American politics
The battle for New York
A fight is brewing between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani
Illustration: The Economist/Tim McDonaghTWO SKILFUL politicians with radical plans are about to be unleashed on America’s largest city.
On November 4th Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old leftist, is all but assured to win New York’s election for mayor, with the promise of new social programmes paid for by the rich.
Donald Trump, America’s 79-year-old president, says he will “straighten out” New York shortly thereafter, with threats to deploy more federal agents and withhold crucial federal funds.
Mr Mamdani’s proposals make for terrible public policy.
Mr Trump’s plans are a more literal threat to New Yorkers and, possibly, the law.
The president has talked about an escalation of immigration enforcement, bringing to his home town the aggressive tactics he has tested in Chicago and other Democrat-run cities.
The two men are set for a dramatic clash, with New York as its stage and victim.
The battle for New York matters, and not just for New Yorkers.
The city remains a crucial economic engine for America, home to more corporate headquarters than any other place in the country.
It is the centre of finance, professional services and media, as well as a growing tech hub and a powerhouse of medical research.
The result is a metropolitan area with an economy of more than $2.3trn, bigger than that of Canada and representing about 9% of America’s total.
The city is a locus of political power, too.
Operatives obsess over the voting patterns of swing counties like Maricopa, in Arizona, rather than deeply Democratic Manhattan.
But New York has a different kind of clout.
Its donors give more to federal campaigns than those of any other city except greater Washington, DC.
Not since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt has the White House been run by so many New Yorkers, from Mr Trump himself to Steve Witkoff, his peace envoy, and Howard Lutnick, his commerce secretary.
Two other New Yorkers, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, lead Democrats in the Senate and House, respectively.
Mr Schumer faces pressure from a new generation—led by another New York Democrat, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
New York also remains the country’s most enduring symbol of two American ideals: pluralism and opportunity.
The city is home to more immigrants than any other in America, living alongside each other in relative harmony.
It is the country’s top destination for new university graduates, who see it as the place where real life begins.
However, New York is now also under strain.
The city’s fiscal model is breaking down.
The top 1% of New Yorkers account for more than 40% of the city’s personal income-tax receipts.
But the city no longer creates so many high-flying jobs, and some of its wealthiest residents are leaving.
At the same time, life for ordinary New Yorkers is hard to afford.
Median rents are more than twice the average of America’s 50 biggest cities.
The cost of day care for babies and toddlers is $26,000 a year, up more than 40% in the past five years.
With a shaky tax base, New York state will struggle to sustain its welfare and education programmes, which are 72% more expensive for each person than programmes in Texas.
New York’s last good leader was Michael Bloomberg, a competent mayor with the charm of a spreadsheet.
But New Yorkers today hanker after a different kind of politics.
Mr Trump won an unusually high share of the city’s vote in last year’s presidential election, including 37% in Queens and 27% in the Bronx.
Like him, Mr Mamdani is a master of communication, with a talent for making ordinary voters feel understood.
In this summer’s Democratic primary for mayor, he trounced the better-known Andrew Cuomo, a former governor.
Just a few years ago, his strident criticism of Israel and Zionism would have been disqualifying.
Today many voters take it as evidence of his authenticity.
Unfortunately for New York, in their different ways Mr Mamdani and Mr Trump are likely to compound the city’s problems.
Mr Mamdani wants free child care, free buses, a $30-an-hour minimum wage by 2030 and a four-year rent freeze for 2m residents.
His goal of affordability is worthy, but not his methods.
The city’s families would surely welcome an expansion of child care, but Mr Mamdani’s proposal is wasteful.
Free buses would end up as bad buses.
His minimum wage would frighten off employers.
Freezing rent temporarily for a subset of New Yorkers would drive up rent for others.
Paying for these proposals would require working with the state, most likely to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, which would scare more of them away.
That would push the government to raise taxes further, risking a fiscal death spiral.
All the while, the underlying causes of New York’s high costs—its fealty to the public unions, overregulation, a costly and expansive bureaucracy and expensive litigation—would remain untouched.
Mr Trump represents a different and more sinister risk.
He is threatening to withhold federal monies that account for 6.4% of New York’s budget.
The president is not legally authorised to cancel appropriated money without the approval of Congress, but he may do so anyway—he has already used the federal shutdown to freeze $18bn in infrastructure funds.
An aggressive deployment of immigration officers in New York might spur broader unrest, which could in turn inspire the president to send in the National Guard.
His agenda is unilateral and, quite possibly, illegal.
As his victory has seemed more assured, Mr Mamdani has shown signs of moderating.
New York must hope this is not just a tactic, and that Mr Trump decides that he will lose more by stoking unrest than he has to gain.
Even so, New York and America would have better prospects if the city could be a testing-ground not for a bullying president or leftist mayor, but a pragmatist.
In so complex a city, a moderate politician might show America how to unleash housing development, trim onerous rules and advance policies that create opportunity, from investing in transport to reforming schools.
The fear is that New York is instead about to become the arena for a fight between two men with bad ideas.
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