An independent expenditure committee backed by Silicon Valley executives spent $4.8 million on television ads supporting San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s gubernatorial bid that will begin airing Thursday.
The two 30-second ads highlight the Democrat’s life story — being raised in a working-class family and working on a grounds crew and as a middle school teacher — and his accomplishments leading the state’s third-largest city.
Mahan’s parents “taught him the difference between nice to have and need to have,” a narrator says in one of the ads. “So as mayor of San Jose, Matt focused on the basics and delivered results on the things that matter most. The safest big city in America, a sharp drop in street homelessness and thousands of homes built. As governor, Matt Mahan will focus on results Californians need to have, like affordable homes, safe neighborhoods and good schools.”
The ads, which will air statewide on broadcast and cable TV, were paid for by an independent-expenditure committee called California Back to Basics Supporting Matt Mahan for Governor 2026.
The group has not yet filed any fundraising reports with the secretary of state’s office, but the ads’ disclosure says the top donors are billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz, luxury sleepwear company founder Ashley Merrill and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Michael Seibel.
Billionaire Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso, who considered running for governor or mayor of Los Angeles but ultimately decided against seeking either post, is involved in the effort, according to a strategist working for the committee who requested anonymity to speak about it.
The committee legally cannot coordinate with Mahan’s campaign, which he launched four weeks ago. Although Mahan lacks the name recognition of several other candidates in the crowded field running to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, his fundraising prowess, notably among tech industry leaders, is notable. He has raised nearly $9.2 million in large donations since entering the gubernatorial race.
CREWS WORKED TO KEEP IT COOL TO MAKE SURE IT WOULD NOT REIGNITE. IN SOLANO COUNTY, SOME TOUGH ECONOMIC NEWS AS JELLY BELLY IS CUTTING DOZENS OF JOBS IN FAIRFIELD. THE COMPANY SAYS THESE LAYOFFS WILL START IN EARLY JUNE. THIS IS MAINLY OFFICE-BASED ROLES IN MARKETING, FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING. THE COMPANY TOLD OUR PARTNERS AT THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. THE MOVE WILL NOT IMPACT CANDY PRODUCTION, WAREHOUSING OR THE VISITOR CENTER.
Sixty-nine employees are slated to lose their jobs at Fairfield-headquartered Jelly Belly, according to a WARN notice obtained by SFGATE. Jelly Belly’s parent company, Ferrara Candy Company, is closing its Fairfield “corporate-commercial operations,” located at One Jelly Belly Lane, 2400 N. Watney Way, 2500 N. Watney Way, and 2385 N. Watney Way, according to screenshots of the WARN letter Fairfield Mayor Catherine Moy shared on Facebook on Friday.“This action will not impact any Fairfield Manufacturing, Warehousing, or Visitor Center roles,” Sukrat Baber, assistant general counsel of Ferrara Candy, wrote in the letter sent to the mayor and other local officials. “This layoff is expected to be permanent.”“This action will not impact any Fairfield Manufacturing, Warehousing, or Visitor Center roles,” Sukrat Baber, assistant general counsel of Ferrara Candy, wrote in the letter sent to the mayor and other local officials. “This layoff is expected to be permanent.”Ferrara Candy Company, which also owns other candy brands such as Nerds, Sweetarts and Laffy Taffy, acquired Jelly Belly in 2023. “These reductions were expected based on what they told us previously when they first acquired Jelly Belly,” Fairfield City Manager David Gassaway wrote in a letter last week to the City Council, according to Moy’s Facebook post. Despite the layoffs, Jelly Belly will continue making candy and offering tours at its factory, a popular Fairfield tourist attraction. Ferrara does not plan to close the factory. “We anticipate no impact to the Jelly Belly brand, our products, manufacturing levels, or service to our customers,” continued the statement from Ferrara provided to SFGATE.The news comes as another blow to Fairfield, following the closure of the Anheuser-Busch plant this month. However, “Some good news: We have seen healthy interest in companies considering buying the Budweiser plant,” Moy wrote in her Facebook post.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
FAIRFIELD, Calif. —
Sixty-nine employees are slated to lose their jobs at Fairfield-headquartered Jelly Belly, according to a WARN notice obtained by SFGATE. Jelly Belly’s parent company, Ferrara Candy Company, is closing its Fairfield “corporate-commercial operations,” located at One Jelly Belly Lane, 2400 N. Watney Way, 2500 N. Watney Way, and 2385 N. Watney Way, according to screenshots of the WARN letter Fairfield Mayor Catherine Moy shared on Facebook on Friday.
“This action will not impact any Fairfield Manufacturing, Warehousing, or Visitor Center roles,” Sukrat Baber, assistant general counsel of Ferrara Candy, wrote in the letter sent to the mayor and other local officials. “This layoff is expected to be permanent.”
“This action will not impact any Fairfield Manufacturing, Warehousing, or Visitor Center roles,” Sukrat Baber, assistant general counsel of Ferrara Candy, wrote in the letter sent to the mayor and other local officials. “This layoff is expected to be permanent.”
Ferrara Candy Company, which also owns other candy brands such as Nerds, Sweetarts and Laffy Taffy, acquired Jelly Belly in 2023.
“These reductions were expected based on what they told us previously when they first acquired Jelly Belly,” Fairfield City Manager David Gassaway wrote in a letter last week to the City Council, according to Moy’s Facebook post.
Despite the layoffs, Jelly Belly will continue making candy and offering tours at its factory, a popular Fairfield tourist attraction. Ferrara does not plan to close the factory.
“We anticipate no impact to the Jelly Belly brand, our products, manufacturing levels, or service to our customers,” continued the statement from Ferrara provided to SFGATE.
The news comes as another blow to Fairfield, following the closure of the Anheuser-Busch plant this month. However, “Some good news: We have seen healthy interest in companies considering buying the Budweiser plant,” Moy wrote in her Facebook post.
Mooresville Mayor Chris Carney listens during a town council meeting in Mooresville, N.C., on Monday, October 6, 2025.
KHADEJEH NIKOUYEH
Knikouyeh@charlotteobserver.com
MOORESVILLE
Mooresville Mayor Chris Carney and the town’s police chief refuted claims Wednesday in two federal lawsuits about Carney’s behavior during two late-night encounters with police.
“Enough is enough,” Carney said in an interview with The Charlotte Observer and Observer news partner WSOC. “We need to come out and set the record straight.”
Carney said claims are false in the lawsuits filed against him, the town and other Mooresville officials by a former IT worker and ex-assistant police chief Frank Falzone.
“It’s been awful, to be honest with you,” Carney said. “When you come into office trying to do the right thing” only to face “unfounded accusations.”
“I just can’t sit back” and not contest the bogus claims in the lawsuits, Carney said. “My family deserves better than this, Mooresville deserves better than this.”
Lawsuit claims
Falzone filed a whistleblower lawsuit on Monday alleging he was forced to retire for raising concerns about the late-night incidents involving Carney.
The lawsuit said Falzone was threatened with the loss of his pension if he didn’t retire, “depriving him of his career, reputation, and livelihood.”
The 37-page lawsuit stems “from a deliberate and coordinated campaign by senior officials of the Town of Mooresville to silence, discredit and remove” Falzone for refusing “to participate in or remain silent about serious governmental misconduct,” according to the complaint.
The allegations of misconduct involved Carney and Police Chief Ron Campurciani and “efforts of senior Town leadership to conceal that misconduct,” the lawsuit states.
In an interview at Town Hall with The Charlotte Observer and WSOC, Mooresville Police Chief Ron Campurciani on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, refuted claims in two lawsuits about incidents involving Mayor Chris Carney. Joe Marusak jmarusak@charlotteobserver.com
The lawsuit cites a late-night traffic stop involving the mayor and the police chief on Jan. 30, 2024, and Carney being in town hall with a woman one overnight in October 2024.
The October 2024 incident prompted a lawsuit in January by Jeffrey Noble, a former IT employee who said he was fired in retaliation for reporting misconduct by the mayor that overnight, including video showing Carney pantless.
In each incident, according to the complaint, Falzone “identified electronic evidence … that should have existed and been preserved, or properly classified, but which was instead missing, misclassified, incomplete, or rendered inaccessible under the supervision of senior officials.”
Evidence included records, body-worn camera metadata and audit data, access-control logs, alarm data and surveillance footage, the lawsuit states.
“Rather than investigate the Mayor’s conduct or address the serious irregularities Falzone identified, many of which directly implicated the Police Chief’s supervisory and administrative responsibilities, Defendants turned the machinery of government inward.”
Mayor addresses claims
In Wednesday’s interview, Carney said separate investigations into the incidents found no truth to the claims, including by U.S. ISS, an outside, independent investigative agency, into the Jan. 30 incident.
In an interview at Town Hall with The Charlotte Observer and WSOC, Mooresville Mayor Chris Carney on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, refuted claims in two lawsuits about his behavior during incidents in the town. Joe Marusak jmarusak@charlotteobserver.com
Earlier Wednesday, the Mooresville Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to release the findings of the separate reports through the town’s legal department. The reports were not yet released by 5 p.m.
Commissioners said they voted to release the reports to be fully transparent.
“I’ve sat here a long time,” commissioner Eddie Dingler said. “I don’t hide anything.”
“Our brand has taken a hit, and we should release what we can,” commissioner Gary West agreed.
Carney asked the board to approve releasing the reports.
“This is solely so we can tell the great citizens we were not going to hide behind laws,” he said. “We’re going to give you everything we have. The people expect that. We could not have done this more transparently.”
