The candidate, the billionaires, and the Democrats

Two weeks before New York City’s June mayoral primary, former mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his endorsement of Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination. A few days later, Bloomberg followed up with a $5 million donation to a Cuomo super PAC, which he supplemented with an additional $3 million as the primary drew near.

But on September 11, after multiple polls indicated commanding leads for Zohran Mamdani over Cuomo (now running as an independent) and other rivals, Bloomberg and Mamdani met for nearly an hour in a discussion described by a Bloomberg advisor as “cordial and … substantive.” Mamdani asked for advice on how to manage City Hall and select competent appointees, while maintaining disagreements with Bloomberg on some issues (Mamdani’s affordability agenda and, certainly, his position on Israel, among them).

A “cordial” meeting of these two men is particularly ironic. Bloomberg, as a billionaire New York businessman and recent three-term mayor, can be seen as the personal embodiment of the culmination of the city government’s transition from a city modeled after the New Deal and Great Society welfare states (prior to the fiscal crisis of the 1970s) to a promoter of post-industrial economic development and increased livability for the professional and technocratic upper- and upper-middle classes (what Bloomberg himself has called a “luxury product”).

Whatever symbolism can be read into the Bloomberg meeting, much more important– and more extensively covered by the press–was a July 15 meeting with “more than a hundred big business CEOs.” In Mamdani’s calculation, he needs, if not active support, then at least the absence of hostility from the City’s business elite. And for their part, the CEOs, concerned about (among other things) Mamdani’s vow to hike taxes on the wealthy, appreciated the opportunity for a frank discussion with the man who is likely to head city government in a few months.

The meeting was arranged by New York powerbroker Kathy Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, at Mamdani’s request. Mamdani phoned her two days after his primary victory wanting to speak to business leaders concerned about his program. “Who can I talk to?” she later recalled him asking. Wylde told ABC news that the business community “want[s] whomever is mayor to have relationships and understand the issues that will keep our city strong.”

The Partnership for New York City was founded in 1979, at the tail end of New York’s fiscal crisis, by Chase Manhattan CEO David Rockefeller. Initially its goal was to rebuild a city devastated by the economic crises of the 1970’s, using private money but in collaboration with local government. This meant bringing business back to the city (after most manufacturing had left) and rebuilding a middle class. It was one of the efforts of the NYC business leaders of that era to advocate collectively for policies and programs to address the city’s problems and to promote private and public investment in those programs (consistent with the interests of business and, it might be added, with the emerging neoliberal political consensus). Its current officers are primarily CEOs of real estate and financial firms, and its current primary goal is to advance the city’s standing as a global center of economic development and innovation. Wylde, the current CEO, also serves on the boards of public policy groups in areas including education, tourism, and economic development, as well as general policy think tanks including the conservative Manhattan Institute.

The day after the meeting, Wylde appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” The show’s hosts expressed the business community’s sharp (and sometimes hysterical) skepticism of the socialist candidate and his proposals and asked Wylde for her impression. She reported that Mamdani was “the most compelling candidate they [the Partnership’s members] have seen in generations.” His inexperience was seen as a major problem, but in her telling, he had “nailed” the challenges facing the city. Of course she and the business leaders disagreed with much about his proposed solutions, but, though the candidate “won’t compromise on his principles,” he is “open to learning.” Wylde suggested that Mamdani may withdraw his plans for a rent freeze, instead keeping rents from rising by not raising real estate taxes. The television host pointed out that his other proposals–free buses, for example–will still require the state government to raise taxes, something that will encounter firm business opposition. Wylde responded that in the meeting there was a “back and forth discussion.” She said that she doubted any minds were changed regarding Mamdani generally, but the temperature had been lowered “in terms of fear.” Finally–and of great importance to the business community–Mamdani had promised to consider keeping Jessica Tisch as Police Commissioner “with her father [James Tisch, the CEO of Loew’s] sitting in the front row.”

More recently (on September 9) Wylde spoke to podcaster Juan Manuel Benitez. She answered his question, “Why are business leaders freaking out?” by saying, “I’ve been working on that. They are a little less freaked now.” Fears about his positions on Israel remain big, but concerns about his commitment to “economic development” have quieted down. (Wylde referred to “youthful tweets” of Mamdani characterizing capitalism as evil). She also said that while some high profile business people–mainly in finance and real estate–have bankrolled Mamdani’s opponents, most will “work with whoever wins” in local politics, reserving their financial support for national candidates. They didn’t like former progressive Democratic mayor Bill DeBlasio, but “Zohran is much nicer” and less vindictive. Mamdani is “pragmatic and not ideological.” Importantly, Wylde listed “safety” as a major concern of business and again pointed to keeping Police Commissioner Tisch as an important goal.

