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new york city
Mamdani's Movement Aims to Stay Activated While He Governs NYC
"We will organize to win and defend the agenda that resonated with voters: free childcare, fast and free buses, freezing the rent and building affordable homes, and more," says Our Time for an Affordable NYC.
Nov 07, 2025
On the heels of over 1 million New Yorkers voting for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's affordability agenda, his allies have launched an organization that aims to keep the movement behind the democratic socialist's successful campaign active during his term.
"We will organize to win and defend the agenda that resonated with voters: free childcare, fast and free buses, freezing the rent and building affordable homes, and more," says the website of the new 501(c)(4), Our Time for an Affordable NYC.
"We'll be door-knocking, phone-banking, communicating, and organizing at the neighborhood, city, and state level," the site explains. "To get it done, we'll collaborate with community organizations, movement groups, and unions that have been doing this work and share a commitment to the affordability agenda."
While Our Time embraces Mamdani's messages and policies, it is distinct from the mayor-elect and his campaign, and "was legally incorporated last week before his victory over former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo," the New York Times reported Thursday. The newspaper noted Mamdani's comments about the group during a press conference earlier this week.
"I will always celebrate anyone who is looking to build on the incredible, amazing grassroots enthusiasm of our campaign," he said. "This work was not simply to win an election but transform our city, and that means it has to continue."
Mamdani "also encouraged supporters to join the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, his political home," according to City & State New York. Our Time's leadership has ties to the NYC-DSA, which played a key role in mobilizing support for Mamdani during the campaign.
Our Time's site names five people leading the organization: executive director Jeremy Freeman, field manager Magdalena Morańda, senior adviser Susan Kang, and board members David Turner and Batul Hassan.
"Our goal is to channel the energy of a volunteer base towards winning the affordability agenda, and doing so at this scale is unprecedented in New York City history," Freeman told the Times. "In developing the organization, we're looking carefully at past examples both positive and negative, and we'll certainly be sure to avoid the pitfalls of any similar efforts by past administrations, and we'll be as transparent as possible in our practices."
The group's creation has prompted comparisons to Our Revolution, which launched after the 2016 presidential run of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), one of Mamdani's most prominent supporters.
Some political observers have also framed it as what former Democratic President Barack Obama should have done after winning his first term. The American Prospect's executive editor, David Dayen, said that "this is the opposite of what Obama did to his volunteer base after 2008."
There's also the cautionary tale of former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio's Campaign for One New York, which shut down in 2016 amid alarm over its finances, including donations from entities that had business before or labor contracts with City Hall.
Our Time is "a fully independent organization," and it is "not asking for dues or formal membership," the group's site says. "We are accepting donations from individuals, foundations, and other philanthropic organizations. All donations greater than $1,000 will be disclosed publicly on our website."
Freeman told the Times that the group will not be accepting money from corporations or firms with business before the city.
"Our victory was historic, but the campaign for an affordable New York City is just beginning," Our Time's site says. "Even as billionaires have made their opposition clear, more than 100,000 volunteers helped win this election, and they want to keep going. Our Time can be a vehicle for continued engagement—a way for folks to plug in and stay active while they find a long-term political home."
The group is coming together as Mamdani supporters, skeptics, and critics all wonder how much of his popular platform he'll actually be able to accomplish after the state assemblyman is sworn in as mayor next January.
Time on Tuesday published a detailed look at the barriers Mamdani will face in his mission to deliver a rent freeze, more affordable housing, city-run grocery stores, fare-free buses, no-cost childcare, a higher minimum wage, and taxes targeting the 1%.
"Raising taxes would require approval from the Democratic-controlled state Legislature and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul," Time noted. "Hochul endorsed Mamdani but expressed fears that significant tax hikes would force wealthy residents out of the city, ultimately opposing his proposed tax increases."
After Mamdani's Tuesday victory, longtime labor organizers Peter Olney and Rand Wilson wrote in an op-ed that during his four-year term, "every Republican and corporate Democrat will do everything possible to ensure he fails, to discredit his socialist platform."