Falzone retired on his own, police chief says
Carney and Campurciani later addressed various claims in the lawsuits, telling the Observer and WSOC the allegations were simply untrue.
Campurciani said Falzone retired on his own after he was placed on administrative leave, as is standard practice, after preliminary results of an outside investigation into his conduct toward the owner of a local boat repair company. Falzone hired the company to do extensive repairs on his personal boat, according to a letter the owner wrote about the incident.
The findings “were troubling,” Campurciani said, but the full investigation was still being conducted by the outside agency, not his department when Falzone retired.
The owner called 911 to request police response after he said Falzone grew angry at him at Stumpy Creek Access Area on Lake Norman. Carney provided the Observer a copy of the letter the owner wrote about the incident. In the letter, the owner called Falzone’s angry behavior “unethical and outrageous,” including “jumping on and kicking my hitch” to remove his boat trailer from his truck.
Late-night traffic stop claims
Carney and Campurciani said Falzone’s lawsuit contains false claims about what happened during the Jan. 30, 2024, traffic stop. It wasn’t even a traffic stop, they said.
The mayor said he was driving from a fundraiser for Iredell County District Attorney Sarah Kirkman when he saw Campurciani driving from the event, too, and the two pulled over to chat for a few minutes.
Carney said he hosted the event and gave speeches throughout the time. Multiple people at the event would confirm he wasn’t drinking, unlike the lawsuit claim, he said.
The lawsuit cited a police captain saying the mayor appeared impaired at the scene. Carney and Campurciani said the captain happened to drive by as they chatted. The captain never left his car but continued on when he realized no stop was needed.
So there was no police body-camera footage of the scene, contrary to the lawsuit claim that footage was tampered with, Carney said. “The facts just don’t support it,” he said.
Mayor addresses pantless claim
The mayor said allegations in the IT worker’s lawsuit about his conduct in town hall in October 2024 are likewise false, including that he was walking around pantless.
Carney has repeatedly said in media interviews that he fell ill after medications he was on mixed with alcohol after a gathering at a bar near Town Hall.
The woman who accompanied him to Town Hall is a longtime family friend who sent a photo of Carney ill at Town Hall to his wife that night, so she’d know the condition he was in, he said. He’d gone there to retrieve his phone when he got sick, he said.
“I never thought, to be fair, that vomiting and making a mess would become a national story,” the mayor said Wednesday. “I really couldn’t have imagined that.
“And I would tell the public, I am so sorry,” he said. “I truly didn’t think anything other than I needed my phone and then, when I felt bad, this is a safe space … a place where, when I felt better, I would go home.”
Regarding the pantless claim, he said, he was cleaning vomit off himself, “by myself. The other person was multiple offices away, behind two sets of doors.
“When do I get to have my own dignity?” Carney asked. “Anybody who’s reviewed that film, there’s nothing inappropriate.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 5:23 PM.
Joe Marusak has been a reporter for The Charlotte Observer since 1989 covering the people, municipalities and major news events of the region, and was a news bureau editor for the paper. He currently reports on breaking news. Support my work with a digital subscription
Mamdani and Hochul had delivered a political victory. The people delivering the actual service would be New York’s child-care workers, who number some forty thousand, seventy-five per cent of whom identify as nonwhite women. They earn less than workers in ninety-six per cent of other occupations in the city, often placing them just above the federal poverty line. The patchwork system in which they operate, a mix of public funding and private payment, can be confusing and frustrating to parents, and to the providers themselves. Many caregivers are hoping that the newfound attention to their field will be channelled into making it more stable and equitable.
To some degree, this will be a matter of revising previous efforts to expand access to early-childhood education. The widely lauded universal pre-K program that was Bill de Blasio’s signature achievement as mayor began rolling out in 2014; 3K (free preschool for three-year-olds) started in 2017. Both programs used a centralized enrollment system to allocate children among a wide variety of providers, ranging from small home-based facilities and large nonprofit networks to campuses run by the city’s public-school system. The locations that weren’t city-run received contracts with the Department of Education. But this created a pointed disparity: teachers directly employed by public schools received better pay and benefits than their peers elsewhere, even when they had the same duties and qualifications. This was bad for the caregivers, but also bad for the programs where they worked, which have faced destabilizing turnover as employees left in pursuit of better pay.
“We are directly competing with the D.O.E., and they fund us—which is a very odd place to be,” Tiffany Roberson, who oversees early-childhood education at Hudson Guild, a settlement house that runs several centers in Manhattan, told me. Community-based organizations like Roberson’s account for sixty per cent of the city’s pre-K seats, according to the Day Care Council of New York.
After de Blasio left office, Eric Adams pulled back on support for 3K, cutting outreach and funding. City payments were extremely slow to arrive; a number of day-care centers struggled to cover rent and payroll. “We had some providers who went an entire fiscal year without getting paid at all,” Nora Moran, of United Neighborhood Houses, which represents many settlement houses, told me. Some took out loans to meet operating expenses. “The city doesn’t pay interest,” Tara Gardner, the executive director of the Day Care Council, noted dryly. (Adams eventually reversed course, in the lead-up to last year’s mayoral election.) Understandably, providers remain wary. “They don’t have a very good taste in their mouths for how the city runs these programs,” Gutiérrez, the city councillor, said.
That’s not to say that caregivers aren’t wishing for the best. “Parents are going to be happy—because I would have been happy,” Stacy Byrd, a pre-K teacher at the University Settlement Children’s Corner in East New York, told me. On a recent Wednesday morning, her students were learning about wheels and transportation. Outside, trains rattled by on the elevated tracks above Livonia Avenue; inside, Byrd was reading “Bear on a Bike.” The kids were in the “Fox” classroom, and, when the titular bear came across foxes in the forest, the students practiced little fox howls. The natural world had made an unwelcome incursion on their habitat the previous fall: a storm in October had flooded the building, and downstairs, months later, repairs were ongoing. Upstairs, though, the Foxes were snug.
Seventeen years ago, before Byrd got her start in early-childhood education, she was a mom flummoxed by child care. “I even wrote to the City Council to try to find out, Why is it that I can’t find affordable child care?” she said. At a loss, she sent her children out of state to live with their grandparents for a year. With help from her church, she was eventually able to piece together care back in the city. Her daughter, who is now twenty-four, has followed her into the field—she teaches two-year-olds at the Children’s Corner. Byrd said that she is “hopeful” about the new mayor’s plans. “I’m happy and proud that child care is one of the considerations he’s fighting for,” she told me. “Because I do feel like that is overlooked.”
Mary Sheffield, a political phenom whose rise began when she was elected to Detroit City Council at age 26, made history Thursday when she was sworn in as the city’s first woman mayor.
In her first one-on-one interview since taking office, Sheffield spoke with Metro Times about making history as Detroit’s first woman mayor, how she wants residents to judge her success, the balance between downtown development and neighborhood needs, and the priorities she plans to tackle in her first term. She also opened up about her recent marriage and her relationship with God.
Sheffield’s inauguration marks the start of a new era in city government, ending a 324-year stretch in which men led Detroit.
Now 38, Sheffield has become a popular figure in city politics by promoting progressive values, advocating for racial equality, and championing policies aimed at narrowing the economic divide.
Sheffield won the general election with 77% of the vote in November, delivering a decisive mandate for a platform centered on equity, neighborhood investment, and structural reforms designed to improve residents’ quality of life.
She now faces daunting and serious challenges. Nearly half of Detroit’s children live in poverty, many neighborhoods continue to struggle with basic resources and disinvestment, and the city has seen a continued exodus of Black residents even as downtown has flourished.
Sheffield’s rise has been rapid and historic. In November 2013, Sheffield was 26 years old when she became the youngest person ever elected to Detroit City Council. She later became the council’s youngest president.
During her tenure on the council, Sheffield has become a leading advocate for affordable housing, tenants’ rights, neighborhood development, property tax reform, and environmental justice, often pushing back against large tax incentives for wealthy developers and calling for investment strategies that more directly benefit longtime Detroiters.
Sheffield succeeds Mike Duggan, who did not seek reelection after three terms and is now running for governor as an independent.
Metro Times: Yesterday, you became Detroit’s first woman mayor. What does that milestone mean to you personally, and what do you hope it means to women and girls growing up in the city?
Mayor Mary Sheffield: I think it means leadership has no gender, no age limit, and no ceiling. And for women, especially Black women, it affirms that our voices, our experiences, and our ideas belong at the highest levels of decision-making. I’ve watched so many young girls follow me throughout this campaign who feel inspired and empowered, and that’s what I’ve always wanted my leadership to reflect. It’s an indication to dream big, to work hard, and to know that we can all achieve what we put our minds to.
I also think it’s a powerful moment as it relates to attracting and retaining youth in Detroit. Hopefully this is an inspiration and motivation to want to be in Detroit. There are so many young professionals who I believe are encouraged and inspired to stay and come back to the city as well.
Metro Times: You became the youngest person ever elected to City Council at 26 and later the youngest council president. What has driven you, at such a young age, to serve?
Mayor Sheffield: It all goes back to my childhood. My life was really molded by service. It’s all I know. My father [Rev. Horace Sheffield III] was a civil rights activist and preacher, and my mother [Yvonne Lovett] was an educator at Wayne County Community College District and a professor of nursing. Both of them showed me that life is really all about serving.
