A Phil Hall Op-Ed: In case you haven’t heard, voters in yesterday’s Democratic Party primary in New York City have overwhelmingly selected a self-described Democratic Socialist to become their next mayor. With roughly 90% of the ballots being counted, Zohran Mamdani won 43% of the vote to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 36%. In my humble opinion, a great deal of Mamdani’s success belongs to the ultra-rich real estate developers and Wall Street moguls who openly backed Cuomo’s campaign.
According to data from the New York City Campaign Finance Board, the majority of funds channeled into Cuomo’s “Fix the City” Super PAC (28.41%) came from the real estate industry, with 22.59% coming from the finance sector. In comparison, the usual suspects who back Democratic politicians gave much less money – 11.4% of funds originated in the entertainment industry and 6.26% came from labor unions.
Among the major real estate industry donors to “Fix the City” were Atlantic Development’s Peter Fine with $250,000; John Fish of Suffolk Construction with $250,000; Halmar International with $250,000; Two Trees Management with $250,000; RXR’s Scott Rechler with $250,000; Vornado’s Steven Roth with $150,000; Fisher Brothers with $100,000; the Durst Organization with $100,000; and Atlantic Yard’s Bruce Ratner with $36,000.
Of course, those donations are puny compared to the $500,000 input from hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman. And that amount is dismal compared to the $8.3 million from billionaire and former mayor Michael Bloomberg. Cuomo’s Super PAC brought in a total of $21 million.
None of this was a secret – do a Google search for “Cuomo” and “real estate” and see for yourself how much media coverage was given to the industry’s support of that candidate. When Cuomo was quizzed during a mayoral debate about the extravagant campaign donations from many of the corporations and executives that control the city’s real estate industry, he feigned indifference and declared, “I don’t care who gave me what – I do what is right.”
While Cuomo pretended he was operating independently of the real estate industry moneybags, many New Yorkers struggling with elevated housing costs were highly aware that a Cuomo administration would not be answering to their needs. Indeed, even the Wall Street Journal noticed with an article entitled “New York’s Housing Crisis Is So Bad That a Socialist Is Poised to Become Mayor.” As the Journal succinctly pointed out: “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, put him over the top on Tuesday, when he declared victory in the primary. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded Tuesday night.”
New York City rents are at record highs and vacancies at record lows, and residents are dealing with one of the most hostile housing markets in the nation. With the city’s largest and richest real estate entities backing Cuomo, there should be no surprise that voters struggling to pay the rent or find affordable housing would be skeptical of the former governor and ready to give the socialist challenger a chance.
Now, of course, Cuomo had many other issues that made him an unpalatable candidate. And please don’t think that I believe Mamdani’s agenda could possibly work. Socialism has no history of generating economic success, and Mamdani’s outrageous extremism – his chants of “Globalize the Intifada” and “defund the police” coupled with his infantile labeling of President Trump as a fascist – represents the nadir of intelligent political activity.
In announcing his primary election victory, Mamdani quoted Nelson Mandela in declaring, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Well, the most successful corporations and executives did the impossible by helping to antagonize voters away from their favored candidate into backing someone who is bound to make a bad situation worse. Let’s see how this shakes out.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo courtesy of Zohran Mamdani’s Instagram page