"Any success he achieves as mayor will be due to the strength of the movement that prevailed in the primary and continued to grow for his election in November," they stressed. "If that movement stays mobilized, continues to grow, and delivers for New York’s working class, it will be an inspiring political model that our labor movement should support and attempt to replicate in other US metropolitan areas."
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Mandani Won by Centering the Needs of New Yorkers
Mamdani has taken a page out of the Community Health Scientists’ playbook and has developed a plan by the people and for the people.
Nov 07, 2025
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s campaign captured young voters' attention in a mayoral election in ways that haven’t been seen in a long time. Voters under 30 turned out early, and 73% of all young voters polled planed to voted for him. This resulted in over 1 million voters casting a ballot for Mamdani as mayor, the biggest turnout in years.
Much of the media has attributed this engagement to his age (34), his use of social media, and his perceived accessibility. While this is a good assessment, it misses the core of what makes him effective, and that is his use of public-health community engagement strategies. He is talking to the people without an agenda and then using his platform to help fulfill their needs.
As a community health scientist by training and the associate director of the Office of Community Engagement and Neighborhood Health Partnerships at University of Illinois, Chicago-University of Illinois Health, I’ve spent the last 17 years working to improve the lives of the historically redlined and disinvested communities to which I belong. The key principal for community engagement is centering the needs of the community and engaging a diverse, representative group of people to wrestle with information from a variety of viewpoints all to the end of making better decisions.
Mamdani’s victory was predicated, in large part, on this very approach.
He engaged the city of New York, and they supported him back.
An excellent example of this is his video on halalflation (Halal Inflation). In this video, Mamdani interviews several food truck owners and examines what is driving the cost. Unanimously, they describe paying nearly $20,000 a year to rent a permit from someone who pays only $400 to the city. A $19,600 profit for someone who had the fortune of owning something with an arbitrarily limited supply.
Mamdani then shares four proposed bills that would address this issue and allow more permits for food truck owners. An elegant solution to a real problem that has the potential to reduce the cost of running a food truck, potentially making the meal more affordable. It is a brilliantly simple video, but it speaks volumes about the type of politician he claims to be. It is not common to see a politician dig into the core issues that affect people's lives and offer real, palatable solutions. Bringing down the cost of food is a relevant issue.
The cost of groceries is of paramount concern to people.
President Donald Trump said, “Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods” (including groceries) at a rally in Bozeman, Montana. Yet Trump was visibly flustered in an interview last week with Norah O’Donnell and "60 Minutes" when pressed on the increase in grocery prices, which haven’t decreased.
One of Mamdani’s more unconventional proposals has been his idea of a network of city-owned grocery stores—without rent or property taxes, the hope is they will pass the savings onto the customer.
His opponent, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, tried to suggest that this idea is laughable and naively idealistic. Neither of these statements is accurate; there are many municipalities that are engaging in the same idea of trying to make life better for residents. In St. Paul, Kansas, the city opened a grocery store in response to a demand from the community.
Not all municipalities will arrive at a city=owned grocery store, but a city-supported food enterprise is not as outlandish as it is presented. Consider the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia—it’s a public market, or the Milwaukee Public Market, a quasi-government run market. In my hometown, Chicago, I am a part of the Food Equity Council and was a part of a listening session that explored a city-owned grocery store. The group settled on exploring a Public Market, similar to the Milwaukee market.
The common thread here is a political administration that is trying to improve the lives of its residents.
Mamdani has embraced these principles. He engaged the city of New York, and they supported him back. It’s not about the fast, free buses or the city-owned grocery stores or the funny videos; it’s that Mamdani has offered more than the typical Democratic Party talking points. Mamdani is not responding to Republican threats or fighting Republicans.
Mamdani has taken a page out of the Community Health Scientists’ playbook and has developed a plan by the people and for the people.
Many Democrats will tout the great social media campaign, but they should take away the elegance of engaging the community where they are and developing a sound plan that puts the people front and center.
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'Open Bigotry': ADL Condemned for 'Mamdani Monitor' Aimed at Rooting Out Criticism of Israel
The initiative appeared to be intended to prevent "people who are critical of Israel from getting hired by city government," said one critic.
