Zohran Mamdani could not see the source of the roar. A small crowd sat in front of him as he delivered his first public speech as mayor of New York City on Thursday afternoon at City Hall—invited guests whose polite applause was muffled by layers of gloves warding off the frigid New Year’s Day air.
But whenever Mamdani hit a key line—about freezing the rent or taxing the rich—a cheer would rise from the tens of thousands who had gathered several blocks south of him, on Broadway, to watch his address on giant TV screens. The outcry of approval echoed off the skyscrapers as it traveled to Mamdani, arriving after a short delay.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had kicked off the celebration sounding like a proud elder sister: “This ascent marks a new era for New York City, led by a historic new mayor in Zohran Mamdani!” exclaimed the Queens Democratic congresswoman. “We have chosen [Mamdani] over the distractions of bigotry and the barbarism of extreme income inequality.” Soon after came Bernie Sanders, who sounded like a proud uncle. “Thank you for electing Zohran Mamdani as your mayor,” said the beaming Vermont socialist senator. “New York, thank you for inspiring our nation. Thank you for giving us, from coast to coast, the hope and the vision that we can create government that works for all—not just the wealthy and the few.”
AOC and Sanders are eager to help Mamdani in part because they both have genuine personal affection for him. But they also have a lot riding politically on the shoulders of a charismatic but wildly inexperienced 34-year-old democratic socialist. Whether he succeeds or struggles, Mamdani’s moves will serve as a referendum for the idea that progressives either can or can’t effectively govern a major city. Mainstream Democrats—many of whom, like New York senator Chuck Schumer, kept their distance from Mamdani even after his primary victory—also have a great deal on the line, because Republicans and President Donald Trump will use any Mamdani slipups as fodder for the 2026 midterm elections, or to cut federal aid to the city.
Mamdani cares far more about local issues right now. But he knows that to succeed, he’ll need to combine the inside game of horse-trading with the outside game that got him elected. His inauguration team invited spectators to that Broadway “block party” as an attempt to include more regular citizens in the ceremony, even if they stood at a slight distance. Yet the party was also about more than symbolism. If Mamdani is going to actually deliver on the audacious agenda he promised in his stunningly victorious campaign and touted again Thursday, he will need the people in the street to be heard, repeatedly and forcefully, by many who were sitting onstage with him—the politicians who will have a large say in whether Mamdani succeeds or fails.
Probably the most important member of that group was New York governor Kathy Hochul. Hochul, a centrist who is up for reelection this year, strongly encouraged Mamdani to retain the city’s police commissioner, Jessica Tisch; when he agreed, Hochul saw it as a sign of Mamdani’s pragmatism on fighting crime and of his desire to reach out to political moderates.
The governor is highly interested in finding common ground with Mamdani on his push for universal day care. How to pay the multibillion-dollar tab for such a plan, though, will be the tricky part, and may be where her differences with Mamdani come to a head. “We will deliver universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few!” the mayor declared in his speech, drawing one of his biggest ovations. Hochul, though, has repeatedly taken a hard line against raising personal income taxes. “The last thing she wants to do is raise taxes on anybody. And we do tax the rich already,” a Hochul insider told me in advance of Mamdani’s inauguration. “It doesn’t mean that there’s not room for an ongoing conversation.”
Mamdani intends to raise the volume of that conversation by incorporating the voices of the people who were standing on Broadway today. He has spoken with Barack Obama about how the former president’s Obama for America organization did not translate campaign momentum into governing momentum. Mamdani doesn’t plan to make the same mistake, and a key ally is already on the case. The Democratic Socialists of America were crucial to Mamdani’s upset campaign win, organizing a door-knocking army of nearly 100,000 volunteers. “We’re mounting a massive campaign to raise revenue,” says Grace Mausser, a co-chair of DSA’s New York City chapter. “One of the days it snowed pretty heavily in December, we knocked on 15,000 doors. We’re asking them to call their legislators, their assembly members, and their state senators and tell them that they want to tax the rich to fund childcare.”
Chris Coffey knows how effective Mamdani’s tactics can be: The Democratic strategist was part of Andrew Cuomo’s losing primary effort. “People say to me that Mamdani won because he was great at social media,” Coffey says. “He was—but he had a great field team, a great message, and all those volunteers. The full package. The question now is, can he use that same full package as mayor?”
Near the end of his inauguration speech, Mamdani referred to a much smaller event he had staged two weeks earlier in Queens, inside the Museum of the Moving Image. Mamdani’s team said the event, called The Mayor Is Listening, had been inspired by The Artist Is Present, a marathon 2010 performance-art exhibit in which Marina Abramović sat silently for more than 700 hours, staring at a procession of strangers as they sat across a small table from her.
Mamdani’s museum event also featured a table and chairs, but was considerably shorter and more conversational. Most of his interlocutors were chosen after responding to a post on Mamdani’s Instagram page the day before. They slogged through the slop of a mid-December snowstorm to briefly meet Mamdani, expressing their concerns and ideas; their earnestness, and in some cases their desperation, was bracing.
There was Mst Khatun, a 26-year-old single mother from Brooklyn, who talked with Mamdani about universal childcare and city-owned grocery stores. There was Fatima El Zayt, 27, and like Mamdani, from Queens. “I talked with him about defunding the police,” she said. Because she thinks it’s a good idea? “It’s a terrible idea! My husband works for the police department!”
And there was 26-year-old Olga Perez. She’d traveled from Mott Haven, in the Bronx, and brought her parents, who are undocumented immigrants. Their apartment building was in foreclosure; heat and hot water had become spotty, and someone was hanging up posters in the hallways threatening to bring in ICE. Perez said she had called and emailed city agencies and Mayor Eric Adams’s City Hall, but had gotten no help. “The system is failing us. We’re being ignored,” she said. “If Mamdani is willing to have a conversation with actual New Yorkers, I find that to be a good starting point.”
Immediately after those 142 three-minute conversations, Mamdani sounded understandably punchy. “Someone pitched me on being the ‘commissioner of glitter’ in New York City,” he told me. “I was taken aback.” Yet he quickly focused on what he said was the core purpose of his listening blitz. “The more successful you become in politics, the more you tend to talk and the less you tend to listen,” Mamdani said. “Today was an opportunity to return back to the New Yorkers who have so often been failed by our city’s politics and to reckon with their hopes, their dreams, and their very real fears.”
Still, wasn’t this mostly a publicity stunt, intended to yield a video for social media? Why should anyone believe the museum event, and Mamdani’s other populist gestures, are more than performative? “I think in trying to usher in a new era of politics in our city, we have to confront the very rational skepticism that has come with the politics as it has been,” he said evenly. “And I think the most powerful thing we can offer is an example. I’m thankful for New Yorkers for giving me many potential examples to fulfill, and I know who I’m gonna call as soon as we do.”
Mamdani is going to be plenty busy working the phones. His charming inauguration speech included references ranging from Nelson Mandela to Jadakiss, and ended by saying, “The work, my friends, has only just begun.” Blue and yellow confetti fell. Mamdani turned and kissed his wife, Rama Duwaji, a stylish and formidable artist. They walked up the stairs into City Hall, and into probably the least predictable mayoralty in city history.
