Mamdani’s first 100 days: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

We are now 100 days into the Zohran Mamdani era – a milestone the city’s youngest mayor in a century is commemorating with signature enthusiasm and communication skills. On Sunday, he’ll deliver a rally-style address at the Knockdown Center in Queens. 

Just a few months into his history-making tenure, it’s still wait-and-see on Mamdani’s signature campaign promises. The Rent Guidelines Board is about two weeks into its annual process to determine whether to freeze rents for nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, though he managed to appoint a sympathetic majority to the board. The mayor has acknowledged that his plan to make buses free won’t be happening this year after state lawmakers declined to wrap it into their budget proposals. City-owned grocery stores aren’t going to be popping up around the five boroughs anytime soon either. The mayor’s brightest spot is his pledge to create a free, universal child care system. While a truly universal program is likely still years down the line, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s commitment to expand free child care to 2-year-olds was an indisputably big deal. 

All that to say, New York City hasn’t magically become affordable. In fact, there are some troubling economic indicators. New York City lost 20,000 jobs in 2025, according to the state Department of Labor. And unlike his predecessors, the new mayor hasn’t focused on economic development. But he has been plenty busy as he addresses the day-to-day grind of city business, filling potholes, signing executive orders, opening a long-delayed therapeutic center at Bellevue Hospital to treat incarcerated people, tackling a historic cold stretch, hosting New Yorkers for Iftars during Ramadan and appearing just about everywhere. 

“The city sets the pace, New Yorkers do it as well,” Mamdani told City & State in an interview. “Now it's the job of city government to actually catch up.”

Still, New Yorkers have somewhat mixed feelings about the new mayor, at least according to the most recent Marist Poll. He has a 48% approval rating, below what former Mayor Eric Adams had at the same early point in his tenure. Mamdani performed well on other indicators though, suggesting that people’s minds aren’t set – and that there is space for the mayor to grow. Nearly 75% of New York City residents said they think Mamdani is hardworking and 61% think he’s a good leader for the city.

“If we want to win the faith of New Yorkers with the most transformational ideas, we have to deliver on the very things that they've seen unaddressed for weeks, months and years,” Mamdani said.

Here’s our take on The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Mamdani’s first 100 days. – Sahalie Donaldson

THE GOOD

Universal (eventually)! Child care! 

Eight days into Mamdani’s mayoralty, Gov. Kathy Hochul committed a whopping $1.2 billion to his child care agenda for fiscal year 2027, an extra boost that would cover an expansion of the 3K program and the beginning of free child care for 2-year-olds. Ever the communicator, Mamdani repeatedly reminded New Yorkers of that early victory throughout his first 100 days, holding a series of press conferences to announce the neighborhoods where free child care would expand, to map existing daycare centers, to open a new early childhood center and to urge families to sign up for existing programs. But despite the full-court PR press, the administration has so far refused to release their early child care enrollment numbers after the Feb. 27 deadline. – Holly Pretsky

The Mamdani Machine

Mamdani racked up an early political victory by ensuring his socialist of choice replaced him in the Assembly. Not only did Diana Moreno win the special election, the Queens Democratic Party chose her as its candidate after Mamdani made it clear she was his pick. Quite a shift for the organization that has historically worked against the Democratic Socialists of America. While Moreno was Mamdani’s first candidate to win an election, he still managed to exert influence on two races before even taking office when he convinced both Council Members Chi Ossé and Alexa Avilés not to run for Congress. Impressive feats for the rookie mayor.

This all gives Mamdani momentum headed into the real test of his political power: The congressional and state legislative Democratic primaries. The future of the mayor’s machine will come into focus with the race for the 7th Congressional District, where Mamdani is campaigning hard for freshman socialist Assembly Member Claire Valdez to win the open “Commie Corridor” seat over the seasoned Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso (see below). – Rebecca C. Lewis

Trump to the City: Let’s Build 

The mayor’s talent for charming President Donald Trump only improved after his first visit to the White House in November. Mamdani absconded to D.C. on an early morning flight in February, keeping his trip private at the request of the president. Afterward, he emerged with a surreal Oval Office photo in which he stands next to a grinning Trump who holds two Daily News front page covers: the famous “Ford to City: Drop Dead” in his left hand and an imitation “Trump to City: Let’s Build” in his right. Mamdani claimed he got the president interested in building 12,000 affordable homes with $21 billion in federal grants at Sunnyside Yard in Queens. He also managed to secure the release of two campus activists from immigration detention, thrilling the socialist mayor’s base. – Holly Pretsky

A social media-savvy DCWP 

If there’s one New York City department that’s emulated the Mamdani campaign ethos of being everywhere all the time, elevating the needs of the working class and using viral videos to lodge its message in the maw of the chronically online New Yorker, it’s the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. A relatively small department that typically flies under the radar, Mamdani’s DCWP and its Commissioner Sam Levine came out swinging. On Day 5, Mamdani and Levine announced a new crackdown on hidden junk fees. On Day 14, they sued delivery company Motoclick. On Day 21, they went after hidden hotel fees. On Day 30, they celebrated a $5 million settlement for food delivery workers. And on Day 83, the mukbang brothers  announced over Crunchwrap Supremes that fast food workers would get money back over labor violations.