Detroit is a city that shaped me and molded me into who I am. When I got into office at 26, I didn’t know I would have the impact I had in terms of legislative accomplishments, but it motivated me to understand how important these positions are in directly changing quality of life. Detroit has made tremendous progress, but there are still needs. That inspired me to continue serving now as mayor, to elevate the issues that matter to Detroiters and ensure that Detroit’s resurgence goes deeper into our neighborhoods.
Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield succeeds Mike Duggan, who led the city since 2014.
Metro Times: When Mike Duggan was first elected in 2013, he said residents could judge his success by whether Detroit’s population increased. Is there a similar benchmark you want Detroiters to use to judge your administration?
Mayor Sheffield: For me, it’s really about overall quality of life. Whether that’s directing more money into our neighborhoods, making Detroit the best place to grow and start a business, creating more jobs, increasing incomes. I don’t think it’s one singular thing.
I want Detroiters to be able to say their quality of life is better because of this administration. That their neighborhood has investment. That their street lights are on. That they were able to access a home repair grant. If incomes are increased, mental health is better, and poverty is reduced, those are the things I want to be judged on.
Metro Times: Are there one or two priorities you want residents to see tangible action on in your first year?
Mayor Sheffield: First and foremost, we have to take bold steps around housing. I want to see more development of affordable housing, particularly access to homeownership. Increasing the number of residents who can become homeowners is very important to me.
Neighborhood reforms are also critical — basic infrastructure like sidewalk repairs, dangerous trees, alley cleaning, and overall neighborhood investment. We want to activate additional commercial corridors to support small businesses and bring vibrancy back to neighborhoods. And property tax reform is extremely important. It may take time, but providing relief from Detroit’s high millage rate is a priority.
Metro Times: Is there a neighborhood issue you think City Hall has underestimated or misunderstood for too long?
Mayor Sheffield: For me, it’s about creating a government that directly works for people and is easily accessible. We want to bring government back into the neighborhoods, whether that’s activating rec centers where residents can access city services or creating more community hubs.
There’s always room to improve customer service — how we respond when residents call about sidewalks or vacant buildings. Creating opportunity hubs throughout neighborhoods so people can easily access resources is something we’re committed to improving.
Then-Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield at a charity basketball game in 2023. Credit: City of Detroit
Metro Times: Former Mayor Duggan emphasized art and culture through murals and public projects. How important is it for your administration to continue elevating art and culture?
Mayor Sheffield: It’s extremely important. Arts and culture came up significantly throughout the campaign. We had a committee focused on it and met with many stakeholders. It’s an untapped economic engine that we haven’t fully utilized.
We’re looking at forming an office dedicated to the creative economy and taking mural arts and cultural investment to another level. Arts and culture are part of Detroit’s identity. They beautify neighborhoods, tell our story, and create opportunities for local artists. We want to make sure this work is valued and funded appropriately.
Metro Times: What part of being mayor do you think will be the hardest for you personally?
Mayor Sheffield: I really want to understand and listen to everyone’s perspective. I believe in leading with collaboration and making sure people feel seen, valued, and empowered. In a big city, there are many voices and ideas, and balancing that can be challenging.
Politically, the climate has changed, and we have to do more with less. And as a woman leader, there are different expectations and standards I’ll be judged by. That can be difficult. But I believe I was put here for a reason, and that God will equip me with what I need to serve Detroiters.
Metro Times: What keeps you optimistic about Detroit right now?
Mary Sheffield: The people. I’ve been inspired by the support from corporate leaders, grassroots organizers, faith communities — every sector of the city. There’s a shared belief that Detroit’s best days are ahead.
During the transition alone, we had 18 committees and more than 150 residents and business leaders give their time and expertise. That tells me people are deeply invested in Detroit’s future. No one wants to see this city go backward.
Metro Times: You’re known for progressive leadership and taking positions that weren’t always popular. What do you think people don’t know about you?
Mayor Sheffield: I’m very purpose-driven. I focus a lot on personal development and always trying to be better as a person and a leader. I’m very family-driven, and my relationship with God is central to who I am. I’m always working on improving myself.
Metro Times: You recently got married. Has your relationship with your husband Ricky Jackson Jr. shaped or grounded you as you take on the role of mayor?
Mayor Sheffield: Without a doubt. He brings a lot of stability and peace in the midst of what can be turbulent and chaotic times. He’s an anchor that keeps me grounded. I’m blessed to have someone by my side who shares a deep commitment to the betterment of Detroit. He’s from Detroit, went to Cass Tech, and has a passion for youth and sports. He’s been a true blessing throughout this process.
Metro Times: When things get overwhelming, how do you reset or ground yourself?
Mayor Sheffield: Stillness. Prayer. Being quiet and listening to my intuition. Finding ways to center myself and really listen.
Mayor Tamala Takahashi (Center) (Photo by Ross A Benson)
On Monday, December 15, during the annual reorganization meeting, the City Council Members elected their colleague Tamala Takahashi as the new Mayor of Burbank and Council Member Zizette Mullins to serve as Vice Mayor.
Elected to the Council in 2022, Mayor Takahashi is a pre-licensed LMFT and LPCC therapist and certified trauma treatment professional, specializing in neurodivergence and relationship trauma. Previously, she owned a consulting business serving nonprofits and has worked and volunteered in the nonprofit sector for over 15 years. She is a John Maxwell certified coach and a Distinguished Toastmaster. Mayor Takahashi is also a semi-professional fiber artist and designer, and one of the founders of the SFV Knerdy Knitters and Crocheters guild in 2011. She has lived in Burbank for 26 years with her husband and three college-age children and is a strong advocate for sustainability, mental health, and transportation.
Mayor Tamala Takahashi ( Photo by Ross A. Benson)
“I’m honored to serve as Burbank’s Mayor,” said Mayor Takahashi. “This city has been my home for decades, and it’s where my family grew, my work took shape, and my commitment to community began. As Mayor, I want to continue fostering a Burbank where people feel connected, supported, and proud to call this place home. I’m excited to work alongside my colleagues and our residents as we move forward together.”
Mayor Takahashi serves in a variety of regional and national organizations, including The Valley Economic Alliance, the Southern California Association of Governments, the League of California Cities, where she was appointed Chair of the 2026 Community Services Policy Committee, and the National League of Cities.
The Mayor and Vice Mayor will serve for one year (December 2025 to December 2026).
(Photo by Ross A Benson)(Photo by Ross A Benson)(Photo by Ross A Benson)(Photo by Ross A Benson)(Photo by Ross A Benson)(Photo by Ross A Benson)(Photo by Ross A Benson)(Photo by Ross A Benson)
Visitor No. 53, Gabriella Gonjon, who was raised by Dominican immigrants in South Jersey (“between Princeton and Six Flags”), said she was terrified of how Donald Trump is targeting immigrants. “Hearing Trump say he doesn’t want people from third-world countries here,” she said, “that really scared me, and it just makes me feel like, even though I’m born here and I’m a hundred per cent a citizen here, I don’t know when that line is going to change.” But that’s not what she wanted to talk to Mamdani about. Gonjon, who is twenty-six, and a trained architect who works for a city agency that oversees school construction, had a complaint about the new OMNY contactless-payment system in the city’s subway stations and buses. “I don’t feel like our identity should be tied to every stop that we go to,” she said. MetroCards had afforded riders some measure of privacy. “Especially with this immigrant thing—like, I don’t want to be targeted in any way.”
Joynal Abedin, a Bangladeshi immigrant in his sixties, from Woodside, came to the museum dressed in a blue suit and a green shirt and tie. He wanted to talk to Mamdani about the plight of the small landlord. “All homeowners are not billionaires like Donald Trump,” he said. Despite Mamdani’s championing of the city’s renters, Abedin was determined to make him see that mom-and-pop landlords such as him deserved empathy, too. But when he got into the room, the Mayor-elect, whom he had met before, disarmed him by reciting the names of his children. “Asked me about the kids by name,” Abedin said. “What can I do?”
As the afternoon wore on, snow accumulated in the museum’s back garden, and Mamdani’s visitors kept coming, shaking ice off their boots. One man recited what he wanted to tell Mamdani over and over again under his breath, his eyes gauzy and lost in the middle distance. Another attendee had written notes in pen on the back of her hand, which read, from top to bottom: “Rent Iftar Glitter com. Red Hook + Gowanus Knitting Small Biz Bus Idling.” In the afternoon, Lina Khan, the former head of the Federal Trade Commission, who is one of the leaders of the transition team, arrived in the staging room to talk with the visitors, along with other top advisers, including Elle Bisgaard-Church, Mamdani’s chief of staff, and Dean Fuleihan, a soft-spoken seventy-four-year-old veteran of state and city government, who will be serving as Mamdani’s first deputy mayor. Visitor No. 97, the woman with the moon earrings, emerged from her meeting around 5:30, saying she sensed Mamdani flagging. “He was exhausted, you could see it on his face,” she said. “But you couldn’t tell by the way he talked.”
Sid Luckman, right, shakes the hand of Chicago Bears owner George Halas after signing a two-year contract with the team in July 1939. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)
1943: Chicago Bears quarterback Sid Luckman “smashed a truckload of National Football League records,” the Tribune reported, while leading the Bears to a 56-7 rout of the New York Giants. Luckman threw for seven touchdowns; completed 21 of 32 passes; and piled up a new individual high of 453 yards.
The Chicago Bears won a thriller against the Washington Redskins on Nov. 14, 1971, at Soldier Field in Chicago. Dick Butkus caught a pass from Bobby Douglass for an extra point that put the Bears up 16-15. (Chicago Tribune)
1971: “When Dick Butkus beats you by catching a pass for one point in a 16-15 game, it hurts,” wrote Tribune reporter Don Pierson. The Washington Redskins were stunned.
