He’s Zo-ing again on his phrase.
Lots of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s lofty marketing campaign guarantees have already bit the mud 100 days in, as he makes a U-turn or scales them again nearly past recognition.
His inconceivable path from democratic socialist also-ran to victory in 2025’s election got here in no small half from the sweeping, voter-pleasing pledges.
Whereas his marquee platforms of common youngster care, quick and free buses and a hire freeze clearly captured voters’ imaginations, he made a slew of different guarantees that will rapidly — and considerably — reshape New York Metropolis, together with:
Metropolis-owned grocery shops
Mamdani’s early viral promise to open city-run grocery shops has all however disappeared from the dialog throughout his first 100 days in workplace.
The pitch that candidate Mamdani made repeated was that 5 grocery shops — one in every borough — may promote meals to hard-working New Yorkers at wholesale costs if the town lined hire and property taxes.
However no such city-owned grocery shops have opened.
As an alternative, Mamdani has simply proposed $70 million in new funding for the town’s Financial Growth Company to scout potential areas for and construct the 5 shops.
Division of Group Security
Mamdani’s much-hyped main promise to launch a brand new metropolis “Division of Group Security” — with a $1.1 billion greenback price ticket — that will have social employees reply to non-violent 911 calls as an alternative of NYPD cops has fallen in need of its lofty ambitions.
Hizzoner up to now has simply rolled out a “Mayor’s Workplace of Group Security” — a lite model of his authentic promise with simply two staffers and a murky $260 million finances.
Strategic Response Group
When Mamdani entered the mayoral race in 2024 as a longshot candidate, he vowed to disband the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group.
The elite unit tasked with responding to protests continues to be sticking round, although Mamdani has repeatedly vowed that he’ll dismantle it.
Zohran’s little purple e-book
The Put up reveals what it thinks Mamdani’s first 100 days would appear to be
January 1: Pricey diary, I’m the mayor! AOC owes me $20, she of little religion. She’s refusing to pay, saying I ought to take solace within the “heat of collectivism.” After the block social gathering, stopped by the brand new workplace to vary the definition of antisemitism and permit folks to boycott Israel. Mission completed.
January 6: For some cause, my lady Cea Weaver is in hassle for saying she needed to “seize personal property” and that homeownership was a “weapon of white supremacy.” Duh! That was on my marketing campaign platform! Additionally I moved into Gracie Mansion.
January 7: Nonetheless cleansing up after Eric. What number of glo-sticks does one mayor want? This place actually wants a bidet. How can the bed room nonetheless odor of Invoice deB’s weed?
January 14: King Don referred to as. Apparently nonetheless upset that I’m letting unlawful immigrant criminals go. I stated he seemed good-looking on TV and he calmed down a bit of.
January 28: Individuals are blaming me for homeless folks freezing exterior. I blame the patriarchy.
January 30: Received to check out my drop, the “Metropolis of New York” jacket. Beard effectively oiled. Had “aura” as the children say. Put that on a propaganda poster! Smiling this a lot is beginning to damage.
February 11: Tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax
February 12: I’ve been brainstorming some new taxes. What if we taxed millionaires for strolling above 14th Avenue? Sidewalk congestion! Word: Convey this up at subsequent politburo assembly.
February 17: Ugh, ‘Karen’ Hochul. I TOLD her I wanted to have extra taxes, and he or she went “uhhh.” Like c’mon that’s my model. My X deal with is @taxman. I’m seeing if anybody else from my school socialist group desires to run for governor.
February 18: Being mayor is tough.
February 26: I informed Jessica {that a} child throwing a snowball at cops isn’t a criminal offense. Even when that child is 27 years outdated with a legal document and whacked the cop throughout the top.
March 1: Made a TikTok immediately.
March 2: Made one other TikTok.
March 8: I don’t perceive why of us don’t get it. When Rama is with me at official occasions, she’s a public determine. When she’s tweeting about how a lot she loves Hamas, she’s a non-public citizen. Straightforward peasy. Why can’t my press folks get that throughout? Suppose we must always cease calling on reporters.
