BURSTFormer New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) has endorsed Zohran Mamdani to lead the country’s largest city with the mayoral race just over two months away.
The former mayor, who served two terms leading the city from 2014 to 2021, said in an op-ed in the New York Daily News published Tuesday that Mamdani is “relentlessly challenging the status quo of deepening unaffordability.” He praised the New York State Assembly member’s calls for “bold sweeping action,” including a rent freeze, universal child care for children up to 5 years old and free city buses.
“Yet, though many New Yorkers agree with him — many others are skeptical. Still others have lost faith in the city government’s ability to not only talk, but deliver. They want to know one fundamental truth: can it be done?” de Blasio said. “I can say definitely — and I know better than anyone — that the answer is yes.”
De Blasio said he faced similar pushback while serving as mayor that his own proposals were “recklessly idealistic,” including expanding affordable housing, mandating expanded paid sick leave, instituting a $15 minimum wage and creating pre-K for all, but he delivered on all of those. He said these attacks usually came from politicians and special interest groups who want to maintain the status quo.
He said free buses are already being instituted throughout the country and can be done with even a modest initial investment and collaboration between the city and state. He said the city’s success with expanding pre-K shows the pathway to universal child care exists, and his own administration delivered rent freezes for rent-controlled apartments, meaning only political will is required to move forward.
“We don’t just need Zohran Mamdani to be our mayor because he has the right ideas, or because they can be achieved,” de Blasio said. “We need him because in his heart and in his bones he cannot accept a city that prices out the people who built it and keep it running.”
De Blasio previously has made complimentary remarks about Mamdani but stopped short of endorsing him. The endorsement for Mamdani over sitting Mayor Eric Adams and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who are both more moderate and are running independent bids for the office, makes sense given de Blasio’s progressive bona fides.
De Blasio also appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to discuss his endorsement, pushing back on Republican attacks on Mamdani and the Democratic Party as a whole as leaning into socialism.
“I think it is an attempt by the Republicans to obscure that if Democrats are talking about kitchen-table issues and it works, the Republicans have to try and throw a monkey wrench in,” he said.
Polls show Mamdani leading in the five-person field for the general election though with less than majority support and opposition to him fractured among multiple candidates.