Future Hall of Famer Butkus, an eligible receiver as a blocking back on the play, caught a 40-yard heave by Chicago Bears quarterback Bobby Douglass. It marked Butkus’ first NFL point.
Caretaker Jose Billegas picks up some of the tributes left by well-wishers on the doorstep of the former residence of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin after his death, Nov. 21, 1996. The items were taken inside and dried and saved for the cardinal’s family. (Carl Wagner/Chicago Tribune)
1996: Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin died at 1:33 a.m. after a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer; he was 68.
Choreographer Ann Reinking, left, and Bebe Neuwirth during a dress rehearsal for “Chicago’s” 10th anniversary show in New York, Nov. 14, 2006. (Seth Wenig/AP)
Also in 1996: A revival of the 1975 musical “Chicago” — which was based on a play written by former Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins — opened on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York. Among the show’s numerous Tony Awards, Ann Reinking won one for her choreography.
The “more cynical, darker show,” as Tribune critic Merrill Goozner described it, was given a “black box setting” with actors and dancers wearing basic — but barely there — black costumes. Slinky dances accompanied fast-paced music from the orchestra, which was seated on a raked bandstand in the background. “All That Jazz,” “Razzle Dazzle” and the “Cell Block Tango” were pumped out with vigor, Tribune critic Richard Christiansen wrote.
With more than 11,400 performances, “Chicago” is the second-longest running show on Broadway behind “The Phantom of the Opera,” according to Playbill.
Surprised and exuberant, Jane Byrne and supporters, along with her campaign manager Don Rose, wearing glasses on left, exult in her upset victory against Mayor Michael Bilandic on Feb. 27, 1979, in the Democratic mayoral primary in Chicago. (Anne Cusack/Chicago Tribune)
2014:Jane Byrne, Chicago’s first female mayor, died.
Arnold Toynbee’s “Cities on the Move” (1970) documents the history of big cities around the world becoming impoverished and insolvent—some never to recover. Many of the patterns he describes apply to New York now.
Real estate contributed roughly $35 billion of the $80 billion in city tax receipts in fiscal 2025, and personal taxes another $18 billion. The financial sector, real estate, construction, tourism and retail trade sectors are the major contributors to these revenues.
Less than 48 hours after Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., sent a fundraising email for her gubernatorial campaign that targeted Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor-elect.
Under the words “Stop Muslim radicals,” the Nov. 6 email framed Mamdani’s victory as a civilizational battle. “Republicans must treat the rise of Islamic radicalism as another 9/11,” it said, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The email said, “New Yorkers — the same people directly impacted by 9/11 — voted to elect a man who’s bringing SHARIA LAW to America.”
Shariah (sometimes spelled “Sharia”) is a wide-ranging set of rules that governs aspects of Islamic life, including religious practice, daily living and financial dealings. It’s a religious-based Islamic legal code.
Mace’s email resurrects a talking point that peaked in the 2010s, usually inspired by the false belief that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. andwasactuallyaMuslim, a movement that came to be known as “birtherism.“
The talking point reemerged after Mamdani — who was born in Uganda and moved to the U.S. when he was 7, becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018 — gained national attention for his bid to run the nation’s most populous city.
Between June 24 and Oct. 31, there were at least 2,868 social media posts by 2,132 distinct users that referred to Shariah or Islamic theocracy in relation to Mamdani’s campaign, according to the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
Laura Loomer — a confidante of President Donald Trump, who played a key role in spreading birtherism before he ran for president — posted on X on June 26 that “this isn’t hyperbole. This is reality for New Yorkers. Sharia Law is coming.”
We reviewed media coverage of Mamdani’s campaign and interviewed experts and found no evidence that Mamdani seeks to implement Shariah.
“I’m not aware of anything he has said or done that suggests that he supports imposition of Shariah or even advocates policy positions that are based on Shariah,” said Nathan J. Brown, a George Washington University professor of political science and international affairs.
Further, it would be impossible to accomplish in the U.S.
“No one can impose religious law on anyone in the United States because we have such a thing as the Constitution,” said Cyra Akila Choudhury, a Florida International University law professor. “The First Amendment prohibits the state from establishing a religion, so just as Christians and Jews cannot impose either canon law or Jewish law on anyone, Mamdani cannot impose Shariah.”
Mace’s evidence for the statement
Mace’s campaign pointed PolitiFact to three pieces of evidence for the statement.
One was an Oct. 22 X post from the account Wall Street Apes that includes a compilation of video clips of Mamdani. In one clip, a man asks Mamdani about Shariah, saying he has to renounce it, and Mamdani responds, “What does Shariah law have to do with this? I am running for mayor of New York.” In another clip, Mamdani, wearing a red bandana across his face, says, “We came here to remake this state in the image of our people.” The X post’s caption says, “Zohran Mamdani is a practicing Muslim. Islam tells them to lie to advance takeovers.”
The second link is an Oct. 20 Republican National Committee blog post that criticized Mamdani for meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a New York City Muslim religious leader; the blog post linked to a New York Post report identifying Wahhaj as an unindicted co-conspirator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. (Others, including critics of Wahhaj, dispute the Post’s characterization of him as a co-conspirator.)
The third point is a Fox News article in which Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., called on Mamdani to denounce the phrase “globalize the Intifada,” saying, “People that glorify the slaughter of Jews create fear in our communities. The global intifada is a statement that means destroy Israel and kill all the Jews.”
However, the X post the Mace campaign cited doesn’t show Mamdani advocating for Shariah, and the RNC blog post, the New York Post article it’s based on and the Fox News article do not mention the word Shariah. Individually or collectively, they are not proof that Mamdani is seeking to implement Shariah.
Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to an inquiry for this article.
Mamdani’s views clash with Shariah law
Timothy P. Carney and Sadanand Dhume — two commentators with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. — have expressed reservations about some of Mamdani’s stances, but both agreed that the claim that Mamdani wants to implement Shariah is bogus.
Mamdani “obviously doesn’t believe in Sharia law,” Carney wrote in the Washington Examiner.
Dhume wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Is Zohran Mamdani a radical Islamist? Contrary to what some Republicans have suggested, the answer is clearly no.”
Dhume told PolitiFact that Mamdani’s support for gay rights and decriminalizing sex work, among other positions, “are the antithesis of Sharia law as understood by those who seek to impose it. This line of attack is a scare tactic aimed at ignorant voters by conflating being a Muslim with supporting Islamism.”
Mamdani’s background does not include anything to suggest that he supports Islamic fundamentalism. “My mother’s side of the family is Hindu, and I grew up celebrating Diwali, Holi and Raksha Bandhan,” he told The Indian Eye. “Though I identify as Muslim, these Hindu traditions and practices have shaped my worldview.”
There was no evidence during Mamdani’s lengthy campaign that he would undertake “the kinds of things that Islamists typically do when they take power in Muslim-majority countries,” Dhume said, such as cracking down on alcohol sales, encouraging or forcing female students in public schools to wear a hijab and shutting gay clubs.
U.S. governance wouldn’t permit Shariah law supremacy
Muslims living in the United States can put marital disputes and other personal matters in front of a tribunal made up of faith leaders. That’s allowed and has been used by Catholics, Jews, Lutherans, Baptists and other religions for decades. It falls under the umbrella of mediation, when people agree to work out their differences through a process outside of the courts.
For any other situation, the Constitution reigns, legal experts said. In 2009, the trial judge in a New Jersey domestic abuse case deferred to Shariah tenets, but the state’s Superior Court rejected that decision. And in no American community does a code based on Islamic, Jewish, Catholic or other religious precepts take precedence over American law.
“The laws that apply in New York City come from the legislature of New York state as well as local ordinances and regulations created by New York’s city council,” said Peter Mandaville, a George Mason University government and politics professor. “While the mayor of New York can propose legislation, it is not possible to unilaterally decree laws that have not been passed by the city council.”
Our ruling
Mace’s email said Mamdani “is bringing Sharia law to America.”
Mamdani has expressed no intention to implement Shariah in New York City. Mamdani’s background and policy positions do not include anything to suggest that he supports Islamic fundamentalism, and an expert told PolitiFact that Mamdani’s support for gay rights and decriminalizing sex work are the “antithesis” of Shariah.
No one can implement Shariah in the United States, given legal protections under the Constitution.
We rate the statement Pants on Fire!
PolitiFact Staff Writer Nick Karmia and PolitiFact News Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
After Zohran Mamdani handily won the New York City mayoral election, becoming the city’s first Muslim and first South Asian mayor-elect, Republican detractors in Washington said they would try to stop him from taking office.
President Donald Trump, who threatened to withhold federal funds to New York City if Mamdani won, lent credence to misleading questions about Mamdani’s citizenship and falsely accused the Ugandan-born 34-year-old of being a communist.
Some Republican lawmakers requested investigations into Mamdani’s naturalization process and have called for stripping him of his U.S. citizenship and deporting him, accusing him without evidence of embracing communist and terrorist activities.
“If Mamdani lied on his naturalization documents, he doesn’t get to be a citizen, and he certainly doesn’t get to run for mayor of New York City. A great American city is on the precipice of being run by a communist who has publicly embraced a terroristic ideology,” Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., said in an Oct. 29 press release after asking U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Mamdani. “The American naturalization system REQUIRES any alignments with communism or terrorist activities to be disclosed. I’m doubtful he disclosed them. If this is confirmed, put him on the first flight back to Uganda.”
Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., misrepresented Mamdani’s time in the U.S. when he said Oct. 27 on Newsmax, “The barbarians are no longer at the gate, they’re inside. … And Mamdani, having just moved here eight years ago, is a great example of that, becoming a citizen. Look, it is clear with much of what I have read that he did not meet the definition to gain citizenship.”
PolitiFact found no credible evidence that Mamdani lied on his citizenship application.
Born in Uganda, Mamdani moved to the U.S. in 1998 when he was 7 and became a U.S. citizen in 2018. For adults to become U.S. citizens, they generally must have lived continuously in the country as a lawful permanent resident for five years, or three years if married to a U.S. citizen.
Denaturalization, the process of revoking a person’s citizenship, can be done only by judicial order. It’s been used sparingly, such as for removing Nazis who fled to the U.S. after World War II or people convicted of or associated with terrorism.
Immigration law experts said they have seen no evidence to support Ogles and Fine’s assertions about Mamdani’s application.
“Denaturalization is an extreme, rare remedy that requires the government to prove either illegal procurement or a willful, material lie — at a minimum, clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence that the fact would have changed the outcome at the time of naturalization,” said immigration lawyer Jeremy McKinney. “I’ve seen no credible proof he was ineligible when he took the oath or that any omission was material.”
Ogles and Fine did not respond to PolitiFact’s requests for comment by publication.
Attacks on Mamdani’s naturalization process are flimsy, immigration experts say
The push to question Mamdani’s citizenship started in thesummer when he became the Democratic mayoral nominee.
In a June letter to Bondi, Ogles asked the Justice Department to pursue denaturalization proceedings against Mamdani, “on the grounds that he may have procured U.S. citizenship through willful misrepresentation or concealment of material support for terrorism.”
Ogles cited rap lyrics Mamdani wrote in 2017 supporting the “Holy Land Five,” a reference to five men in the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity, convicted in 2008 of providing material support to the terrorist group Hamas. Some lawyers have criticized the case’s evidence and use of hearsay.
Ogles and Fine said Mamdani did not disclose his Democratic Socialists of America membership on his citizenship application form; the lawmakers say it’s a communist organization and Mamdani’s involvement could have disqualified him from citizenship.
The U.S. naturalization form asks whether applicants have been a member, involved in or associated with any communist or totalitarian party. But the Democratic Socialists of America is not a communist party.
Democratic socialism emerged as an alternative to communism, Harvey Klehr, an Emory University expert on the history of American communism, previously told PolitiFact. Democratic socialists’ generally “reject the communist hostility to representative democracy, as well as the communist belief in state ownership of the means of production,” Klehr said.
McKinney said, “DSA membership isn’t a bar to citizenship; failing to list a lawful political group on the (naturalization form) doesn’t become fraud unless disclosure would have led to a denial. A lyric referencing the Holy Land Five is protected speech absent actual material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.”
PolitiFact reached out to Mamdani for comment but did not hear back.
The New York Young Republican Club is taking a different tactic, citing the 14th Amendment, the New York Post reported.
The amendment bars from office anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or who has “given aid or comfort to the enemies” of the country. The state GOP group said Mamdani provided “aid and comfort” to U.S. enemies by supporting “pro-Hamas” groups and said he supports gangs through his calls to resist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
This would be a longshot push for Congress to declare Mamdani ineligible for office, requiring a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate. If passed, it still could be challenged up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Immigration experts told PolitiFact that calls to resist ICE agents do not trigger the 14th Amendment, as the relevant clause targets insurrection and aid to wartime enemies, not domestic policy criticism.
A woman clutches a U.S. flag as she and applicants from 20 countries prepare to take the oath of citizenship in commemoration of Independence Day during a Naturalization Ceremony in San Antonio, July 3, 2025. (AP)
How denaturalization cases take shape
The Justice Department can strip U.S. citizenship by filing criminal charges for naturalization fraud or a civil lawsuit.
In either case, the government would have to prove that an applicant made a false statement in a citizenship application, and show that the statement would have affected the application.
The government’s standard to clear in a criminal case — proving guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”— is higher than a civil case standard of presenting “clear and convincing evidence.” The more common civil process lacks certain constitutional protections such as the right to a court-appointed lawyer, Cassandra Burke Robertson, a Case Western Reserve University law professor who studies denaturalization, said.
Robertson said it’s “extraordinarily unlikely that a proceeding against Mamdani would gain any traction.”
“The bigger risk, in my mind, is the potential chilling effect on individuals with fewer resources who might be afraid to speak out against the government,” Robertson said.
Although denaturalizations generally have been rare in the U.S., they’ve become more frequent under the Trump administration, Irina Manta, a Hofstra University law professor who studies denaturalization, said.
In June, the Justice Department issued a memo directing attorneys to prioritize denaturalization cases. The memo’s list of priority categories includes people who the administration says pose national security concerns, gang members and a catchall category for “any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue.”
If Mamdani were to have his citizenship revoked, his immigration status would revert to his previous one — lawful permanent residence. That would disqualify him from serving as New York City mayor.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
When Nancy Pelosi first ran for Congress, she was one of 14 candidates, the front-runner and a target.
At the time, Pelosi was little known to San Francisco voters. But she was already a fixture in national politics. She was a major Democratic fundraiser, who helped lure the party’s 1984 national convention to her adopted home town. She served as head of California’s Democratic Party and hosted a salon that was a must-stop for any politician passing through.
She was the chosen successor of Rep. Sala Burton, a short-timer who took over the House seat held for decades by her late husband, Philip, and who delivered a personal benediction from her deathbed.
But at age 49, Pelosi had never held public office — she was too busy raising five kids, on top of all that political moving and shaking — and opponents made light of role as hostess. “The party girl for the party,” they dubbed her, a taunt that blared from billboards around town.
She obviously showed them.
Pelosi not only made history, becoming the nation’s first female speaker of the House. She became the party’s spine and its sinew, holding together the Democrat’s many warring factions and standing firm at times the more timorous were prepared to back down.
The Affordable Care Act — President Obama’s signature achievement — would never have passed if Pelosi had not insisted on pressing on when many, including some in the White House, wished to surrender.
She played a significant role in twice helping rescue the country from economic collapse — the first time in 2009 amid the Great Recession, then in 2020 during the shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — mustering recalcitrant Democrats to ensure House passage.
“She will go down in history as one of the most important speakers,” James Thurber, a congressional expert at Washington’s American University, said. “She knew the rules, she knew the process, she knew the personalities of the key players, and she knew how to work the system.”
Pelosi’s announcement Thursday that she will not seek reelection — at age 85, after 38 years in Congress — came as no surprise. She saw firsthand the ravages that consumed her friend and former neighbor, Dianne Feinstein. (Pelosi’s eldest daughter, Nancy, was a last caretaker for the late senator.)
Pelosi, who was first elected in 1987, once said she never expected to serve in Congress more than 10 years. She recalled seeing a geriatric House member hobbling on a cane and telling a colleague, “It’s never going to be me. I’m not staying around that long.”
(She never used a cane, but did give up her trademark stiletto heels for a time after suffering a fall last December and undergoing hip replacement surgery.)
Pelosi had intended to retire sooner, anticipating Hillary Clinton would be elected president in 2016 and seeing that as a logical, and fitting, end point to her trailblazing political career. “I have things to do. Books to write; places to go; grandchildren, first and foremost, to love,” she said in a 2018 interview.
However, she was determined to stymie President Trump in his first term and stuck around, emerging as one of his chief nemeses. After Joe Biden was elected, Pelosi finally yielded the speaker’s gavel in November 2022.
But she remained a substantive figure, still wielding enormous power behind the scenes. Among other quiet maneuvers, she was instrumental in helping ease aside Biden after his disastrous debate performance sent Democrats into a panic. He was a personal friend, and long-ago guest at her political salon, but Pelosi anticipated a down-ticket disaster if Biden remained the party’s nominee. So, in her estimation, he had to go.
It was the kind of ruthlessness that gave Pelosi great pride; she boasted of a reptilian cold-bloodedness and, indeed, though she shared the liberal leanings of her hometown, Pelosi was no ideologue. That’s what made her a superb deal-maker and legislative tactician, along with the personal touch she brought to her leadership.
“She had a will of steel, but she also had a lot of grace and warmth,” said Thurber, “and that’s not always the case with speakers.”
History-making aside, Pelosi left an enduring mark on San Francisco, the place she moved to from Baltimore as a young mother with her husband, Paul, a financier and real estate investor. She brought home billions of dollars for earthquake safety, re-purposing old military facilities — the former Presidio Army base is a spectacular park — funding AIDS research and treatment, expanding public transit and countless other programs.
Her work in the 1980s and 1990s on AIDS funding was crucial in helping move discussion of the disease from the shadows — where it was viewed as a plague that mainly struck gay men and drug users — to a pressing national concern.
In the process, she become a San Francisco institution, as venerated as the Golden Gate Bridge and beloved as the city’s tangy sourdough bread.
“She’s an icon,” said Aaron Peskin, a former San Francisco County supervisor and 2024 candidate for mayor. “She walks into a room, people left, right and center, old, young, white, Black, Chinese stand on their feet. She’s one of the greatest speakers we have ever had and this town understands that.”
Pelosi grew up in Baltimore in a political family. He father, Tommy D’Alesandro, was a Democratic New Deal congressman, who went on to serve three terms as mayor. “Little Nancy” stuffed envelopes — as her own children would — passed out ballots and often traveled by her father’s side to campaign events. (D’Alesandro went on to serve three terms as mayor; Pelosi’s brother, Tommy III, held the job for a single term.)
