Why Wall Street fears a 33-year-old political outsider

Wall Street has a new enemy: a little-known 33-year-old democratic socialist who is standing for mayor in New York City.

Zohran Mamdani, who represents part of the borough of Queens in the state legislature, has pledged to raise taxes on the rich to fund free buses and childcare, as well as city-owned grocery stores.

His surge of popularity against former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, a longtime fixture of the political scene who resigned in 2021 after facing accusations of sexual harassment (which he denies) has alarmed the city’s business elite, who have joined forces to prevent the newcomer from winning the vote.

It has also turned the Democratic primary election, which was expected to determine the city’s next mayor, into a David vs Goliath showdown.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mamdani denied he was hostile to Wall Street or to billionaires, and said he admired socially responsible business owners such as Yvon Chouinard, the founder of apparel-maker Patagonia and Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of Chobani yoghurt.

“I do not have a reflexive opposition to any one industry or to any one individual or to any one category of net worth,” he said. “Rather, my commitment is about delivering a city that is not only affordable to each and every New Yorker, but is one that each and every New Yorker feels proud of living in.”

His Wall Street critics disagree. One hedge fund manager said: “The possibility of Zohran coming in is frightening. It’s going to empty the city . . . It’s much too close to call right now. It’s not going to be good for the city if he gets in there.”

The son of Mira Nair, the acclaimed Indian filmmaker who directed the award-winning film Monsoon Wedding, and Mahmood Mamdani, a Ugandan-Indian scholar at Columbia University, Mamdani moved to the US when he was seven and was naturalised as a citizen in 2018, an experience he described as “one of the proudest days of my life”.

His progressive message has resonated with younger voters. A recent poll by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, one of the few independent surveys conducted during the race, showed 52 per cent of likely voters under the age of 45 support Mamdani, compared to 18 per cent for Cuomo.

The millennial candidate has relied on social media posts on Instagram and TikTok as well as a strong grassroots operation to publicise his message.

His campaign says it has more than 46,000 volunteers who have knocked on more than 1mn doors across the city’s five boroughs. Royal blue and amber-coloured signs and tote bags for Mamdani have blanketed the city in recent weeks.

Many in the city see Mamdani as a foil to President Donald Trump. At the “no kings” protest rally in Manhattan earlier this month, protesters cheered for Mamdani and against Cuomo, chanting “don’t rank Cuomo”, referring to the ranked-choice voting system the city first adopted in the last mayoral election.

When asked how he would push back against the president, Mamdani said: “By calling it what it is, which is authoritarianism, and actually fighting back against it.”

The debate over Israel and Palestine has been a flashpoint for the young candidate. New York is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel and Mamdani has broken taboos by accusing Israel of carrying out a “genocide” in Gaza.

“I believe that every person deserves justice and safety and freedom, and that for those commitments to have any meaning, we have to apply those principles to each and every person, that includes Israelis and Palestinians alike,” he said.

Campaign donations showed the city’s billionaire elite was determined to halt his rise. While both candidates have raised $8mn through individual donations and public funding — the maximum they can spend during the primary — Cuomo’s backers have also amassed an unprecedented $27mn through affiliated vehicles known as Super Pacs, which can raise unlimited funds.

Much of this has come from billionaires and financial tycoons such as former mayor Michael Bloomberg, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and others from outside New York, including Alex Karp, the Palantir co-founder — a staggering sum for a municipal election.

Bloomberg has donated $8.3mn, according to public filings, while Ackman has donated $500,000 to Cuomo’s Super Pac. The New York investor, who went from being a moderate Democratic backer to one of Trump’s most vocal supporters on Wall Street, said that if Mamdani won the race there would be a flight of business from New York.

By contrast, Mamdani’s funding has come from more than 21,000 individual donors, roughly 75 per cent of whom gave less than $100.

The smaller donations have allowed his campaign to take full advantage of the New York City matching funds programme, which provides public funding to match contributions up to $250.

Critics of Mamdani — both Democrats and Republicans — say he has not had enough experience running any sort of large administration, let alone the monstrous bureaucracy of New York City. They have also said his ambitious economic plans would bankrupt the city.

“This kid is full of beautiful ideas, my kids love him, but he’s just not serious,” said a top corporate lawyer who donated to Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. “Everything he’s proposing would require an increase in taxes and that’s just not going to happen.”

“He also has zero administrative experience, New York is a huge city that requires an ability to manage a lot of complexity, this guy hasn’t run anything,” the lawyer added.

But Mamdani said he was ready for the job. “Campaigns are a glimpse of how someone will run the city,” he said. “I have run the most competent, innovative campaign of this cycle.”

“Any example of the inefficiency or the inadequacy of the public sector will be weaponised as an attack on the very existence of that sector, and we must disprove it at every juncture,” he added.

“Innovation is something that can be just as present within the work that we do in city government as it can be in the private market.”