If that sounds like too much for a new commissioner to do in three months, that’s because it is. The investigations that led to some of that work were underway in the Adams administration. 

Levine works in the model of his former mentor at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, anti-monopolist Lina Khan. Levine will meet with big tech companies, he told City & State on Day 21, but he’s “not here because I want to be invited to their Christmas party.” Now if only DCWP could get that doubled budget Mamdani promised on the campaign trail. – Annie McDonough

Not today Eric Adams! 

Former Mayor Eric Adams may have been well acquainted with the storied ghost of Gracie Mansion, but his attempts to haunt Mayor Zohran Mamdani haven’t been successful. On his first day in office, the new mayor eliminated a suite of his predecessor’s executive orders, including two championed by Adams during his final months in office that had adopted a broad definition of antisemitism and barred city employees from boycotting Israel. This was just the start of the Mamdani reign. Remember that Charter Revision Commission Adams rolled out on his final day in office, tasked with opening up the city’s primary elections? Its future is uncertain after the person Adams intended to be chair failed to file the necessary paperwork in time, likely giving Mamdani an opportunity to appoint a new leader. Perhaps the greatest win for Mamdani though was his thwarting of Adams’ attempts to stack the Rent Guidelines Board with his own appointees. With the majority of those last-minute appointments falling through, Mamdani has leapt at the opportunity to potentially bring his signature campaign pledge to fruition. He’s stacked the board with people likely to vote to freeze rents for more than 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. – Sahalie Donaldson

THE BAD

You pissed off Nydia Velázquez 

You need to pick your battles as mayor. And by recruiting, endorsing and campaigning for Assembly Member Claire Valdez in the race to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, Mamdani has ended up in a Cold War with just about every one of his key Democratic allies except DSA.

It wasn’t just endorsing Valdez, but how he did it. There were attempts to coordinate with Velázquez, find a successor both the legendary Luchadora and the new mayor could agree on. She has no shortage of progressive proteges. But Mamdani was set on Valdez, the one local elected she barely knew, who’d only been in office one year. 

“Honeymoons are short, and people need to pay attention to the work at hand,” Velázquez advised Mamdani in a quietly scathing New York Times interview just two weeks into the mayor’s term. The mayor getting so involved, she added, “opens up fights.”

Sure enough, now every single endorsement for Reynoso is seen as a subtle repudiation of the mayor and his influence. And there have been a lot of repudiations. The mayor couldn’t even convince the Working Families Party to join him on Team Valdez, nor District Council 37 nor Attorney General Letitia James. On the surface, everyone is still smiling and shaking hands. But the race is raising real questions about Mamdani’s political extracurricular activities, and whether he’s pissing off would-be allies by leaning on his own litmus test: whether somebody endorsed him for mayor early enough in the mayoral primary. – Jeff Coltin

The property tax fail

You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose, and you budget in poorly considered bluffs, apparently. Mamdani’s first budget is far from over – there may yet be a world in which he gets Albany to raise taxes on the wealthy or corporations. But some of his maneuvers in pursuit of that have fallen flat. Namely, his property tax ultimatum. 

As gambits go, this one fooled few and angered many. His argument was that if Albany refuses to raise taxes and kick in more state aid, the city will be forced to use one of the few levers at its disposal: raising city property taxes to fill a $5.4 billion budget hole. Ostensibly, the intention was to pressure Hochul to tax the rich. Instead, he underestimated the political poison that is associated with the mere suggestion of raising property taxes, and overestimated his ability to direct that toward Hochul. 