David Axelrod, who saw Pelosi up close while serving as a top aide in the Obama White House, said he once asked her what she learned growing up in such a political household. “She didn’t skip a beat,” Axelrod said. “She said, ‘I learned how to count.’ ”
Meaning when to call the roll on a key legislative vote and when to cut her losses in the face of inevitable defeat.
Pelosi is still so popular in San Francisco she could well have eked out yet another reelection victory in 2026, despite facing the first serious challenge since that first run for Congress. But the campaign would have been brutal and potentially quite ugly.
More than just about anyone, Pelosi knows how to read a political situation with dispassion, detachment and cold-eyed calculation.
New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani swept to victory Tuesday evening on a platform of affordability, anchored by a plan to freeze rents across nearly 2 million rent-stabilized apartments.
But economists, universally, hate rent control. In a 2012 poll of top economists, just 2% agreed that rent-control laws have had “a positive impact” on the supply and quality of affordable housing. The Nobel laureate Richard Thaler even quipped in the survey that the next question should be: “Does the sun revolve around the Earth?”
Why do economists revile a plan that seems to promote fairness and equity in a housing market that is clearly broken?
Seductive simplicity
To most voters, freezing rents looks like common sense: If prices are out of reach, stop them from rising. But to economists, that’s like treating a fever by breaking the thermometer: It suppresses the symptom without curing the disease, the persistent shortage of housing.
“Freezing rents doesn’t fix scarcity,” said David Sims, a Brigham Young University economist whose research on Massachusetts rent control remains a touchstone. “It just reshuffles who bears the cost.”
Sims’s work examined the rent-control regime that once governed Cambridge, Mass., where tenants could stay indefinitely at below-market rents. The policy was meant to keep housing affordable, but it led to what he calls misallocation.
“People who could do better by moving tend to stay,” he told Fortune. “Older households hang on to large units they no longer need, while young families can’t find space. Over time, you end up with the wrong people in the wrong apartments.”
When Massachusetts voters repealed rent control in 1994, property values in Cambridge rose 45%—not only for the deregulated apartments, but for entire neighborhoods. It turned out that years of capped rents had discouraged investment and dragged down surrounding property values, meaning that when controls were finally removed, landlords were empowered to upgrade and renovate their apartments. Neighborhoods that had been frozen along with the rents suddenly seemed to revitalize.
That dynamic is already visible in New York. According to the city’s Housing and Vacancy Survey, roughly 26,000 rent-stabilized apartments are sitting empty, many uninhabitable because renovation costs far exceed what landlords can legally recover. The state’s 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act caps recoverable renovation expenses at $50,000 spread over 15 years. Rehabilitating a century-old tenement can cost twice that, leaving owners little incentive to do anything but lock the door.
Short-term relief, long-term pain
Rent control’s immediate benefits, for current residents, are undeniable. It offers stability to tenants living paycheck-to-paycheck and reduces the risk of displacement. But over the long term, economists argue it functions the same way as throwing sand in the gears of the housing market. Landlords defer maintenance they can’t recoup, new construction slows, and the available housing stock quietly erodes.
A 2018 Stanford study led by Rebecca Diamond, one of today’s leading experts in housing markets, found that when San Francisco expanded rent control in the 1990s, the supply of rental housing fell 15% over the next decade. Many landlords converted apartments to condos or owner-occupied housing to escape regulation. The policy helped existing tenants, but ultimately raised market rents citywide and accelerated gentrification, causing the opposite of what policymakers intended.
“It’s not about pitying landlords,” Sims said. “It’s about understanding incentives. You can’t expect people to invest in something if they’ll never break even—just like you can’t expect tenants to volunteer to pay more rent.”
For economists, the deeper problem with rent freezes is conceptual: They imply that affordability can simply be decreed against the logic of supply and demand.
“It creates this belief that the problem can be solved by fiat,” Sims said. “But rents are high because people want to live in New York. The only lasting fix is to make it easier to build more housing that people actually want.”
He offers a visceral analogy of market pressures: Black Friday. People don’t wait in line for stores anymore on Black Friday, Sims said, but there was a time when, for a $1,000 TV at $200, there’d be a line around the block at 4 a.m., and only a few lucky people would get the TV.
“But housing isn’t like a $200 TV,” Sims observed. “Everyone kind of needs a place to live, but if housing is priced like the $200 TV, then there’s a bunch of people in that line who don’t get it.”
That’s the thing about rent control, economists say: It benefits insiders at the expense of outsiders. Over time, it can deepen inequality by keeping younger, lower-income, or newly arrived residents locked out of regulated neighborhoods that effectively become closed clubs.
Band-Aid policy in a broken market
Supporters of Mamdani’s plan counter that New York’s crisis is so severe, temporary freezes are a moral necessity.
With median rents above $4,000, they argue, the city cannot wait for zoning reforms and construction projects that take years to materialize. But even sympathetic economists warn that without parallel measures to boost supply, a freeze simply defers the reckoning.
“If you don’t pair a rent freeze with a credible plan to add housing,” Sims said, “you’re not solving the problem. You’re just pushing off accountability without really solving the underlying problem.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday, capping a stunning ascent for the 34-year-old state lawmaker, who was set to become the city’s most liberal mayor in generations.
In a victory for the Democratic party’s progressive wing, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani must now navigate the unending demands of America’s biggest city and deliver on ambitious — skeptics say unrealistic — campaign promises.
With the victory, the democratic socialist will etch his place in history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage and the first born in Africa. He will also become the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century when he takes office on Jan. 1.
Mamdani’s unlikely rise gives credence to Democrats who have urged the party to embrace more progressive, left-wing candidates instead of rallying behind centrists in hopes of winning back swing voters who have abandoned the party.
He has already faced scrutiny from national Republicans, including President Donald Trump, who have eagerly cast him as a threat and the face of what they say is a more radical Democratic Party.
The contest drove the biggest turnout in a mayoral race in more than 50 years, with more than 2 million New Yorkers casting ballots, according to the city’s Board of Elections.
Mamdani’s grassroots campaign centered on affordability, and his charisma spoiled Cuomo’s attempted political comeback. The former governor, who resigned four years ago following allegations of sexual harassment that he continues to deny, was dogged by his past throughout the race and was criticized for running a negative campaign.
There’s also the question of how he will deal with Trump, who threatened to take over the city and to arrest and deport Mamdani if he won. Mamdani was born in Uganda, where he spent his early childhood, but was raised in New York City and became a U.S. citizen in 2018.
Mamdani must now start building for his ambitious agenda Mamdani, who was criticized throughout the campaign for his thin resume, will now have to begin staffing his incoming administration before taking office next year and game out how he plans to accomplish the ambitious but polarizing agenda that drove him to victory.
Among the campaign’s promises are free child care, free city bus service, city-run grocery stores and a new Department of Community Safety that would send mental health care workers to handle certain emergency calls rather than police officers. It is unclear how Mamdani will pay for such initiatives, given Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s steadfast opposition to his calls to raise taxes on wealthy people.
His decisions around the leadership of the New York Police Department will also be closely watched. Mamdani was a fierce critic of the department in 2020, calling for “this rogue agency” to be defunded and slamming it as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” He has since apologized for those comments and has said he will ask the current NYPD commissioner to stay on the job.
Mamdani’s campaign was driven by his optimistic view of the city and his promises to improve the quality of life for its middle and lower classes.
But Cuomo, Sliwa and other critics assailed him over his vehement criticism of Israel ’s military actions in Gaza. Mamdani, a longtime advocate of Palestinian rights, has accused Israel of committing genocide and said he would honor an arrest warrant the International Criminal Court issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
How Mamdani won over the city while Cuomo faltered Mamdani began his campaign as a relatively obscure state lawmaker, little known even within New York City.
Going into the Democratic primary, Cuomo was the presumed favorite, with near-universal name recognition and deep political connections. Cuomo’s chances were buoyed further when incumbent Mayor Eric Adams bowed out of the primary while dealing with the fallout of his now-dismissed federal corruption case.
But as the race progressed, Mamdani’s natural charm, catchy social media videos and populist economic platform energized voters in the notoriously expensive city. He also began drawing outside attention as his name ID grew.
Mamdani ultimately trounced Cuomo in the primary by about 13 points.
The former governor relaunched his campaign as an independent candidate for the general election, vowing to hit the streets with a more energetic approach. However, much of his campaign continued to focus on attacking opponents. In the race’s final stretch, he claimed Mamdani’s election would make Jews feel unsafe.
Meanwhile, supporters packed Mamdani’s rallies, and he held whimsical events, including a scavenger hunt and a community soccer tournament.
Cuomo also juxtaposed his deep experience in government with Mamdani’s less than five years in the state Legislature. But the former governor also faced his own political baggage, as his opponents dredged up the sexual harassment allegations that led to his resignation, as well as his decisions during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sliwa, the creator of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group, also had his moments — mostly in the form of funny quips on the debate stage — but had difficulty gaining traction as a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.
During the campaign, Mamdani liked to remind his audiences that New York is the richest city in the richest country in the history of the world, and that its government could do more for the people who live here. While his opponents described New York as broke, dysfunctional, and crime-ridden, Mamdani talked about the city as a lovely, if chaotic, place—full of tumult and injustices, yes, but also of life and possibilities. The Mamdani Cinematic Universe is a place where you can take the subway to the city clerk’s office to marry the girl you met on Hinge, where you can do Tai Chi and salsa-dance with old folks on the Lower East Side, where you can go for a polar plunge off Coney Island on New Year’s Day and walk the entire length of Manhattan on a hot summer night.
