NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani has said Gov. Kathy Hochul appeases racists, is “disgusting” and demonstrates why people don’t trust politicians.
Now he’s playing nice — and so is she.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, tried to be a thorn in the moderate governor’s side during his four and a half years as a junior assemblymember in Albany. But after handily winning the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor, he says he’s excited to be her partner in government. Hochul — for the moment — appears to be on the same page.
“I can tell you, just working with the governor, it would behoove him to have a constructive working relationship, as opposed to combative or antagonistic,” said one former Hochul official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “That just doesn't work for her, and I think we've seen that in the past.”
While Hochul and Mamdani have so far put aside their differences, their disagreement over raising taxes and a potential wave of primary challenges inspired by Mamdani’s victory could threaten to upend their nascent, rosy relationship. If elected, Mamdani will ascend to City Hall as Hochul is gearing up a reelection run, and pressure from the left — which Mamdani allies are poised to apply — could complicate her chances of success. At the same time, Mamdani will be eager to score a policy win in his first year. And given the high price tag of many of his plans, he’ll need Hochul’s buy-in to lock down tax revenue and state funding.
The evolving dynamic between the two has far broader implications than Hochul’s reelection and Mamdani’s success, though. If Mamdani wins, it will serve as a test of the Democratic Party’s ability to include their competing visions under a big tent, and with Hochul at the top of the ticket during the midterms, it also stands to threaten moderate Democrats’ efforts to win control of the House in 2026.
After the city’s June 29 pride parade, the two met in person and “discussed the affordability crisis and areas of common ground on lowering costs,” according to someone from the governor’s team who was granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting. That person said Mamdani credited the moderate governor for her work on child care and her broader affordability agenda.
A second person familiar with the meeting who was also granted anonymity said the two leaders spoke about previous disagreements and agreed to put the past behind them to work together in the best interests of the city.
But significant differences remain. The governor has already staked out her opposition to Mamdani’s proposal to raise the corporate tax rate to 11.5 percent and increase income taxes on those earning more than $1 million annually — two funding measures he’ll need Albany to approve. Her early objection to raising taxes threatens the Queens lawmaker’s most prominent campaign promises, such as free child care, free buses and free college.
With that tension already baked in, left-leaning groups are savoring the opportunity to turn Mamdani’s win into a wave that ousts moderate Democrats next year, when Hochul and every state legislator is on the ballot.
“We’re going to have to figure out ways to increase the pressure, change the political landscape in ways that make Governor Hochul responsive to our demands,” said Grace Mausser, the co-chair of the city’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter.
Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the Working Families Party, told POLITICO the group will “immediately” and “aggressively” launch a pressure campaign to force Hochul to raise taxes on the wealthy.
“Zohran Mamdani inspired a record number of voters by building a campaign focused on making New York more affordable,” Gripper added in a statement. “Voters are looking for leaders who are committed to making real change for working families.”
The WFP will decide who it will endorse for governor — and other legislative races — before January. Gripper said Hochul so far “has under-delivered in leveraging her power” to address the affordability crisis.
Mamdani’s spokesperson Lekha Sunder struck a less aggressive tone when asked whether he would play a role in left-leaning primary challenges, saying in a statement that the campaign is “not spending any of our time contemplating hypotheticals or engaging in political gossip.”
Both camps seem set on avoiding a dynamic similar to the combative relationship between former Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, which led to vaccine distribution holdups and a slowed rollout of universal pre-k.
Hochul has enjoyed a publicly warm relationship with Mayor Eric Adams — even as she fielded deafening demands to remove him from office throughout his criminal case.
The former Hochul official pointed to her ability to “navigate very tricky political waters” in dealing with Cuomo’s mayoral primary bid, the indictment of Adams and insubordination from Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who’s now challenging Hochul in the gubernatorial primary.
Basil Smikle Jr., the former head of the state Democratic Party, said he thinks there is going to be “a healthy tension” between what Mamdani wants and what Albany thinks is doable and that the tension could lead to “some good policy and hopefully some things that will really benefit New Yorkers.”
“He knows that state politics and some of the institutional players in New York City are going to push to moderate his views,” Smikle said. “What we don't know is the extent to which he's going to press for a pure form of his proposals, or if he's okay with some kind of negotiation.”
Hochul has signaled she might be open to that path. She’s framed Mamdani’s campaign and the wave of energy behind it as a welcomed, albeit different, version of her affordability-minded politics.
“I've been focused on affordability long before any recent election,” Hochul told reporters two days after the election. “That has been what I’ve been championing and successful in getting major policies through the Legislature.”
In turn, Mamdani has publicly complimented Hochul’s efforts to stand up to President Donald Trump and said she is “laser-focused on affordability.”
“Zohran's focus as mayor will be delivering on his affordability agenda and he looks forward to working with Governor Hochul and leaders in the state legislature to do so, especially as they have led this same fight for years,” said Sunder, Mamdani’s spokesperson.
Mamdani, though, has used his social media accounts to antagonize the governor in the past.
In 2022, he used a “Happy Black History Month!” post to attack Hochul for allegedly pushing to gut funding for Black cultural institutions. The following year he said Hochul made a “decision to put more poor black & brown NYers in jail and attack public schools” in the state budget.
Amit Singh Bagga, a Democratic strategist who previously worked for Hochul and has known Mamdani since he was elected as a state lawmaker in 2021, said the two may find common ground on issues like child care. In this year’s budget, Hochul fought to introduce a child tax credit of up to $1,000 for parents of young children.
During an election year, Bagga said Hochul will have to strike a careful balance between embracing Mamdani’s focus on a less expensive city without alienating suburban and moderate voters outside the city — a critical constituency in a statewide election.
“We can anticipate Republican attacks that will attempt to attach the governor to Mamdani,” Bagga said.
At the same time, “the governor understands that in order to win a very competitive general election, she’ll need to generate a massive amount of enthusiasm among Democrats, who — fed up with what they perceive as half-measures and half-hearted battles — just propelled Mamdani to victory in New York City, which she’ll need to win resoundingly.”
“Those are some narrow straits, but the governor has demonstrated an ability to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis,” he added, likening her dilemma to what Homer described in the Odyssey.
Delgado, meanwhile, is already trying to harness the energy behind Mamdani’s win to oust Hochul in next year’s June primary.
“Zohran cannot deliver bold change alone. He needs a Governor who’s ready and willing to work with him,” Delgado wrote on social media.
As a staunch supporter of Israel who formerly represented a Hudson Valley swing seat in Congress, Delgado finds himself to the left of Hochul, but to the right of Mamdani’s DSA base.
Still, Mausser indicated the DSA is open to “hearing him out” and possibly backing him, especially if he’s promising to raise taxes to the levels necessary to fund Mamdani’s agenda.
When asked generally about whether Mamdani would support the DSA primarying incumbents next year, Mausser recalled how it helped Mamdani, then a social justice organizer, win a 2020 primary against former Assemblymember Aravella Simotas, who had served in Albany for a decade.
“I know where he comes from, and I know what his organizing orientation is,” she said. “I think he’ll be strategic and thoughtful and collaborative when we're talking about primary challenges.”
Gripper didn’t rule out the possibility that Hochul would come around to Mamdani’s call for higher taxes, which could then spoil Delgado’s chances of getting lefty support in his primary battle.
She noted Cuomo relented on raising taxes on the wealthy in 2021.
“The idea that a governor shifts positions is not impossible,” Gripper said. “We've done it before, and we can do it again. Kathy Hochul may hold a position now that she might shift as conditions change, as the public demand changes.”
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