Mamdani is in an admittedly tough spot for his first budget. The new mayor has been praised for trying to more accurately reflect the city’s spending, but that leaves him weighing unpopular measures to close a yawning budget gap, catching flak from credit rating agencies and getting himself into an all-out brawl with the City Council. All while he would probably rather be fulfilling campaign promises like funding a Department of Community Safety and finally raising Parks spending. – Annie McDonough

A case of Julie Menin-gitis

Did you expect the other wing of City Hall to just fall in line with the new mayor’s whims? Not a chance! Certainly not with its own savvy leader at the helm – one with more executive experience than the 34-year-old mayor and with her own ambitions. City Council Speaker Julie Menin was far from Mamdani’s first choice to lead the legislative body, but despite his half-hearted interventions, she dominated the speaker’s race. And with her leading the charge, the council is proving resistant to some of the mayor’s moves – just look at members’ outright refusal to raise property taxes and the latest fight over rental vouchers. The tension spilled out into the newsfeed when Menin and the council released their response to Mamdani’s preliminary budget, claiming they found billions in savings the mayor’s office missed. Mamdani took the opportunity to call Menin out personally, saying that under “her proposal,” “working New Yorkers would pay the price.” Council members quickly jumped to defend their math. – Sahalie Donaldson

Homeless sweep swap

Adams took a hard line against homeless encampments, arguing that any policy that allows people to live outside is inhumane, while also failing to relocate people into more permanent shelter during encampment sweeps. In December, Mamdani told reporters at an unrelated press conference that he planned to end the sweeps, perhaps unintentionally announcing a major policy shift. In February, under pressure after some 20 New Yorkers froze to death during a prolonged cold snap, Mamdani reversed course. Though none of those deaths appeared to be people who lived in encampments, Mamdani said he would restart the practice of clearing people’s outdoor dwellings, but would do so more gently than his predecessor, sending Department of Homeless Services workers to offer services to people every day for a week before forcing them to move. – Holly Pretsky

Police shootings

There is no easy way to handle a police shooting. Mamdani, newly responsible for the NYPD, has been confronted with a handful in the first few months of his tenure. That includes three incidents in January – including a man who was killed by police after barricading himself in a hospital room with a sharp object, a man who was killed in the street after drawing what appeared to be a gun, and a man who was hospitalized after being shot at his family home during a mental health emergency. 

The latter, the shooting of Jabez Chakraborty, drew attention to Mamdani’s campaign pledge to revolutionize how the city responds to people in emergency mental health crises, as the case seemed like one his promised, but not yet delivered, Department of Community Safety might be able to address. (Though because Chakraborty drew a knife after police arrived, it’s unclear how the theoretical department would have responded. Mamdani has since announced a pared-down Office of Community Safety.) 

Mamdani’s initial response to the shooting, in which he expressed gratitude to the responding officers, was also criticized by Chakraborty’s family and Desis Rising Up and Moving, a major campaign ally, highlighting Mamdani’s challenge of leading a police department that he has so frequently pledged to reform. – Annie McDonough

THE UGLY

The extremists descend on Gracie 

It’s New York City’s first Muslim mayor. Of course Mamdani’s admin took office ready to overcome hate. But no one could have expected how quickly it could escalate. A white supremacist organized a "Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City" rally outside Gracie Mansion in March. That group clashed violently with counter-protesters. Two teens from Pennsylvania, who federal investigators said were inspired by ISIS, traveled to the city for the counter-demonstration and threw two homemade explosives intending a deadly attack. Fortunately, the bombs failed to detonate, but the FBI and NYPD investigated and later charged the teens with federal terrorism crimes. They are being held without bail. – Kate Lisa

Islamophobia, everywhere

Whether it was radio host Sid Rosenberg calling him a “Radical Islam cockroach” or U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville calling the mayor an “enemy” and connecting him to the terrorism of 9/11, the drumbeat of Islamophobic attacks that Mamdani faced on the campaign trail continued after he entered City Hall. 

Mamdani made it a priority to conspicuously and consistently celebrate the holy month of Ramadan as mayor. He also walked a tight rope – carefully wording statements denouncing pro-Hamas chants, for example, and another denouncing a foiled bombing plot against a pro-Palestinian activist. Meanwhile, anti-Muslim hate crimes – while still limited numerically – saw a troubling increase in the first months of 2026. – Jeff Coltin

Tensions remain over Israel 

Political opposition to Israel is one of Mamdani’s core beliefs. He worked overtime trying to allay many pro-Israel Jews’ concerns about him during the campaign, but becoming mayor didn’t magically fix anything.

His first legislative battle with the City Council has become, in effect, a test of whether one stands with Jews trying to go to synagogue or the protesters outside. And those who said Mamdani didn’t take antisemitism seriously could point to new hate crime statistics. There was a spike in his first month compared to the prior January, and the majority of reported hate crimes are still against Jews.

And while Mamdani’s own social media posts had already been combed through, journalists highlighted his wife Rama Duwaji’s social media activity – liking posts that justified and celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and reposting others as a teenager that celebrated Palestinian resistance. That made it open season against Duwaji on social media – former Rep. George Santos called her “American hating bitch,” and worse. The saga reopened old wounds between Mamdani and some of his harshest critics, and put the mayor on the defensive. – Jeff Coltin