The feel-good content complemented his sharp-elbowed politics. Mamdani’s most Cuomo-esque quality is the evident pleasure he gets in public political combat—“Habibi, release your client list,” he taunted the former governor, over the mysterious legal-consulting practice that made him some five million dollars last year. When pressured to temper his criticisms of Israel, Mamdani has barely flinched. These qualities convinced many young voters, in particular, that he might have what it takes to follow through on his promises. They voted for him because they could imagine a city with free buses; because they thought that the idea of freezing rents in the city’s million or so rent-stabilized apartments sounded fair, even if they didn’t live in rent-stabilized apartments themselves; and because they liked the idea of New York being a place that offers universal child care to kids as young as six weeks old. The alternative that Cuomo offered—thoughts and prayers for high rents, more games and opaque machinations in City Hall, Democratic officials skirting around the bloodshed in Gaza—was simply too bleak.
Since the primary, senior figures in New York’s Democratic establishment have continued to hold Mamdani at arm’s length. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries put off endorsing him for so long that he embarrassed himself. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand (the latter of whom had to apologize after suggesting on public radio that Mamdani supports “global jihad”) never came around. But former President Barack Obama saw something in Mamdani—he’s called to check in with the young guy twice since June—as has New York’s moderate governor, Kathy Hochul. At a rally in the campaign’s closing days at Forest Hills Stadium, in Queens, Hochul warmed up the crowd for Mamdani—or tried to. “Tax the rich!” the crowd jeered at her. The shy, tax-averse governor struggled to maintain her composure. “I can hear you!” she said. Mamdani appeared on the stage, strode over to Hochul, and held one of her hands in the air. The heckling transformed into a roar of approval.
When I first talked to Mamdani, two years ago, he was an Albany backbencher with few allies in the legislature. He called me a few days after October 7th, worried about Islamophobic backlash in the city. Shortly after, he got arrested while protesting for a ceasefire outside Schumer’s apartment building. He was, at that moment, about as far out on the margins of power as an elected official can be. In the past few months, Mamdani has looked more comfortable navigating the compromises and contradictions that being mayor will impose on him. He has expressed newfound appreciation for the role of private real-estate development, and has promised to ask the police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, a favorite of the city’s wealthy establishment, to stay on in his administration. “If he becomes mayor, so be it,” Jamie Dimon, the C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase, said recently. Mamdani is untested, his network of longtime allies is small, and he lacks the connections and history in the city’s power structure that even an ambitious progressive like Bill de Blasio relied on to get things done. But that’s the point. New Yorkers didn’t want an insider with decades of experience. They wanted Zohran Mamdani.
“Do we Americans really want good government?” the muckraker Lincoln Steffens wrote in McClure’s magazine in 1903. “Do we know it when we see it?” Steffens had spent months investigating the peculiar limitations and outrages of New York City’s Tammany Hall-era bureaucracy. It wasn’t that the people of New York didn’t know that the machine was corrupt; it was that they only rarely could be bothered to care. “Tammany is corruption with consent,” Steffens wrote. “It is bad government founded on the suffrages of the people.” Occasionally, when the excesses of the machine grew “rampant,” the people were moved to throw the bosses out. An outsider mayoral candidate would put himself forward, pledging to make a “clean sweep,” organizing the various factions of the city’s political opposition, and galvanizing the city with a “hot campaign.” But it never ended well. Inevitably, the bosses were voted back to power. Steffens called this frustrating pattern “the standard course of municipal reform.”
With the exception of Fiorello LaGuardia, every liberal, reform-minded mayor since the late nineteenth century has met some dismal version of the “standard course.” Seth Low, the wonkish former Columbia University president who was mayor when Steffens was writing, was denied a second term by George B. McClellan, Jr., a favorite of the Tammany boss Richard Croker. In the sixties, John Lindsay came into office riding a wave of charisma and good feeling, and left behind frustrations and disastrous city books when he departed eight years later. David Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor (and also the first mayor who had been a member of the Democratic Socialists of America), saw his administration undone by racial violence and concerns about crime, and was beaten by Rudy Giuliani when he ran for a second term. De Blasio, whom Mamdani considers the best mayor of his lifetime, accomplished much of the agenda that he ran on in 2013, but New Yorkers got sick of him anyway. “The good mayor turns out to be weak or foolish or ‘not so good,’ ” Steffens wrote. “Or the people become disgusted.”
On her first day in office, Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency on homelessness.
The declaration allowed the city to cut through red tape, including through no-bid contracts, and to start Inside Safe, Bass’ signature program focused on moving homeless people off the streets and into interim housing.
On Tuesday, nearly three years after she took the helm, and with homelessness trending down two years in a row for the first time in recent years, the mayor announced that she will lift the state of emergency on Nov. 18.
“We have begun a real shift in our city’s decades-long trend of rising homelessness,” Bass said in a memorandum to the City Council.
Still, the mayor said, there is much work to do.
“The crisis remains, and so does our urgency,” she said.
The mayor’s announcement followed months of City Council pushback on the lengthy duration of the state of emergency, which the council had initially approved.
Some council members argued that the state of emergency allowed the mayor’s office to operate out of public view and that contracts and leases should once again be presented before them with public testimony and a vote.
Councilmember Tim McOsker has been arguing for months that it was time to return to business as usual.
“Emergency powers are designed to allow the government to suspend rules and respond rapidly when the situation demands it, but at some point those powers must conclude,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
McOsker said the move will allow the council to “formalize” some of the programs started during the emergency, while incorporating more transparency.
Council members had been concerned that the state of emergency would end without first codifying Executive Directive 1, which expedites approvals for homeless shelters as well as for developments that are 100% affordable and was issued by Bass shortly after she took office.
On Oct. 28, the council voted for the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would enshrine the executive directive into law.
The mayor’s announcement follows positive reports about the state of homelessness in the city.
As of September, the mayor’s Inside Safe program had moved more than 5,000 people into interim housing since its inception at the end of 2022. Of those people, more than 1,243 have moved into permanent housing, while another 1,636 remained in interim housing.
This year, the number of homeless people living in shelters or on the streets of the city dropped 3.4%, according to the annual count conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. The number of unsheltered homeless people in the city dropped by an even steeper margin of 7.9%.
The count, however, has its detractors. A study by Rand found that the annual survey missed nearly a third of homeless people in Hollywood, Venice and Skid Row — primarily those sleeping without tents or vehicles.
In June, a federal judge decided not to put Los Angeles’ homelessness programs into receivership, while saying that the city had failed to meet some of the terms of a settlement agreement with the nonprofit LA Alliance for Human Rights.
Councilmember Nithya Raman, who chairs the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, said the end of the emergency does not mean the crisis is over.
“It only means that we must build fiscally sustainable systems that can respond effectively,” she said. “By transitioning from emergency measures to long-term, institutional frameworks, we’re ensuring consistent, accountable support for people experiencing homelessness.”
Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, criticized the legitimacy of New York City’s election system as voters prepared to head to the polls.
Musk shared a photograph of New York City’s ballot on Nov. 4, Election Day. “The New York City ballot form is a scam! No ID is required. Other mayoral candidates appear twice. (Andrew) Cuomo’s name is last in bottom right,” wrote Musk, who supports Cuomo over Democratic frontrunner Zohran Mamdani and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa. Other X users made similar points in other posts.
New York doesn’t require voters to present IDs at their polling place on Election Day, beyond first-time voters who did not present ID at the time they registered. For all other voters, poll workers confirm identity by matching their signature to official records. People are required to present ID when they register to vote.
As for Cuomo’s ballot placement, the former New York governor lost the Democratic primary and created his own independent party to allow him to run in the general election. According to election rules, that meant the placement for Cuomo and his new party was further down the ballot than longer-established parties.
What about candidates appearing twice? There’s nothing fishy about that: It’s part of New York’s long tradition of fusion voting, in which multiple parties can nominate the same candidate.
Having a candidate appear on the ballot twice is “not a scam at all,” said Jerry H. Goldfeder, senior counsel at the law firm Cozen O’Connor. “New York has had fusion voting for many, many years.”
How does fusion voting work?
If a candidate receives more than one party nomination, voters must choose not only the candidate they prefer but also the party they want those votes to count for.
In the 2025 mayoral election, both Mamdani and one of his opponents, Sliwa, secured nominations of two parties, so they are listed twice on the ballot.
Mamdani won nominations from the Democratic Party and the left-wing Working Families Party. (On Election Day, Mamdani said he voted for himself on the Working Families Party line.)
Sliwa won the nomination of the Republican Party and a party he created called the Protect Animals Party. (Sliwa has attracted notice for having 16 cats in his 320-square-foot studio apartment, and he’s made animal welfare a key campaign issue.)
Any votes for a candidate, regardless of the party line the vote is cast under, counts toward that candidate’s total. “Although candidates may appear on more than one party’s line, voters can only vote for them once,” said Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers University public policy professor.
So why would voters support a prominent candidate on a minor-party line?
They might want to send a message about the importance of that party’s positions. They also might want to ensure that the smaller party continues to win enough votes to secure a ballot spot in future elections.
By allowing cross-party alliances, a fusion system allows smaller parties to be more than just a “wasted vote” or a self-defeating “spoiler,” said Dan Cantor, who co-founded the Working Families Party and now heads the Center for Ballot Freedom, which supports fusion voting.
“It allows voters the ability to vote their values and send a message to the candidate that he or she should be attentive to the minor party’s concerns,” Cantor said.