Jessica Tisch was appointed Commissioner of the NYPD in November, 2024. One of her main concerns, as reported to a February 2025 meeting of the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), was to undo 2019 reforms to New York State’s discovery laws (requiring additional prosecutorial evidence to be shared with criminal defense attorneys). She said the reforms had created a “revolving door” for people accused of misdemeanor crimes to become repeat offenders. While overall, serious crime has trended sharply down in the city for the last few years, according to Tisch, many of those for whom misdemeanor prosecutions were dropped had served prison time for prior felonies and then repeated those more serious offenses after escaping a misdemeanor conviction. A few months later, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that as part of the State budget agreement between her and the legislature, the 2019 reforms had been rolled back in an effort to “fight recidivism” and “crack down on crime.”

Mamdani is on record as having been strongly opposed to Hochul’s proposed rollbacks. His decision on whether to replace Tisch will likely be an indicator of the degree he is influenced by the “crackdown on crime” narrative (and retreats still further from his earlier “Defund the Police” position).

ABNY itself shows no ambivalence on the question of Tisch and her policies. Warmly received at the February “Power Breakfast,” she is in fact the grandniece of ABNY co-founder Preston Robert Tisch (along with real estate developer Lew Rudin). “Bob” Tisch and his brother Laurence (Jessica’s grandfather) owned Loew’s theaters. As such, they had an interest in New York City’s future in the early 1970s as the City became increasingly unable to pay its bills and default loomed. ABNY was among the first efforts of those businesses (finance, real estate, and entertainment, among others) that remained in the city after most manufacturing left to take collective responsibility for ensuring that the City would survive any default and bounce back with an improved business environment.

When it was founded in 1971, ABNY promoted voluntaristic solutions (such as “Operation Clean Sweep,” in which building owners and their employees were enlisted to keep the city clean despite a shortage of sanitation workers) and “philanthropic” efforts by private business to step in where city government was unable to. (Sections of the excellent recounting of the fiscal crisis in the book Fear City by Columbia University historian Kim Phillips-Fein, cover this development.) Later as the city (and the world) entered the neoliberal era in the 1980s and 1990s, ABNY promoted reforms in education, transportation, healthcare, and other areas, finding allies in the administrations of mayors Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani, and Bloomberg. In September 2025, ABNY presented awards to three “civic luminaries.” One was a Ford Foundation Senior Fellow. The others were Kathy Wylde and Jessica Tisch.

Still more recently (October 9), ABNY invited Zohran Mamdani to speak as part of a Mayoral Candidate Series. He told the audience (whom he called “some of the most forward-thinking leaders within our city”) that the affordability crisis extends not just to poor working-class people but to small business and business more generally. He referred not just to material and real estate costs, but specifically to the cost of skilled labor (“It becomes almost impossible to attract the kind of top talent that we need in this city”), attributing slow post-pandemic job growth to this.

Mamdani then announced a specific proposal: to jump-start a “deep private-public partnership” with a program for next year’s FIFA World Cup. (New York–and nearby New Jersey–will be one of the host cities, and the final match will take place there.) To revive sagging tourism, he promised to appoint a “World Cup Czar.” The “Czar” would oversee a program to cut red tape, fees, and fines and make it easier for tourists to navigate the city.

After the speech, a moderator told Mamdani that “we love” the Czar idea and peppered him with expected questions. Some interesting responses:

• “I criticize people like Bloomberg when necessary but cite them positively for their good accomplishments.”
• “I will have a better relationship with the police than DeBlasio had. By talking to rank-and-file officers I understand some of the causes of the retention crisis such as forced overtime and being expected to act as social workers. If morale is improved there will be no need to hire more officers.”
• “I’m open to retaining Commissioner Tisch because of the results she has achieved: rooting out corruption and presiding over a drop in crime.”
• “Democratic socialism to me means that government has the responsibility to ensure that people get what they need to live a dignified life. Basic necessities must be affordable.” (Moderator: “We believe in affordability. The City doesn’t work if people can’t afford to live here.”)

Is Mamdani’s “charm offensive” to the business establishment and his interest in partnering with them based simply on a recognition that he has no other choice, or is he actually less of a socialist than his DSA membership indicates? Is he, rather, simply a (very skilled) Democratic Party progressive?

As the Left considers the opportunities opened up by a Mamdani victory, I think that answering these questions is less important than recognizing what he is in fact doing. We are certainly not at the point where mass struggle has stiffened the spines of politicians and encouraged strong opposition to business interests. Mamdani the mayoral candidate has not even spoken against the power and wealth of billionaires to the extent that Bernie or AOC has. And he’s certainly not willing to incur their ire as FDR was in his 1936 reelection campaign (“I welcome their hatred”).

The Democrats

There has been an evolution in the attitudes of Democratic politicians to Mamdani similar to that of business leaders, generally speaking, away from an initial panic about his primary victory and, at least among some important players, towards a sense among many that it is possible to work with him successfully despite differences.

The overwrought tone of former Governor David Paterson (“If he is the cure to heal the Party, then cyanide is the cure for a headache”) hasn’t been heard since shortly after the primary. As the efforts to support an alternate candidate in November fell short and the reality of a likely Mamdani victory sank in, those Democrats in a position to have to work most closely with him–Governor Hochul and the leaders of both houses of the legislature–shifted to a more cooperative stance. Hochul finally endorsed Mamdani on September 14, explaining her choice in a rather tepid statement in the New York Times. She praised his emphasis on affordability, his courage, and his optimism, and said that he agreed to “ensure that there is strong leadership at the helm of the NYPD.” She made sure, however, to mention several times in the piece that she and he would not see eye to eye on everything and expected that she might “argue passionately” with him.

