New Mayor for NYC 🎉

[StrongLikeMamma]

Is this the beginning of the end for the crazy republicans? Or just the NYC bubble of sanity?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/04/zohran-mamdani-mayor-new-york-city

I know. Things like free buses. How disgusting. I hope he's never able to make that happen.

So much much better for a population to build massive ballrooms, make everything more expensive with ill-conceived tariffs, accept jets that will cost somewhere around a billion dollars to refurbish and pardon fraudsters, violent insurrectionists and drug dealers (just for a start).

Well we'll have to wait until 2029 to see who's right on that.

Do you mean 2028?

I didn't say anything about 2029, I think you were trying to respond to someone else?

There is no such thing as free buses. Fortunately, Governor Hochul is already shutting Mamdani's crackpot ideas down. It will be entertaining to watch him have to walk back all his false promises.

Presumably Governor Hochul is also elected. It would be equally entertaining to see him defeated for attempting to thwart democracy.

Apologies, it was @1dayatatime who said 2029.

@SLeighHart What exactly do you object to about free buses?

I would say Hochul has been non-committal about it and I'm guessing will work with him. It's not in either of their interests for them to not find a way to work cooperatively to make him successful.

What the Trump/Mamdani meeting did accomplish was to create a real setback to Stefanik's challenge to Hochul and she'll want to keep that momentum.

@Blossomtoes Hochul is a she (Kathy) and is also a Democrat. The budget for NYC is complicated and a lot of the funding is allocated by the governor and state legislature, so she'll be doing a complicated balancing act to try to keep her budget in check while working with him.

The MTA (transit) is controlled by the state not the city. Even during the campaign people asked how Mamdani was going to get MTA to agree.

Hochul is up for reelection next year. She needs to be able to get votes throughout the state, not just the city. Having the state pay for free buses in NYC isn’t so popular outside the city.

Common sense.

The subway and buses are a problem. Free transport would be fantastic BUT you would still need some way of deterring ne’er-do-wells. Currently they jump/push through the barriers, but can you imagine if it was just free entry? NO ONE would be travelling the subway if it was full of robbers/gangs/mentally ill.

The last time I was on a NY bus a man started verbally abusing female passengers - really awful stuff. Luckily there was some sort of marshall on the bus who threw him off - but he was still wandering the streets - not good.

Yes, but New York City sends more to Albany in tax revenues than it gets back. NYC arguably does more for the state than the rest of the state does for NYC, so I would imagine he too has some negotiating power.

Hochul does need to be reelected, but at the moment it looks like Stefanik is going to be primaried by someone even more MAGA. Even with significant movement towards Trump in 24, Harris still carried the state by (iirc) something like 56-44%. The trend seems to be away from Republicans at the moment and NY has rarely elected Republican governors - I think George Pataki, who would essentially be a moderate democrat now - was the last one?

So I think Hochul feels the wind is blowing favourably for her, and it's in her interest at the end of the day for Mamdani to be successful, so my guess is that they will end up negotiating to land somewhere in the middle