ALBANY, New York — Big Apple Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign pressuring Gov. Kathy Hochul to back a tax hike on the richest New Yorkers is falling flat, leaving it up to his ardent left-leaning supporters to persuade the moderate Democrat to flip-flop.
It won’t be easy.
Mamdani’s impassioned backers, who are expected to come out in droves Wednesday to Albany, will make their case anyway.
“Folks who never would have wanted to meet us are now eager and happy to,” Tax the Rich campaign manager Erick Stoll said. “There's just a real recognition, both with the mayoral election last year, but also just the way that we have continuously built our power and our presence in the city and in Albany over the last six years, that we are a major force in politics, and we can't be ignored.”
The mayor retains an enthusiastic base that helped propel him to a stunning victory last year on a campaign built around populist themes like affordability and boosting taxes on rich people. Since that electoral win, those supporters are now facing their first big test: convincing Hochul a tax hike is necessary to level the economic playing field in a deeply expensive city. The first tangible sign of that persuasion effort will take place Wednesday, when thousands of demonstrators plan to descend on the state Capitol to press the mayor’s tax hike case.
The effort is meant to ratchet up pressure on Hochul’s left to convince her to back the tax increase plan.
The governor, though, does not have a left-flank opponent while she runs for a second full term this year. Her sole primary foe, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, bowed out of the race after voter surveys showed him badly trailing the incumbent governor. Mamdani endorsed Hochul’s bid this month as well, crowding out any potential lefty challengers in the process.
Democratic state lawmakers — who hold massive majorities in the Legislature — have not given a clear indication if they’ll try to aggressively push the governor to change her mind during the state budget process as it unfolds over the next month.
And the governor has not been persuaded by the young first-term mayor’s ultimatum that unless Gotham is granted the power by Albany to raise income and corporate taxes, a property tax hike is necessary to close a $5.4 billion budget gap in the city. Unlike a target rate increase on rich people, a property tax hike would spread pain across the city — including to middle-income New Yorkers who own their homes.
“I don’t support a property tax increase on New Yorkers and I’m not wavering on my position that I don’t want to drive more people out of our state by increasing taxes in what is already a high-tax state,” Hochul told reporters days after Mamdani unveiled his budget plan.
Cue Mamdani’s core backers.
They include the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which has launched its third “tax the rich” campaign in Albany in six years. Organizers say the campaign is gaining traction this time around with more lawmakers agreeing to meetings than in previous efforts.
The rally is being organized in part by Our Time, a group composed of Mamdani’s former campaign volunteers who are trying to be a key voice in the tax fight. The campaign launched in November, shortly after Mamdani’s win, with the DSA partnering with Our Time to press lawmakers to sign onto bills that would increase taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals as a revenue source for the mayor's pricey policy agenda.
Organizers say they have sent roughly 18,000 letters to lawmakers and the governor's office on top of their phonebanking and canvassing efforts.
Yet the tax-the-rich boosters are facing a tall order to change Hochul’s mind. The governor has been heckled by Mamdani supporters over raising taxes in the past — incidents that only hardened her resolve to stay the course.
The governor's office did not comment. Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said the mayor will not attend the Wednesday rally. “The mayor is steadfast in his belief that the wealthiest New Yorkers and most profitable corporations should be taxed," she said.
The tax fight stands to be beneficial to both the governor and mayor — two Democrats from vastly different wings of the party who have tried to forge a working relationship in defiance of a long history of their predecessors being at odds.
Mamdani is signaling to his base that he will continue to press for a tax hike after disappointing some on the left with his early appointments, including his decision to retain NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a holdover from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.
Some organizers acknowledge Mamdani’s early endorsement of Hochul may have reduced his leverage in Albany, but argue it underscores the need for outside pressure.
For Hochul, the continued opposition gives her some daylight with the 34-year-old democratic socialist who remains anathema to many moderate and conservative voters who she will need in her general election fight this November.
“The governor holds firm, showing she can govern cooperatively with Mamdani without changing her stripes,” said Democratic strategist Jon Paul Lupo. “The mayor makes clear he’s sticking to his principles on a significant campaign promise while demonstrating the severity of the budget crisis he’s inherited.”
