Here’s Where NYC Mayoral Candidates Stand on Key Issues

Housing

All nine candidates unanimously agree that New York, which has some of the highest average rents and lowest vacancy rates in the city’s history, is in dire need of more affordable housing. Construction of new projects began at a sluggish pace at the start of the Adams administration in 2022, though the rate has since picked up. In 2024, construction began on more than 42,400 new units.

Candidates have varying ideas on where to place some of the new housing units. Comptroller Brad Lander wants to build affordable communities on four of the 12 golf courses that are operated on city-owned land. And a number of candidates — including former Comptroller Scott Stringer and State Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani — want to use vacant city-owned parcels and crack down on unscrupulous landlords to meet their housing commitments. State Senator Zellnor Myrie has committed to building 1 million homes over the next decade.

All but one candidate indicated that a rent freeze on the city’s stabilized housing could be plausible. Several said they wanted to see more data before committing, but former hedge fund executive Whitney Tilson said supporting a rent freeze isn’t part of his agenda.

During former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, from 2014 through 2021, city officials froze rents at regulated properties four times. But under Adams, city officials have approved rent increases every year.

The Rent Guidelines Board, whose nine members are appointed by the mayor, is the governing body that sets the rent increases for the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized dwellings. State Senator Jessica Ramos is among the candidates who say more tenant advocates should be named to the board so it would be more representative of everyday New Yorkers. Lander and Cuomo have also called for reforming who is on the board.

Crime and Incarceration

Under Mayor Adams, murders and shootings are trending down, while violent incidents like assaults and robberies have risen and haven’t returned to prepandemic levels. That’s contributed to a perception of disorder in the nation’s biggest city.

Today, the New York Police Department employs around 34,000 officers, nearly 1,000 short of its budgeted headcount. More than 5,000 officers will be retirement-eligible in 2025 too. For the coming fiscal year, the department is set to receive more than $6.1 billion for its operations, $300 million more than its allocated amount last year. However, the department exceeds its budget on an annual basis due to overtime costs that the City Council has described as “potential corruption.” This year it’s on pace to spend $1.1 billion on overtime, nearly double its budgeted figure.

Currently, the NYPD is helmed by Jessica Tisch, who took over in November, becoming the fourth NYPD commissioner of Mayor Adams’ first term. Tisch, who previously served as the city’s sanitation commissioner, has been seen as a bright spot in an Adams administration beset by scandals.

In 2017, the city passed a law to close the city’s Rikers Island jail complex and replace it with smaller jails in four boroughs (all except Staten Island) by 2027. City officials have admitted that timeline is no longer feasible because of delays and cost overruns.

Cost of Living

From groceries and utility bills to rent and childcare, the cost-of-living squeeze has hit New York harder than many other parts of the country.

From 2018 through 2023, the minimum wage in the city for companies employing more than 10 workers remained stagnant at $15 an hour, despite the city facing some of the worst inflation in decades. Minimum wage stands now at $16.50 an hour, with one more 50-cent increase set to take effect in January. Further increases will be tied to the regional Consumer Price Index.

The city has made progress on childcare affordability in recent years with the implementation of a 3-K program, but residents are still feeling the pinch.

The City’s 3-K program, which was originally planned by de Blasio, offers free six-hour schooling for 3-year-olds. However, seat availability often doesn’t line up with demand. Districts in some parts of Queens and Brooklyn tend to have more empty seats, while neighborhoods with more high-performing schools have long waitlists. Parents in those districts often opt for out-of-pocket schools or full-time at-home options.

Private options aren’t cheap either. According to Care.com, the weekly cost of hiring a full-time nanny in the city has gone up more than 37% since before the pandemic, from nearly $700 to $960.

Education

Education is the single biggest expense in the city’s $115 billion budget, with 36 cents of every dollar the city spends going toward funding for schools and the Department of Education. But K-12 enrollment has dropped by more than 60,000 students over the past 10 years. Some parents decided to put their children through private schooling during and after the pandemic, and many families have opted to leave the city altogether.

