Mayor Zohran Mamdani was on his way to Gracie Mansion this winter when he asked his driver to pull over to help fellow New Yorkers dig their cars out of the snow. He picked up a shovel. So did his press secretary. Members of his security detail did, too.
It was just the kind of scene that had endeared Mr. Mamdani, 34, to voters. It also hinted at a governing style that resembles the scrappy, high-octane feel of a political campaign — and relies on the hustle of a group of young staffers to keep up.
Mr. Mamdani, New York City’s youngest mayor in about a century, has filled City Hall with people who are also in their 30s, or even younger. The mayor’s chief of staff, Elle Bisgaard-Church, is 34. His communications director, Anna Bahr, is 33. Joe Calvello, his press secretary, is 33. His closest outside adviser, Morris Katz, 26, is so young that for several months last year, he told reporters he was a couple years older than he was.
The arrival of these young Democrats at the helm of one of the most prominent offices in the country has meant all kinds of changes for New York politics, from the congressional primaries in which Mr. Mamdani has involved himself to who holds the political capital in New York.
Then there’s the way they run the government, with a management style that youth allows: working all the time. Mr. Mamdani is younger than most prominent Democrats, needs little sleep, enjoys working weekends and likes to be highly visible in the city he leads, every day. Some of his closest aides haven’t had a day off since Jan. 1, when the mayor was sworn into office. Work calls can begin as late as 10 p.m. Some veterans say the approach is notably intense, like Karen Hinton, who was Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press secretary and said she struggled to imagine her former boss shoveling snow. “He wouldn’t have gotten out of his car,” she said. “He would have called someone.”
Mr. Mamdani’s administration offers among the first looks at the generational change coming — slowly, finally — to leadership in politics and other key American institutions beyond it. His 2025 campaign, both in policy and messaging, is already influencing Democratic politics. If he is successful, politicians of both parties may seek to replicate his governing style.
Some of the staff’s ideas are novel, like the faux newspaper front page that aides prepared as a gift for President Trump, meant to evoke the New York tabloids that helped launch Mr. Trump’s political career. Several people told me the scrappy charm offensive was the idea of Ms. Bahr, but when asked, she said it was “a team effort.” Either way, the gambit led to the release of a Columbia University student, Elmina Aghayeva, who had been detained by federal immigration officials earlier that day.
But as with any management style, the culture Mr. Mamdani is building at City Hall comes with some possible blind spots and potential trade-offs.
One question is whether there are enough people at City Hall with the confidence that years of experience can bring to know when to tell the mayor no (several people told me this role is primarily filled by Dean Fuleihan, Mr. Mamdani’s 75-year-old first deputy mayor). The influx of younger people to City Hall has also brought shifts in policy that would have been unthinkable under earlier mayors, from views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to issues closer to home. For instance, Mr. Mamdani’s aides are acutely aware of the cost of rent (a good thing, since two-thirds of residents are renters) but sometimes appear less attuned to the concerns of homeowners.
There are few Black people among the senior staff at City Hall, which is a serious problem. There were no Black deputy mayors until March 19, when Mr. Mamdani put Renita Francois in charge of a new office focused on mental health and safety. About one in five New Yorkers is non-Hispanic Black, and Black Americans make up the heart of the Democratic base, as well as an important part of the culture of New York. They are also being priced out of the city in disproportionate numbers and face myriad other challenges, including higher rates of unemployment and lower reading-proficiency rates in the city’s public schools.
Representation isn’t the only measure of commitment, and Mr. Mamdani has been vocal about these issues. His decision to roll out his child care initiative in high-poverty areas like, for instance, the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, which is heavily Black, is encouraging. And his poll numbers among Black voters are strong. But for Black Americans, who have faced a long history of exclusion, a seat at the table still matters.
As generational change in government gets underway nationally, there are likely to be some practical concerns, too.
The 30- and 20-somethings around Mr. Mamdani — most of whom have yet to do their demanding jobs in a period of major crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic — will have to learn how to pace themselves. Not even 100 days into the administration, the relentlessness has left some running on fumes.
Most of them don’t seem to mind. Mr. Mamdani tends to inspire loyalty; many of the people surrounding the mayor are also avowed progressives who see his mayoralty as a chance to carry out an agenda to which they are fiercely committed, and a rare bright spot in a national landscape dominated by far-right policies and ideas.
“Would you rather a mayor who does 11 p.m. press conferences or one who’s at the gym at 11 a.m.?” Mr. Mamdani’s senior communications adviser, Monica Klein, 36, asked me in a text message, when I asked how much sleep she was getting. Ms. Klein was referring to her previous boss, Mr. de Blasio, who lived at Gracie Mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side but drew ire for working out at a Y.M.C.A. in Park Slope, often midmorning.
As they were during the breakout campaign last year, the millennial mayor and his millennial and Gen Z aides are in constant contact with New Yorkers across social media platforms. But they are spending even more time barnstorming the city with in-person events, a nod to a growing sense of urgency among younger generations to get offline and rebuild connection and community.
Mr. Mamdani likes to work in person, often dropping in on the bullpen to check in with aides. He is also constantly coming up with new ideas that lead to more work, like going bowling (on a Saturday) with members of a nurses’ union to celebrate their new labor contract. He frequently communicates with his staff through chat on Microsoft Teams.
Working at City Hall has always involved long hours and a certain kind of intensity. Accordingly, the top jobs tend to attract a certain type of individual. Stu Loeser, New York City’s longest-serving press secretary, says his schedule during those days included a nap between 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. after putting his infant daughter to bed, rising to work again until midnight, then sleeping before briefing his boss, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in the 6 a.m. hour. “I was dying. You should be killing yourself,” Marc La Vorgna, who also served as Mr. Bloomberg’s press secretary, told me. “Number of days in office is your biggest piece of capital. You run out of time, on everything,” Mr. La Vorgna said.
The maverick group of young politicos running the city may also come to find that personally engaging in every minute detail of municipal government, and with equal ferocity, can make it harder to deliver on the big promises. Those promises are what got Mr. Mamdani elected and electrified the younger and more progressive parts of the Democratic base far beyond New York City.
Mr. Mamdani is trying to enact a sweeping leftist agenda in a moment when trust in government is exceedingly low. He is the city’s first Muslim mayor. And he came to office promising to champion working people in a moment when those Americans are struggling.
That may be why this mayor seems to approach everything he does with a sense of urgency. If it seems like Mr. Mamdani is everywhere, it’s because he is. So are his exhausted staffers. It’s a group of young and hungry progressives out to prove to voters that the left can govern.
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