A Socialist Rent Freeze Advocate Catches Cuomo New York City Election Polls

The siren songs of rent control ring loud and clear.

Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old socialist pledging rent freezes, has leapt to a tie with Cuomo in Tuesday’s primary. Image Polymarket

The New York City Choice

• Andrew Cuomo, a former Governor who resigned over a barrage of sexual harassment allegations.
• Zohran Mamdan, a socialist rent freeze nutcase.
• Eric Adams, the disgraced current mayor accused of accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions.
• Six others including Andrew Yang and Rudy Giuliani

Voting is today but there are 9 candidates and ranked voting can tip the result to Mamdani.

Rent Control Sirens

The Wall Street Journal reports New York’s Housing Crisis Is So Bad That a Socialist Might Become Mayor

New York City’s cutthroat rental market is a big reason why she supports Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor. The struggle to find an affordable place has become a flashpoint in the city’s Democratic primary for mayor. 

The 33-year-old state assemblyman and democratic socialist from Queens has made housing a core piece of his agenda, unexpectedly catapulting him toward the front of the race. 

Mamdani is pledging to freeze rents on rent-stabilized apartments, invest $70 billion in publicly subsidized housing, open up public land for housing development and more. The agenda, along with promises of free bus rides and government-owned grocery stores, have put him in a dead heat with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for Tuesday’s primary. 

“When you have any municipality where its workers can’t afford to live in the city that they work, there’s a real incentive to change leadership,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of the New York City real-estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel. 

Developers and landlords are critical of Mamdani’s platform. They say that a rent freeze would discourage any new investment or even spending on maintaining existing units. And they are already dealing with the impacts of New York City’s 2019 rent laws, which made it harder to increase prices on the city’s more than one million rent-regulated units.

“Mamdani’s platform would only deepen that crisis,” said Jared Epstein, president of the Manhattan-based developer Aurora Capital Associates.

The Fare Act

A week ago New York City passed the Fare Act, Banning Broker Fees on Tenants.

In New York City, brokers marketing an apartment are paid a fee when a contract is signed. Historically, that fee has been paid by the tenant. The Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses Act, which went into effect Wednesday, ends this longstanding practice and requires the landlord to pay the marketing broker’s entire fee.

Such a fee is typically between 10% and 15% of the annual rent, which means renters might need to pay thousands of additional dollars before they can move in. That is especially burdensome for young and low-income apartment seekers who don’t have a lot of cash on hand.

That did wonders.

Just over a week since the enactment of the FARE Act, rents are up an additional 16%, according to early data from real-estate analytics firm UrbanDigs. The median asking rent spiked to $6,346 on Sunday, raising the rolling average to $5,599 for the past week.

New Yorkers Head to the Polls in Critical Democratic Primary

The New York Times has Live Election Updates.

The primary has narrowed into a two-man contest between Andrew M. Cuomo, the state’s scandal-plagued former governor, and Zohran Mamdani, an assemblyman and democratic socialist with a short track record. A crowded field of nine others is trailing behind. Polls suggest the outcome is a tossup.

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate in the general election, said on Tuesday that he thought Mamdani would win the primary. Sliwa said Mamdani had a better field operation and was connecting with younger voters: “The millennials and hipsters are the majority now, not the baby boomers.” He said that Cuomo “looked grumpy and angry on the campaign.”

Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, said Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, knew about cats, but not governing. Sliwa responded by saying Adams should be in jail after his federal indictment last year that was later dropped by the Trump administration. “He’s loathed by Democrats, mistrusted by Republicans and the best thing he can do is talk about my cats? Which are, by the way, the best defense for all the rats in the city of New York. He wants to make fun of me, that’s fine. If he did his job, he wouldn’t be in the mess he’s in.”

Zohran Mamdani’s rise from a mostly unknown state legislator to the Democratic mayoral candidate within striking distance of defeating former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo can be at least partly attributed to a single word: affordability.

Mr. Mamdani entered the race last fall with the campaign slogan “For a New York You Can Afford,” and has urged voters to reject Mr. Cuomo, who was the most powerful person in the state for nearly a decade as costs rose.

Results May Take Weeks

Politico comments New York City mayoral results may take time. Here’s why.