A looming question for the next mayor is how to lure students back into the school system, and how to make up for pandemic education losses — from remote schooling to mental-health issues. Some candidates are proposing curriculum additions like financial studies, media literacy and beefing up critical-thinking modules.

In recent years, a polarizing debate over the future of the city’s specialized high school admissions process has divided New Yorkers, with some opponents of the test arguing the process discriminates against Blacks and Hispanics. Eighth- and ninth-graders can take a standardized test to gain admittance into one of the system’s eight specialized high schools. Entrance is highly competitive. More than 25,000 students sat for the test last year. Just over 4,000 students earned a spot. The ninth specialized school admits students based on auditions.

Transit

All of the candidates are mostly in support of the first-ever congestion pricing program in the US. The next mayor will have to work with Governor Kathy Hochul to save the program from the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate it. Most of the candidates are also proposing making transit more accessible by expanding the city’s Fair Fares program, which lets eligible riders commute for half price. One of Mamdani’s signature policies is making city buses free altogether.

The city’s Independent Budget Office estimates that making buses free will cost $650 million a year.

Migration

New York is a so-called sanctuary city: Local agencies are restricted in how much they can support federal immigration enforcement to establish a more welcoming atmosphere to immigrants. Deportations in New York sharply increased during President Donald Trump’s first administration, and the trend could continue again after he proposed a hefty increase in funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump

Trump, a native New Yorker, has already targeted his hometown multiple times in the first few months of his second term. He’s cut $400 million in funding to city agencies and is trying to kill congestion pricing. Trump also pulled $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University, before the Morningside Heights-based college yielded to several of his demands to get the funding reinstated. New York City currently receives 7% to 8% of its overall budget from federal funds, money that could be in jeopardy, given that Trump has proposed deeper cuts in his new budget plan.

Climate Change

New York City is one of the worst emissions-producing cities in the world. In 2019, city officials passed Local Law 97, which mandated strict carbon caps on a majority of buildings larger than 25,000 square feet. Buildings will be subject to additional emissions restrictions beginning in 2030 — part of an ambitious goal to make the city carbon-neutral by 2050.

Taxes

The nine candidates have big plans for the city, but how they will pay for their ambitious new agenda items is a more difficult question. Mayors don’t have the authority to raise or lower taxes, except for their ability to adjust city property tax levies. Any new taxes or increases in existing tax rates have to be approved by the state legislature and the governor.

Four of the nine candidates said they can pay for their entire agenda without raising any taxes. Other candidates want to leverage city property tax reform to fund their agenda. Mamdani, who is currently polling in second, wants to raise the highest corporate tax rate to that of New Jersey’s — 11.5%, up from 7.5% — to fund his programs. He is also proposing an additional 2% flat income tax on New Yorkers earning $1 million or more, which would need state approval.

Candidates were also asked if there was a city law or agency that they would get rid of. Responses varied widely.

Coalitions

Since 2021, New York City has used ranked choice in primaries for certain elected offices: mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president and city council.

That makes it advantageous for candidates to start building coalitions on who else to list besides themselves. Earlier in the campaign, some candidates were recommending an ABC strategy: rank “anyone but Cuomo.” But one of the biggest proponents of that strategy, Ramos, now says her voters should rank Cuomo second. Tilson similarly named him as his second choice, saying he is mostly aligned with the former governor.

“But I don’t have the history or baggage that he has,” Tilson told Bloomberg News on April 21.

On May 30, the Working Families Party released its slate of candidates to rank: Mamdani first, followed by Lander, Adrienne Adams, Myrie and Ramos. They removed Ramos from the slate June 6 following her endorsement of Cuomo. Some groups have proposed to rank Blake fifth on voters’ ballots, but the Working Families Party has not. The party has indicated that if none of its endorsed candidates win the primary, it will name one person to run on the WFP ballot line in the November general election.

Cuomo has also indicated that he will run as an independent in November if he doesn’t earn the Democratic nomination. The general election field could look a lot like a rerun of the primary, with the addition of Eric Adams.

The race to City Hall has really only just begun.