Zohran Mamdani promises lower cost of living for NYC and outlines how
NEW YORK CITY (PIX11) — New York State Assemblymember and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani declared victory in the city's Democratic mayoral primary Tuesday night after building on campaign promises to lower the cost of living in NYC.
The 33-year-old democratic socialist took a 44% lead over former Governor Andrew Cuomo despite the race not being officially called by the Board of Elections yet. Mamdani's win comes after he ran an energetic campaign aimed at working-class New Yorkers.
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One of Mamdani's most publicized campaign promises has been to freeze the rent for all tenants in stabilized apartments for four years. The move would impact more than two million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments.
'It's something the city has the power to do through the rent guidelines board. A board composed of nine members all of whom are appointed by the mayor,' Mamdani told PIX11's Dan Mannarino during the 2025 NYC Democratic Mayoral Forum.
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He's also promised to use every available resource to build more housing in the city and lower the overall cost of rent.
Building on his fare-free bus pilot in 2024, Mamdani has proposed expanding the initiative citywide as well as adding more priority lanes to increase bus speeds. He's also announced plans to implement free childcare for kids between 6 weeks to 5-years-old while raising the wages for childcare workers.
'This is something I would fund in part through the city and in large part through partnership with the state,' Mamdani explained during the forum.
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The mayoral candidate says the funding would come from raising the tax on corporations and the top 1% of New Yorkers who make a million or more per year.
Mamdani has proposed creating a new city agency called the Department of Community Safety to help 'prevent violence before it happens' by investing in citywide mental health programs and crisis response.
'What we really need to do is to deploy teams of dedicate mental health outreach workers to the 100 subways stations with the highest levels of mental health crises,' Mamdani said during the forum.
'Have those teams be the ones responsible for ensuring we bring New Yorkers out of those subways and actually give them the long-term care that they need.'
He has suggested placing homeless New Yorkers in vacant supportive housing units instead of sending them to places like Rikers Island or other mental health hospitals.
Going along with his rent freeze promise to make the city more affordable, Mamdani has also laid out plans to construct 200,000 permanently affordable, rent-stabilized units over the next 10 years.
Additionally, he has proposed overhauling the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants to coordinate code enforcement under one roof as well as revamping 311 so that tenants can schedule and track inspections.
If a landlord refuses to make a repair, Mamdani has promised that the City will do it and send them the bill or take control of properties entirely if an owner demonstrates consistent neglect.
To help combat the rising cost of groceries, Mamdani has promised to create a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low. Overhead costs would be reduced by making it so that store owners don't have to pay rent or property taxes.
Dominique Jack is a digital content producer from Brooklyn with more than five years of experience covering news. She joined PIX11 in 2024. More of her work can be found here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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