In order of how I think you should rank mayoral candidates them in the Democratic primary:
- Zellnor Myrie.
- Brad Lander.
- Scott Stringer.
- Adrienne Adams.
- Zohran Mamdani.
Here's my reasoning:
Zellnor Myrie is my first choice because his housing policy is the best by far, and if you're following me, you know that I support building as much housing as possible.
Brad Lander is quietly competent and also pro-housing. I voted before Trump's ICE agents arrested him on nonsense charges, but good for him for standing up for the rule of law.
Scott Stringer and Adrienne Adams are fine, and neither is Cuomo or Mamdani, so I'm comfortable ranking them 3rd and 4th. Then there's Zohran Mamdani, who I've ranked 5th. Bottom-line, Mamdani's plans in the areas I care about most - transit and housing - are a mix of impossible and ill-advised, but I'm going to hold my nose and rank him anyway.
Mamdani wants free buses. There's three major problems with this idea. First, the Mayor doesn't control the MTA, the governor does - so short of the city taking over the MTA there's no good way to implement the plan. Second, free buses are generally not what transit users want - even the poorest riders are willing to pay for service, provided that the service quality is high. Transit users, both in surveys and by voting with their fares, are generally willing to pay more for transit IF it's fast, frequent, reliable and convenient. Third, free buses deprive the MTA of revenue, at a time when MTA operations are already underfunded - making service worse. That money has to come from somewhere.
Mamdani's housing plan is also bad, full stop. A rent freeze on stabilized apartments and stronger rent controls were tried in San Francisco and they failed miserably at attacking the basic problem of not enough housing. Not to mention, 45% of New Yorkers live in market rate apartments, and a rent freeze off-loads the problem onto those people. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I don't trust his promise to build 200,000 units of rent-stabilized housing either. He's promised to build all this housing with union labor, and without reforming the housing/zoning bureaucracy. This is like promising that you can get in shape without eating right or exercising.
Now, you may be wondering, if I just spent the last three paragraphs shitting all over Mamdani, why'd I rank him 5th? Well, it's because Mamdani isn't Andrew Cuomo, and Mamdani is currently running second to Cuomo in the polls.
I think Mamdani's plans are bad and ill-advised, but Cuomo's plans are even worse. After all, we know what Cuomo's record on transit is. When he was governor, Cuomo ran the MTA into the ground, and took money from the MTA budget to fund upstate ski resorts. On the housing front, Cuomo's promised to do fuck-all to fix the housing crisis. Cuomo has no business being anywhere near City Hall, which is why I ranked Mamdani 5th.
Thus, that gets you my ranking order: Myrie, Lander, Stringer, Adrienne Adams, Mamdani. If you live in New York City, you should go and vote. Election day is Tuesday.