Behind the easygoing persona in the viral videos and breezy appearance on “The View,” Zohran Mamdani is running a careful and tightly controlled campaign.
In an era of remote work, Mr. Mamdani, 33, likes his staff to appear in person. At the campaign’s headquarters in Manhattan, he is known to walk the floor, often pushing aides for new and bolder ideas. Days begin with briefings as early as 7 a.m., followed by campaign events, then dozens of other meetings that are not on his public schedule. The work continues late into the night, with Mr. Mamdani at times calling or texting senior aides between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., when he sometimes likes to engage in creative brainstorming. One advantage to youth is stamina.
That will be vital to being mayor, should he win next month. Exercising that level of control at City Hall, though, will be harder. The city’s press corps, though smaller than it once was, sits inside the building. So does the City Council speaker, his or her staff and a coterie of Police Department detectives. Lobbyists linger in the hallways. Protests and rallies frequently take over the building’s front steps.
The job comes with a steady diet of municipal crises — let alone national and global events — that can derail any mayor’s agenda. In the first days of Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty, his top aides learned the city’s popular bike-share program was in serious financial straits, a minor crisis that sent them scrambling.
Unlike other top progressives, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders in Congress, Mr. Mamdani would be subject to the daily trials of running the largest city in America. He would oversee a municipal government of about 290,000 full-time employees and a budget larger than those of most U.S. states. Fairly or not, he would also be held accountable for the performance of the country’s largest education system, any rise in homelessness and the crime rate. Many people in politics say being mayor of New York City is the hardest job in the business, except for president of the United States.
If he wins, Mr. Mamdani and the small group of 20- and 30-somethings behind his campaign will need to succeed at something plenty of people with far more experience have tried but failed at: governing.
One sign of how Mr. Mamdani may seek to do this is the extensive outreach campaign underway by him to parts of the city’s establishment who were initially wary of him or who supported his political opponents. Despite staking out positions to the left of many mainstream Democrats and provoking a panic among a set of wealthy New Yorkers, Mr. Mamdani is talking to people from a variety of political perspectives and backgrounds.
Alicia Glen, a Goldman Sachs veteran who served as Mr. de Blasio’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development, got a phone call. Mr. Mamdani has also spoken with JPMorganChase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, and real estate executive Scott Rechler.
This quieter, behind-the-scenes campaign may offer an early glimpse of how the political maverick may seek to run the largest city in America. Mr. Mamdani has told business leaders he is committed to policies like raising taxes on corporations, and there is no sign that he is fundamentally changing his agenda, according to people familiar with the conversations. Despite this, he is building relationships with these New Yorkers anyway — a savvy move, considering their ability to ease or stymie his agenda.
Kathy Wylde, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, the city’s powerful chamber of commerce, said she first met Mr. Mamdani at an event in Midtown Manhattan two years ago and was taken aback by his cheerful charisma. “I liked him, even though I disagreed with him on almost everything,” she said. In the days after the June primary, he called her, she said, and asked for her opinion on how to reassure the business community. “Who can I talk to?” she recalled him asking.
In September he met with former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who during the primary donated to a super PAC backing Mr. Mamdani’s chief political opponent, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mr. Mamdani said he admired Mr. Bloomberg’s expansion of park space in the city and asked for advice on how to manage President Trump, according to people who were familiar with the meeting but not authorized to speak publicly about it. By the end of the meeting, which lasted nearly an hour, Mr. Bloomberg was showing Mr. Mamdani photographs from his time at City Hall.
New Yorkers in the city’s political establishment are being subjected to a charm offensive by Mr. Mamdani, whether they like his politics or not.
A state assemblyman who has never run a large organization outside of his campaign, Mr. Mamdani is showing an intense interest in the byzantine details of running the municipal government. The listening campaign is easing concerns among some in the city’s civic set about his lack of experience.
He has spoken with City Hall veterans across at least four administrations. Many people who have spoken with Mr. Mamdani said he had met them in person multiple times or spent hours on the phone peppering them with questions. They described the candidate as intensely curious and a listener.
Dean Fuleihan, who ran the city’s budget office under Mr. de Blasio, said he has met with Mr. Mamdani in person three times, with each meeting lasting over an hour. The men have also met over Zoom and frequently exchange text messages. “We both know politicians. They don’t listen. He actually listens,” Mr. Fuleihan said of Mr. Mamdani. Mr. Fuleihan said the level of detail in the questions from Mr. Mamdani and his aides suggested they took seriously the work of governing. “They’re not avoiding the things they don’t know,” he said.
Mr. Mamdani has spoken with Maria Torres-Springer, a widely respected former deputy mayor under Eric Adams whose work on affordable housing was critical to New York City, and Anne Williams-Isom, a former deputy mayor who once ran the Harlem Children’s Zone. Mr. Mamdani has also had conversations with Janette Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner for Mr. Bloomberg, and Dan Doctoroff, Mr. Bloomberg’s deputy mayor for economic development.
“I will help him in any way possible,” Mr. Doctoroff said of Mr. Mamdani in a text message. In a moment of national political crisis, the willingness of people who may have deep policy disagreements to come together to discuss how to make government work offers a small point of hope.
Overseeing Mr. Mamdani’s growing plans to govern is Elle Bisgaard-Church, his closest aide.
The counsel being sought by Mr. Mamdani appears to be focused on building the operational ability to execute on an agenda intensely focused on affordability. Campaign promises include making city bus rides free, freezing the rent for stabilized apartments and rolling out a free child care program, which would be an enormously ambitious municipal endeavor. Ms. Bisgaard-Church, 34, said in a phone interview that they had compiled a list of more than 100 people as possible hires for top jobs at City Hall. The campaign declined to name these people. She said competence, not ideology, would drive their hiring. But she said, “It’s important that we have people who are committed to achieving the agenda and that they demonstrate that commitment and a deep frustration with the status quo.
In a city with an entrenched political establishment, Mr. Mamdani and his group of young Democrats determined to do things differently face a difficult task. Ms. Bisgaard-Church said he is not only being warned about the importance of preparing for snowstorms but is also receiving “consistent, unsolicited advice” to keep the police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, on the job, which he has not committed to.
If Mr. Mamdani wins Nov. 4, the decisions about how to run New York will be made by a new guard. The failures and successes will belong to them.
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Mara Gay is a staff writer at New York Times Opinion who writes about politics. @MaraGay
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