It could be a while until a winner is declared in Tuesday’s New York City mayoral primary.

That’s in large part because of the city’s ranked choice voting system, where voters can select up to five candidates in order of preference on their ballots.

Unless one of the 11 candidates on the ballot receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes — an unlikely feat with such a crowded field — the ranked choice system will kick into place. In that scenario, the candidate ranked first by the fewest number of people will have their votes reapportioned to voters’ second choice.

That process continues until there are only two candidates left. From there, whoever has the most votes is declared the winner.

New York City will start tabulating ranked choice ballots one week after the election, according to the city’s board of elections. “Preliminary RCV elimination rounds will be conducted and reports released every week until the election is certified,” the board says in an explainer.

In 2021, the primary race was called for Eric Adams on July 6 after eight rounds of tabulation, two weeks after Election Day. That year, 13 percent of Democratic primary voters chose just one candidate on the ballot, while the vast majority ranked at least two.

Who is Mish For?

None of them of course.

Q: Good Lord, could the slate be any worse?
A: I suppose it would be possible if current and former Chicago mayors were somehow eligible.

However, there is a legitimate reason to root for Mamdani.

Hear me out.

Despite being on the ballot and in third place, Adams, the city’s current mayor, is skipping the primary to run as an independent. Cuomo has also qualified for the November ballot as an independent.

If Mamdani wins, he could split the vote with Cuomo and Adams.

But it’s not that easy given Republican’s propensity to nominate sacrificial lambs.

What Would It Take to Elect a Republican?

The Free Press asks What Will It Take for New York to Elect a Republican?

On Tuesday night, New York City will be fixated on the results of one race: the Democratic mayoral primary. Meanwhile, in an afterthought for most city residents, a 71-year-old radio host named Curtis Sliwa will capture the Republican nomination and formally become the party’s pick for the general election in November. 

You might think that the Republicans have a golden opportunity to win a race like this. 

Democrats—both in New York and across the country—are currently rudderless, with the party’s moderate and leftist wings engaged in a low-grade civil war. The city has stagnated after 11 years of Democratic rule, Mamdani’s platform is truly radical, and Cuomo resigned as governor in disgrace just four years ago amid a flurry of sexual harassment complaints.

And yet, for all that, the presumptive Republican nominee appears lifeless, short on cash, and destined to lose.

For decades a familiar face in the city, Sliwa—and his trademark red beret—has become the GOP’s go-to sacrificial lamb in mayoral contests, winning about a quarter of the vote in the 2021 election against Adams. He’s most famous for starting a group called the Guardian Angels, a civilian patrol that looked to help the city crack down on crime during the chaos of the 1970s and ’80s.

But his star has long since faded. While public safety remains a top issue for voters, Sliwa is more likely these days to make headlines for his somewhat unusual personal life (his fondness for stray cats, his romantic relationships with local politicians) than crime fighting.

Given the state of the Democratic Party and the unlikely rise of Mamdani, there are doubtless Republicans who regret not persuading a more serious candidate to run. And if the GOP had gone with a less eccentric pick, say, an experienced city bureaucrat or self-funding Wall Street moderate, there might be some chance—however remote—of victory.

What a Disaster.

Why would anyone want to inherit this mess anyway?

Oh wait, the same reason for nearly any election, graft and power.

For a “New York You Can Afford”, I suggest leaving the city and state then pretending wherever you go is still New York.

Rent Control History

Brookings asks What does Economic Evidence Tell Us About the Effects of Rent Control?

Under pressure to fight rising rents, state lawmakers in Illinois, Oregon, and California are considering repealing laws that limit cities’ abilities to pass or expand rent control. While rules and regulations of rent control vary from place to place, most rent control consists of caps on price increases within the duration of a tenancy, and sometimes beyond the duration of a tenancy, as well as restrictions on eviction.

While rent control appears to help current tenants in the short run, in the long run it decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative spillovers on the surrounding neighborhood.

Biden for Rent Control

I played that several times and this is what I come up with “I am about to announce you can’t raise it more than 55 dollars.”

Massive applause.

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April 2, 2021: Despite History of Failure, Destructive Rent Control is Poised to Hit Illinois

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