The early days of Zohran Mamdani’s primary campaign were heavy with gimmicks. He ran the marathon wearing a T-shirt that read “Eric Adams Raised My Rent!” and “Zohran Will Freeze It!” on the back. He jumped into the Atlantic on New Year’s Day. “I’m freezing … your rent,” he told the camera, barefoot, in a dripping-wet suit. You could understand his predicament: It was early in the race, the Democratic field was crowded, and almost no one outside of his assembly district knew his name. But his message was consistent and digestible enough to be plastered on campaign posters that hung on grocery stores and apartment windows from Flatbush to East Harlem: “A New York You Can Afford.” And in a city that’s 70 percent tenants, where a majority pay one-third of their income to a landlord every month, that means doing something about their rent. “You’re gonna have to sell it,” a marathon watcher told Mamdani after clocking his T-shirt on a stretch of Long Island City.
It turns out he did. About 45 minutes after polls closed on Tuesday, the race was called — Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo. New York had elected Mayor Freeze-the-Rent.