March 16: Seems the legal professionals say I can’t “ban vehicles.” I believed I used to be the mayor! However somebody stated in assembly I can decrease pace restrict to make strolling quicker.
April 2: Reminder: Get extra Crest white strips.
April 8: Seems giving everybody free buses and puppies prices some huge cash. All my mates on the Havana conference are going to be mad.
April 9: How is my approval score solely 48%?! Everybody in Park Slope says they love me!
The mayor informed The New York Instances this week that the SRG was a part of an “lively dialog” with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who helps protecting it. He stated he’d overrule Tisch if mandatory.
“I stay steadfast in my dedication to disband the SRG, to take action in a way that upholds each First Modification rights of New Yorkers and retains New Yorkers secure,” he informed the paper.
Homeless encampments
Quickly after profitable the 2025 mayoral race, Mamdani vowed that he’d cease his predecessor Eric Adams’ follow of clearing homeless encampments and focus as an alternative on attempting to line up housing for vagrants.
However Mamdani reversed course quickly after taking workplace when the town was walloped by back-to-back winter storms that led to at the least 29 deaths, largely open air.
He revamped the coverage by instructing metropolis employees to return to homeless encampments for seven days in a row and attempt to persuade folks off the streets earlier than tearing down their makeshift residing buildings.
NYPD gang database
Lefties, together with Mamdani on the marketing campaign path, have lengthy argued the NYPD’s gang database perpetuates racial profiling and ought to be abolished.
However Mamdani’s once-firm opposition has began to evaporate as he goes deeper into his mayoralty.
The mayor stood silent final week as Tisch stated cops use the database “day-after-day.” When requested in regards to the database Monday, Mamdani stated he made his “critiques of the database clear” and claimed that the NYPD was within the course of of constructing reforms.
Housing vouchers
Adams infuriated Metropolis Council progressives and housing advocates alike when he fought the enlargement of CityFHEPS, the Huge Apple’s housing voucher program.
Looking for to capitalize off that anger, Mamdani’s marketing campaign web site explicitly promised that as mayor he’d drop Adams’ lawsuits in opposition to the enlargement.
However as soon as Mamdani was elected mayor, he reversed course by formally submitting an attraction to maintain an anti-CityFHEPS lawsuit alive — a transfer one advocate bitterly referred to as a “betrayal.”
Class dimension regulation
Mamdani, as a Queens state assemblyman, voted in 2022 for the state’s controversial class dimension regulation requiring New York Metropolis public college school rooms to shrink.
He largely saved mum on the regulation — which Adams maintained would bust the town’s already bloated schooling finances — till late within the mayoral marketing campaign, when he renewed his help.
As a mayor going through an enormous finances shortfall, nevertheless, Mamdani began to quietly push for the regulation’s mandate to be relaxed — an effort {that a} key state lawmaker has backed.
Libraries
Town’s public libraries have been the sufferer one in every of Mamdani’s most egregious flip-flops from his marketing campaign guarantees.
Then-candidate Mamdani had promised each to “finish the follow of utilizing library funding as a bargaining chip in finances negotiations” and commit 0.5% of New York Metropolis’s finances to libraries — a direct rebuke in opposition to a much-criticized follow below Adams.
However Mamdani openly reneged on the pledges as mayor by slashing library funding by $30 million in his preliminary metropolis finances and solely allocating 0.39% of it towards libraries.
“Mayor Mamdani has damaged his promise,” incensed librarians with the NYC Public Library Motion Community raged.
“The honeymoon is over for Mamdani,” stated Ryan Adams, managing director at Actum, a consulting agency. “However I don’t assume the wedding has soured with New York.”
The advisor identified that Mamdani “reversed his no-sweeps pledge inside two months, triggered an uproar over CityFHEPS from advocates for the homeless and unhoused, walked again his strategy to the gang database, and his signature affordability agenda — city-owned supermarkets, free buses, a hire freeze — is stalled behind exterior forces who gained’t play alongside.”
“The marketing campaign was a motion,” he stated, “the administration is a negotiation. That’s a tough touchdown.”