State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins showed much less ambivalence. Although her formal endorsement was the last among the “Three People in a Room,” she had indicated her support for him shortly after his primary victory. Her September 19 endorsement was more full-throated than either of the other two. It was preceded by public statements indicating that she had been impressed with the enthusiasm he sparked among voters during the primary contest. She later told a television reporter that she will be happy for the City to have a leader “that really energizes people and brings back hope.”

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie had been more of a holdout. Concerned that some of his members could be hurt in the next election if their leader had endorsed a socialist – or a Muslim supporter of Palestine–and angry that DSA had run (sometimes successful) primary challengers to mainstream Assembly Democrats–Heastie found himself in a difficult position. State Democratic Chair Jay Jacobs had refused to endorse Mamdani (over his position on Israel and his socialist politics), as had Congressional Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, both New Yorkers, and most of the City’s Democratic Congressional delegation. It may be that it was Hochul’s endorsement that finally made up Heastie’s mind.

A major reason–perhaps the most important one–for Mamdani to require support from State Democrats is that his proposals will require new revenue from the State. New York City is legally unable to set its own tax rates, so Mamdani will be asking the legislature to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund his proposals for free buses and increased childcare services.

The Democratic legislative leadership is not opposed to such tax increases. Both Heastie and Stewart-Cousins support them in principle. Heastie remarked that a millionaires’ tax “polls extremely well,” and Stewart-Cousins pointed out that cuts to state programs resulting from Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” have created a significant budget shortfall that will have to be made up somehow anyway. Hochul, however, still opposes increasing taxes on high earners, fearing that she will be attacked from the right in her 2026 reelection campaign and that higher taxes will induce wealthy people to leave the State. In any case, passing a budget bill that includes such increases next year will be a heavy lift, given the lobbying power of business and the full opposition of the Republican minority, all in an election year. All that Heastie could promise is that there will be “a robust discussion on revenue raises.” He told a CBS News reporter that if Hochul stands in the way of a tax increase “there are many ways to raise revenue in this state.” Mamdani agreed, saying that “the most important thing is what we fund, not how we fund it.”

Socialists, in whatever wing of DSA or further to its left, should support struggles to achieve Mamdani’s program, even if in weakened form. But we should be under no illusions that Mamdani himself is a class warrior. The day after Hochul’s endorsement, Basil Smikle, Democratic consultant, former New York State Party Executive Director and frequent guest on MSNBC, appeared on that station to answer questions about the endorsement. The host asked if Mamdani was too far left for the party. In a relaxed tone, he answered that rather than seeing him as “left,” he viewed Mamdani as someone who “stands for something.” The host pointed out some of Mamdani’s positions and asked whether Smikle thought he would moderate. “He will have to,” Smikle replied. In fact, less than a month later, he already has.

Smikle’s apparent satisfaction with Mamdani aligns with some of the thinking on how Democrats can emerge from the Party’s “crisis.” In order to win elections, most such thinking focuses on proper “messaging,”, and what some propose is “a scorching economic message delivered by political outsiders standing up to the powerful” (or what has been referred to in recent years as “populism”). Mamdani’s primary victory, this thinking goes, is a case in point.

We will see to what extent (if at all) the national Democratic party moves in this direction, at least in its candidates’ campaign rhetoric. We will also see whether the hope that a movement like the Mamdani campaign moves us towards an independent working class politics or whether it dissolves into an opportunity for Democrats to campaign as “populists,” using ambiguous and shifting messages in order not to worry the billionaire donors who would otherwise end their careers by backing primary opponents.

But all of that should concern those of us in New York much less than what to do right now. Proposals that would truly make life easier for working class New Yorkers–even modestly so–really are worth struggling for, both to make those proposals a reality and for those in struggle to gain experience, get a sense of their strength, reimagine what is possible, learn to debate strategy, and form lasting multi-issue and multi-racial organizations. Even were Zohran Mamdani more willing to step on the toes of the powerful than he appears to be, he, his campaign staff, and whatever policy experts he brings to City Hall have no power by themselves to defeat a governor and a political and economic establishment determined to limit what he achieves.

Many of Mamdani’s active supporters realize this. Hopefully, they will be among those willing to organize for the kind of disruptive actions that it will take to win his program. Perhaps the groups currently struggling against Trump (and his attacks on the cities) can use some of their organizational experience and connections to help build such actions. This won’t happen before Election Day–getting out the vote will be too important for them before that. But in order to build effective struggle afterward, they will have to turn their attention away from expecting the Democratic Party (or any part of it) either to be an effective bulwark against Trump and the political right or to move in a serious way against the obscene domination of society by billionaire capitalists.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Picryl, Bryan Berlin, Senate Democrats, Gage Skidmore; modified by Tempest.