The pledges that cemented Zohran Mamdani's win

Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City running on the "Zohran for NYC" ticket, has unveiled a platform built around the theme that "New York is too expensive."

His proposals focus on housing, affordability, education, safety, labour rights, and climate action - with an emphasis on expanding public investment and holding corporations and landlords accountable, according to his campaign website zohranforny.com.

Housing and tenant protection

Mamdani's plan seeks to address the city's housing crisis by increasing supply, freezing rent, and tightening oversight of landlords.

• Rent freeze: Immediately freeze rents for all stabilized tenants.
• Affordable construction: Triple the city's production of permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes — building 200,000 new units in 10 years.
• Landlord accountability: Empower the city to make repairs and bill negligent owners; take control of persistently neglected properties.
• Homeowner protections: Create an Office of Deed Theft Prevention, reform property taxes so wealthier neighborhoods pay more, and end the tax lien sale.

Affordability and reducing costs

The campaign frames affordability as a public investment issue.

• City-owned grocery stores: Launch a network to keep food prices low through centralized warehousing and distribution.
• Fare-free buses: Eliminate fares permanently and expand bus lanes. The campaign says the plan would save riders 36 million hours annually and generate $1.5 billion in benefits — double its cost.
• Corporate accountability: Ban hidden fees, misleading ads, and non-compete clauses; end secret corporate subsidies; and fund challenges to major utilities like ConEd.

Early childhood and education

Mamdani's education agenda focuses on universal childcare and stronger public schools.

• Free childcare: Offer no-cost childcare for children ages 6 weeks to 5 years, while raising worker pay to public school teacher levels.
• "Baby baskets": Provide new parents with essentials and guidance on available support programs.
• Public schools: Fully fund schools, ensure equitable resource distribution, and expand teacher recruitment through a "Community to Classroom" initiative.
• CUNY investment: Make CUNY tuition-free and raise staff and faculty wages.

Safety and community health

Mamdani proposes a shift from policing toward community-based safety programs.

• Department of Community Safety: Create a new agency focused on violence prevention.
• Crisis response: Deploy mental health outreach teams in 100 subway stations.
• Violence prevention: Expand gun violence and hate crime prevention programs.
• Healthcare access: Increase public hospital funding, reject Medicare Advantage, and expand reproductive and gender-affirming care.
• LGBTQIA+ protections: Establish an Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs and declare NYC a sanctuary city for LGBTQIA+ people.

Labor and workers' rights

• Wages: Raise the minimum wage to $30/hour by 2030, with automatic increases tied to cost of living or productivity.
• Labor standards: Require fair labor standards for all city-funded projects.
• Delivery workers: Expand protections, regulation, and infrastructure for delivery workers.

Climate and environment

Mamdani links climate action to job creation and public health.

• Green Schools Plan: Retrofit 500 schools with renewable energy, turn 500 asphalt yards into green spaces, and convert 50 into resilience hubs — creating 15,000 union jobs.
• Resiliency: Prioritize flood protection, resilient housing, and extreme heat response using a multi-agency approach.

Paying for it

Funding would come largely from higher taxes on corporations and high earners.

• Corporate tax: Raise the rate to 11.5%, matching New Jersey's — projected to generate $5 billion annually.
• Millionaire's tax: Impose a 2% levy on income over $1 million, raising an estimated $4 billion.
• Efficiency reforms: Recover $1 billion by tightening procurement, ending no-bid contracts, and cracking down on tax and fine evasion.

Mamdani's agenda seeks to reframe city governance around affordability and public ownership  positioning New York as a test case for progressive, city-level reform built on redistributive taxation and public services.