman Dan Goldman and five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat. The three losing candidates had been endorsed by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senator Chuck Schumer, State Attorney General Letitia James, and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, previously the dominant power brokers of the New York Democratic Party. After Tuesday, that distinction belongs to possibly the most recognizable and popular socialist in the city, the Empire State, and the United States. Mr. Mamdani’s favorability rating across the state is at 45 percent, up from 43 percent in April, according to a recent Siena College Poll. In New York City, that favorability rating is 58 percent versus 26 percent unfavorable. In a politically lopsided city like New York, where the primary election effectively decides the general election victor, Mr. Mamdani is emerging as the new kingmaker in town. “Mamdani has a lock on young voters of all races, college-educated voters, immigrants and the children of immigrants, progressive Democrats, and voters who barely pay attention to politics except when Mamdani is running,” New York magazine reporter David Freedlander wrote in a recent feature. The “anti-Mamdani” coalition of “pro-Israel voters, deep-pocketed finance and real-estate interests, moderate Democrats, Establishment Democrats, and older voters of color,” for now, appears to be outnumbered by Mr. Mamdani’s growing base of young DSA voters who are stridently anti-establishment and anti-Israel, Mr. Freedlaner added. While Tuesday’s election victories showed Mr. Mamdani’s muscle in New York City, a former communications director for President Biden, Kate Bedingfield, told the Sun that “Democrats who can win outside of the bluest districts have power, too.”“I think it’s indisputable that across the board the Democratic base is energized and angry about the status quo. In blue places like New York City, that means voters turning to DSA candidates promising disruption. In other, more purple parts of the country though, the DSA brand will be a non-starter,” she said. For the time being, Mr. Mamdani will continue to ride out his victory tour. On Saturday, he kicked off outdoor pool season by jumping alongside swimmers into the Thomas Jefferson Pool in East Harlem. He did so while wearing his trademark suit and tie, and as had been the case all week, a big grin on his face.

After a Week of Wins, Kingmaker Mamdani Holds Democratic Party and New York City in His Grip

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