Nov 06, 2025
Advocates denounced an initiative launched by the Anti-Defamation League in the wake of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's electoral victory as "awful scaremongering," as the group founded more than a century ago as a civil rights organization announced it would be monitoring Mamdani's government for antisemitism—which the ADL has explicitly equated with anti-Israel sentiment.
The ADL, whose executive director, Jonathan Greenblatt, earlier this year falsely accused Mamdani of refusing to visit synagogues during his campaign, said its "Mamdani Monitor" would "track and monitor policies and personnel appointments of the incoming Mamdani administration and protect Jewish residents across the five boroughs during a period of unprecedented antisemitism in New York City."
Hate crimes driven by both antisemitism and Islamophobia have been on the rise in recent years in New York City. Mamdani has pledged that as mayor, he will work to represent all New Yorkers regardless of religion or ethnicity, and in his victory speech on Tuesday he said: "We will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism."
He repeated that commitment on Wednesday after a drawing of a swastika was found at a Jewish day school in Brooklyn, saying: "This is a disgusting and heartbreaking act of antisemitism, and it has no place in our beautiful city. As mayor, I will always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root the scourge of antisemitism out of our city."
About a third of Jewish people who voted in the election supported Mamdani, many actively campaigned on his behalf and joined him in his criticism of Israel, and a striking poll released by the Washington Post last month found that more than 60% of Jewish Americans agree with the mayor-elect's assessment that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza since it began bombarding the exclave in October 2023.
Launching a project preemptively accusing Mamdani of bringing harm to Jewish New Yorkers, said journalist Sana Saeed, "is extremely—and expectedly—racist. There is no other way this should be talked about."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was among those pointing out that the ADL "has never established a special monitor to harass any other elected official, including politicians who have actually expressed real bigotry against Jewish Americans."
"Singling out Mayor-elect Mamdani is an act of hypocrisy and anti-Muslim bigotry, pure and simple," said the group. "We strongly condemn the ADL’s increasingly unhinged, desperate attacks on American Muslims and other advocates for Palestinian human rights, and we call on New York community leaders to do the same.”
Dylan Williams of the Center for International Policy also called the "Mamdani Monitor" a display of "open bigotry" and noted that no such tracker has been established to keep tabs on the Trump administration, which has joined the ADL in attacking pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic while elevating numerous officials to top White House roles despite their ties to groups that espouse anti-Jewish views.
During the campaign, the ADL joined former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani's top opponent in the race who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary in June, in attacking Mamdani for stating that the phrase "globalize the intifada" is not a call for violence but rather a demand to end Israel's occupation and apartheid policies in the Palestinian territories.
In response to the ADL's initiative targeting his incoming administration, Mamdani reiterated his commitment for standing against antisemitism and expressed doubt that Greenblatt will lead the group's new effort "honestly," considering his past lies about Mamdani's campaign.
"Anyone is free to catalog the actions of our administration," he said. "I have some doubts in Jonathan's ability to do so honestly, given that he previously said that I have not visited any synagogues only to have to correct himself."
A ‘Mamdani Monitor’?? Zohran RESPONDS to the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt for vowing to “track” his admin for antisemitism.
“I have some doubts in Jonathan's ability to do so honestly, given that he previously said I had not visited any synagogues only to have to correct himself.” pic.twitter.com/rWdaqh45nz
— Zeteo (@zeteo_news) November 5, 2025
While the ADL still attempts to portray itself as a leading group fighting against anti-Jewish hate—despite its refusal to condemn billionaire Trump megadonor Elon Musk's apparent Nazi salute at an inauguration event in January, and its recent removal of a commitment to "Protect Civil Rights" from its website—Yonah Lieberman of the Jewish-led Palestinian rights group IfNotNow said the Mamdani Monitor "should be the final straw to any liberal that has ever supported them."
The ADL is "treating the NYC mayor’s office like a hate group—because the next mayor is Muslim and believes Israel should follow international law," said Lieberman.
Peter Sterne of City & State NY added that the ADL's new feature appeared to be "its own version of Canary Mission"—the anonymously run pro-Israel website that identifies and targets pro-Palestinian students and professors.
The ADL's aim, said Sterne, appears to be "to prevent people who are critical of Israel from getting hired by city government."
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