My City Just Voted for Socialism
Zohran Mamdani is the presumed winner of New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary: Technically, ranked-choice votes will take a week to fully tabulate, with the final results being declared on July 1, but second-place Andrew Cuomo has formally conceded to his opponent. Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist who advocates a rent freeze, hiking taxes on the rich (and corporations), defunding the police (though he’s walked this one back), and a $30 minimum wage by 2030, has taken 43.5 percent of the vote, to Cuomo’s 36.4 percent, with 93 percent of votes in at publication time.
With ranked-choice voting, the candidate must still clear the 50 percent threshold, but once a candidate crosses that 40 percent line—and has some distance from their runner-up—they’re the presumed winner. Mamdani’s team is getting wasted, Cuomo’s a bit depressed, and everyone in the city capitalism built is waking up to this crazy upset, wondering what happens next.
So what does Mamdani actually want to institute, if elected in November, and why would it suck so much?
Consider free childcare, which his canvassers seemed to believe would be persuasive to me as I walked past them last night with my 2-year-old. Under Mamdani, the state would provide childcare—via taxpayer-funded daycares, akin to the universal 3K program currently in place (which doesn’t always provide parents with options they actually want)—for all aged six weeks to 5 years old. But if the idea is to lighten parents’ financial load, why aren’t all forms of childcare treated the same? Why don’t stay-at-home mothers get vouchers from the state to recoup loss of income? Why don’t neighborhood babysitting collectives get help? Why is one form of childcare—administered by the state—privileged above all others? Many education savings account programs, such as the one administered by Florida, recognize that assistance from the state, if it is to exist at all, ought to be handed straight to families so that they may use it as they wish. For socialists to offer universal state-run childcare as some great liberator is frankly insulting to many mothers; in the magnificent post-work future the socialists herald, won’t many women choose to spend more time with their children, not less?
City-run grocery stores—another of Mamdani’s proposals—look like a solution in search of a problem. Food deserts—geographic zones where there aren’t any affordable, healthy options available to residents—don’t exist in New York City. Here, let me prove it. Here’s what East New York’s grocery store scene looks like. And here’s Bedford-Stuyvesant.
You cannot seriously convince me that food deserts exist in New York City. This is Far Rockaway, which is far out there in Queens, so a bit less dense, and super poor. And it *still* has walking-distance grocery stores, and bus lines that make a short ride fast. pic.twitter.com/QJFqnmMDPG
— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) June 25, 2025
Smaller grocery stores and bodegas, some of which don’t even display on Google Maps, can be found dotting the blocks. City-owned grocery stores just aren’t needed, and the reasons food stamp recipients don’t fill their granny carts with fresh salad greens isn’t because they can’t find them.
Then there’s Mamdani’s rent freeze. He hopes to fully eradicate all rent increases for the roughly 2 million New Yorkers who are currently the beneficiaries of the city’s rent-stabilization scheme, claiming this will be
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