Fusion voting’s long history
Fusion voting dates to the 19th century, but only New York and Connecticut allow the practice today.
Historically, cross-nominations were used to elevate issues including the abolition of slavery and enhanced political representation into the mainstream, wrote three legal experts for the American Bar Association in 2024.
In the close 1960 presidential election, New York’s 45 electoral votes were crucial. While Richard Nixon received more Republican votes than John F. Kennedy received Democratic votes, “Kennedy’s 6% support on the Liberal Party line delivered him the state and the White House,” the authors wrote. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan also won New York by fusing with minor parties.
Tabatha Abu El-Haj, one of the authors of the American Bar Association paper, said there’s an irony in Musk’s criticism: “Back when Elon Musk threw out the notion of forming a third-party, many commentators noted the only way that party could actually influence the direction of the Republican Party would be if it operated as a fusion party.”
Our ruling
Musk wrote, “The New York City ballot form is a scam” because “mayoral candidates appear twice.”
Mamdani and Sliwa are on the mayoral ballot twice because two separate parties made them their nominees. This is how fusion voting works, and how it has operated in New York since the nineteenth century.
We rate the statement False.
PolitiFact New York Writer Jill Terreri Ramos contributed to this report.
MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum ruled out a new “war on drugs” as a response to the assassination of a regional mayor who was shot at a Day of the Dead celebration, a brazen killing that has sparked national outrage.
“Returning to the war against el narco is not an option,” Sheinbaum told reporters Monday, referring to the bloody anti-crime offensive launched almost two decades ago. “Mexico already did that, and the violence got worse.”
The president spoke as the nation was reeling from the killing Saturday of Carlos Manzo, mayor of Uruapan in the west-central state of Michoacán, which has become an organized-crime battleground. She condemned the assassination as “vile” and vowed to track down his killers.
While Mexican mayors and other local officials are frequent cartel targets — scores have been assassinated in recent years as gangs fight for control of city halls, budgets and police forces — the killing of Manzo struck a nerve nationwide.
A crowd in Uruapan, Mexico, mourns Mayor Carlos Manzo, who was fatally shot over the weekend during a Day of the Dead celebration in the city.
(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)
Manzo, 40, gained notoriety as an outspoken proponent of taking a hard-line against the cartels that have overrun many regions of Mexico. According to Manzo, police and prosecutors coddle criminals ill-deserving of legal protections.
Manzo’s unyielding stance won him considerable popularity in a nation where polls show security remains citizens’ major concern — despite Sheinbaum’s frequent citing of official figures showing that homicides and other violent crimes are decreasing.
“The murder of the mayor is a clear signal of what we all know but what the government of President Sheinbaum denies: The country is governed by narco-traffickers,” Felipe Rosas Montesinos, 45, a flower salesman in Mexico City, said. “And if anyone challenges el narco, like the mayor of Uruapan did, they will kill him.”
Added Gilberto Santamaría, 37, a mechanic: “This makes one feel defeated, losing hope that anything will ever change.”
Manzo — who split with Sheinbaum’s ruling, center-left Morena party — was among a number of voices across Latin America who have called for more aggressive tactics to combat crime. Some labeled Manzo the “Mexican Bukele,” after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has locked up tens of thousands of alleged gang members, many without due process, according to human rights advocates.
The mayor’s killing “feels like a terror movie in which the bad guys win,” said María Guadalupe Rodríguez, 51, a nurse. “The sad part is that it’s not a movie: It’s what we live with in Mexico.”
A day after Manzo’s killing, protesters filled the streets of Uruapan and Morelia, the capital of Michoacán state. Many condemned Sheinbaum and her Morena party for what they called a permissive attitude toward crime.
While the protests were mostly peaceful, authorities said, some demonstrators broke into the state government palace in Morelia and trashed offices and other installations. Police responded with tear gas and arrested at least eight vandalism suspects.
Manzo was shot multiple times Saturday at a candlelight Day of the Dead festival that he was attending with his family in downtown Uruapan. One suspect was killed and two accomplices arrested, police said.
The killing was a well-planned cartel hit, Security Minister Omar García Harfuch told reporters. The suspects managed to circumvent Manzo’s contingent of bodyguards, García Harfuch said. Authorities were investigating which of the area’s many mobs were behind the slaying.
Uruapan, a city of more than 300,000, is situated in the verdant hills of Michoacán, where most of Mexico’s avocados are grown. The lucrative industry — “green gold” generates $3 billion annually in exports to the United States — has for years been the target of a patchwork of armed groups who extort money from growers, packers, truckers and others.
Almost 20 years ago, then-President Felipe Calderón chose Michoacán as the launching pad for a nationwide war on drugs, deploying troops to combat the growing power of cartels. That strategy is widely believed to have had the unintended consequence of increasing violence: Gangs acquired ever-more powerful weapons to match the firepower of the armed forces, while cartel infighting accelerated as police captured or killed capos.
Upon taking office in 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised a different approach, saying the military deployment had turned Mexico into a “graveyard.” He instructed troops to refrain from direct confrontations with cartels, when possible, and vowed to attend to poverty and other underlying social-economic social forces behind the violence.
Critics labeled López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy a disaster, as violent crime spiked.
Sheinbaum, a protege of López Obrador, embraced her predecessor’s approach but sought to improve Mexico’s intelligence-gathering and investigatory powers and strengthen the rule of law. Her government has aggressively arrested thousands of cartel suspects, several dozen of whom were sent to the United States to face trial.
For Manzo, however, Sheinbaum’s strategy was a rebranded incarnation of “hugs not bullets.”
The war on drugs, experts say, did nothing to cut the flow of cocaine, synthetic opiates like fentanyl and other substances to the United States, the world’s major consumer. And Mexico’s cartels, by all accounts, have only gotten stronger in recent years, despite the take-down of numerous kingpins.
Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed.
In the autumn of 2008, Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State under George W. Bush, broke from the Republican Party and endorsed the Democratic nominee for President, Barack Obama. It had been a brutal summer of electoral warfare. Rumors that Obama was Muslim swirled, becoming a significant aspect of the media coverage of his campaign. A group working with his opponent, John McCain, called people in swing states, planted doubts about Obama’s religious background, and asked how they would vote if they knew that the Democrat was supported by Hamas. McCain’s spokesperson defended the calls, but when a voter later said, in a town hall, that she couldn’t trust Obama, who was “an Arab,” McCain shook his head. “No, ma’am,” he said. Obama was a “decent family man.” The implication that “an Arab” could not possess those qualities was poisonous enough, but it was Powell who tackled the unspoken. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he acknowledged that Obama “is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian.” Nevertheless, Powell went on, what if Obama were Muslim? “Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?”
Seventeen years later, that question has become central to New York City’s mayoral race, in which Zohran Mamdani, a thirty-four-year-old democratic socialist and a Muslim, has held a solid lead since winning the Democratic primary this past summer. There have been plenty of legitimate attacks on Mamdani’s candidacy, citing his inexperience and interrogating how he will deliver on his promises to make the city more affordable. In recent weeks, though, many critiques have been tinged with specifically anti-Muslim undertones. Ellie Cohanim, a former deputy special envoy to combat antisemitism in the first Trump Administration, posted a photo of the Twin Towers burning, on September 11, 2001, and wrote, “Never Forget. . . . Vote Andrew Cuomo & save our city”; the New York Post has run headlines that link Mamdani to terrorism, such as “WEAPONS OF HAMAS DESTRUCTION.” Cuomo himself, the former governor of New York, who is running against Mamdani as an Independent, recently made remarks about his opponent that garnered wide attention. In an interview with the conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg, Cuomo asked if anyone could “imagine Mamdani in the seat,” if there were another 9/11. When Rosenberg replied, “He’d be cheering,” Cuomo chuckled along and added, “That’s another problem.”
The comment echoed a similar declaration made during another much watched campaign. In November, 2015, Donald Trump, who was then running for President, claimed that he had seen “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating during 9/11. A month later, he called for a plan to ban Muslims from entering the country in a bid to keep it safe. After he took office, in January, 2017, the policy went into effect, and hundreds of New Yorkers descended on J.F.K. Airport to protest. Governor Cuomo, in a show of solidarity, declared, “As a New Yorker, I am a Muslim.” It was a politically useful sentiment back then.
Trump’s story was a lie, but it gave voice to long-held suspicions of so-called dual loyalty. After 9/11, authorities rounded up Muslim men across the country and detained them without charge—in some cases, for years—or deported them for minor visa violations. To avoid such fates, many Muslim families fled the U.S., leaving behind neighbors and friends. The New York City Police Department devised a Demographics Unit, whose undercover officers and informants combed through Muslim neighborhoods and hid in bookstores and mosques and restaurants in search of terrorist threats, leaving communities fearful that they were always being watched. The program continued for years and, after being challenged in court, was eventually disbanded.
Former PresidentBarack Obama told Zohran Mamdani that he was invested in the New York mayoral candidate’s success during a phone call Saturday, according to a report from The New York Times.
Obama called Mamdani and they spoke for about 30 minutes, two people who were either on the call or were briefed about it told the outlet.
Mamdani is leading in the polls over his rivals, former New York governor and independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
During the call, Obama praised Mamdani’s campaign and offered to be a “sounding board” for the Democratic candidate. The pair also discussed Mamdani’s affordability agenda as well as hiring a new administration, according to the report.
Newsweek has reached out to Mamdani’s press team and the Obama Foundation on behalf of the former president for comment via email on Saturday.