Privately, though, Hochul’s team has been frustrated that Mamdani has only presented two options — raise property taxes or boost rates on rich people and businesses — without exhausting other avenues first.
There is still a danger for the two leading New Yorkers to be at odds over taxes. The debate threatens to further rip apart a Democratic Party that expects President Donald Trump’s deep unpopularity will translate to electoral successes later this year. At the same time, the fight exposes moderate Democrats in the state Legislature to potential primary challenges from candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America who are eager to remake Albany — and potentially create long-term political headaches for the governor.
Of the six candidates for state assembly backed by the city’s DSA chapter this year, four are challenging incumbents, nearly all of whom have declined to sign onto the tax proposals, according to Stoll.
“If the governor, the legislature failed to do right by their constituents this year, you're gonna see a lot more DSA members on their way up to Albany next year,” Stoll said.
In a recent campaign update, the group said “dozens” of state legislators targeted during canvassing efforts have signed onto their tax bills.
Raising taxes on wealthy people is politically popular in New York. A Siena University poll in December found 65 percent of voters statewide supported higher taxes on New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million.
Hochul is handily leading her expected Republican foe, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, in voter surveys, but does not want to hand the likely GOP nominee any fodder with moderate voters by submitting to Mamdani’s tax demands.
The mayor, meanwhile, has benefited from Hochul’s early patronage. She handed him a preliminary victory just days after he took office by agreeing to expand free child care in the city. And days before Mamdani released his budget proposal, she struck a deal with him to shore up the city’s finances with a $1.5 billion cash infusion from the state.
That help from the governor hasn’t hobbled Mamdani’s push to raise taxes on those making more than $1 million a year as well as “profitable” corporations. The mayor, who has insisted the city is in a fiscal crisis worse than the Great Recession, touted a shrinking budget gap this month after revised tax revenue estimates and reserve funds were used to narrow the hole.
But Mamdani has insisted that the city needs to be put on sounder fiscal footing, blaming Adams for leaving a financial mess and his chief 2025 election foe former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for short-changing the city — charges both men have vehemently denied.
There is also grumbling among Democrats in Albany over Mamdani’s aggressive efforts to force the Legislature into backing a tax hike along with the governor.
“The fact that he’s shown no budget efficiencies — I’ve been disappointed,” said one Democratic state lawmaker who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about the mayor. “He’s got some of his strongest allies opposing this, raising concerns about what he has and hasn’t done. The governor is kind of making a good case now.”
New York state has the third highest tax rate, behind California and Hawaii, and a small percentage of filers account for nearly half of the tax revenue that arrives in Albany. That precarious balance — a handful of extremely wealthy people underwriting the state government — has long driven fears that boosting taxes would accelerate an exodus of the rich to lower tax states.
Yet left-leaning advocates point to the outflow of middle and low-income people who are struggling to afford the Empire State’s high cost of living.
“The richest have really never had it better,” Stoll said. “Meanwhile, you know, working class people, lower income people are facing this soaring, soaring costs of living, from groceries to housing.”
All New York City mayors face difficulties getting their agenda through the state Capitol: Mayor Bill de Blasio infamously warred with Cuomo over raising taxes to fund his expansion of pre-kindergarten. And often governors — who have most of the leverage in the budget negotiations — come out on top.
“The city is a creature of the state,” Queens Democratic state Sen. John Liu said. “There has not been a mayor in history who hasn’t complained that the city is subject to state law. Every mayor and every mayoral candidate has made that claim. Is that going to fix whatever perceived structural inequities there might be? There’s no chance in hell.”
Organizers view their opposition as misreading public opinion — so far, at least.
“There are millions and millions of people who very deeply and sincerely are ready to fight to tax the rich,” an Our Time spokesperson said. “And the fact that the governor so far has been staunch in opposition to that I do think shows an underestimation or maybe an incomplete assessment of where her constituents are at on this issue.”
Chris Sommerfeldt contributed to this report.
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