At 100 days, Mamdani is already a different kind of mayor

The New York City mayor has notched major wins while dropping some campaign promises as he confronts a hostile fiscal landscape.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attends his Inauguration at City Hall on Jan. 1, 2026. | Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani the candidate might not recognize Zohran Mamdani the mayor.

After just 100 days in City Hall, the 34-year-old New York City mayor has largely ceded control of the police department to a moderate Democrat at odds with the left. He’s surrounded himself with several longtime government operatives untethered to the movement that birthed him.

And after finding himself marooned on a fiscal landscape inhospitable to the growth of new government programs, Mamdani has forsaken several campaign pledges while proposing a regressive tax on the middle class — part of a quixotic quest to pressure Gov. Kathy Hochul into helping cover an inherited city budget gap running into the billions.

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