“Tenants are the majority in New York. Zohran Mamdani understands that and he gave us something to vote for,” Cea Weaver, director of the New York State Tenant Bloc, said of the candidate and expected Democratic nominee, who ran on a campaign to freeze rents for stabilized tenants.
Zohran Mamdani at a campaign rally at Terminal 5 on June 15. (Facebook/ZohranKMamdani)
Zohran Mamdani, a Queens assemblymember who ran on a campaign that promised to freeze rents for stabilized tenants and make the city more affordable, is the expected Democratic nominee in November’s general election for mayor—what housing advocates say is a win for renters.
Though an official tally of ranked choice primary ballots isn’t expected until next week, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded the race Tuesday night. Unofficial early results from the city’s Board of Elections shows Mamdani with more than 44 percent of first-round votes, and Cuomo with 36 percent.
“Tenants are the majority in New York. Zohran Mamdani understands that and he gave us something to vote for,” said Cea Weaver, director of the New York State Tenant Bloc, in a statement Tuesday night.
For months, the group has been organizing thousands of canvassers in support of Democratic candidates who support a rent freeze for roughly 2 million tenants in the city’s rent-stabilized apartments.
The Rent Guidelines Board, whose members are appointed by the mayor, votes each year on allowable rent changes for those units. The current board is expected to vote next week and is considering a hike between 3.75 to 7.75 percent on two-year leases starting Oct. 1.
Mamdani pledged to freeze the rent for all four years of his term if elected. The RGB froze the rent three times under Mayor Bill de Blasio, raising it 5 percent total over eight years; its members have raised rent 9 percent in three years under Mayor Eric Adams.
Cuomo, whose mayoral bid has received millions from real estate donors, both directly and via indirect support from Super PACs, said that the board should operate independently and vote based data and the economic conditions both tenants and building owners are facing.
Landlord and property owner groups agree. They say a rent freeze will further hurt buildings already struggling with deferred maintenance and rising operational costs. The stakes are particularly high for 100-percent rent regulated buildings, which they say will further deteriorate without more substantial rent increases.
“A premeditated rent freeze is illegal,” Kenny Burgos, head of the New York Apartment Association, which represents owners of rent-regulated buildings, said in a social media post Monday.
“The Mayor appoints members to the RGB just like he appoints members to the Campaign Finance Board and the Conflicts of Interest Board,” he wrote. “These boards are created to be independent and should remain so.”
Scenes from Rent Guidelines Board’s vote in 2023. Photo by Adi Talwar.
But housing advocates say the RGB has long voted at the behest of the mayor in office, many of whom have opted to raise rents year after year, as tenants’ wages remain stagnant. A majority of renter households across the city are rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than a third of their income on housing.
“Tonight’s results send a clear message to landlord-backed politicians like Andrew Cuomo: your time is over,” Tenant BLOC’s Weaver said in statement Tuesday evening. “We are done with the status quo. We are done with struggling to stay in the city that we keep running while landlord profits skyrocket.”
Mamdani’s message appeared to resonate with primary voters, many of whom told City Limits that housing costs are among their chief priorities for the next mayor.
“It’s rough out here for people trying to make a living. I think that anything that could stabilize rent would be great,” said Kevin Rutledge, 23, a park attendant in Manhattan who said he was voting for Mamdani.
Beyond his pledged rent freeze, Mamdani’s housing plan calls for building 200,000 “publicly-subsidized, affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes” over the next 10 years. He says he would expand the number of units produced through existing affordability programs for seniors and extremely low-income households (those earning less than $72,000 a year for a family of four), and would “fully fund and staff” the city’s housing agencies.
He says he would pay for his plan by raising $70 million via municipal bonds, and by pooling funds from rental assistance programs (like CityFHEPS) to finance affordable and supportive housing projects.
“I will fight for a city that works for you, that is affordable for you, that is safe for you,” the Queens lawmaker said in a speech to supporters Tuesday night.
Cuomo may still run as an independent in the general election on Nov. 4. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams is also running as an independent, as is attorney Jim Walden. Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa is running as Republican.
With reporting by Patrick Spauster and Tareq Saghie.
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