Bill de Blasio: Why I am endorsing Zohran Mamdani

By Bill De Blasio
PUBLISHED: September 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM EDT

What is a New York City where working class people no longer can afford to live? What kind of identity, what type of soul, would that place have?

Would it still glow with the restless energy with which we’ve always been defined by? Or would it recede in its absence?

By relentlessly challenging the status quo of deepening unaffordability, Zohran Mamdani is calling this into question.

He is asking if anything short of bold sweeping action will save the essence of this place. He has run on an agenda that puts working people first — a rent freeze for more than two million tenants, universal child care for all kids 6 weeks to 5-year-olds, faster and free buses. It’s an agenda that won him a historic Democratic primary victory this past June, as an unprecedented coalition of New Yorkers stood up and demanded more from the city government.

Yet, though many New Yorkers agree with him — many others are skeptical. Still others have lost faith in the city government’s ability to not only talk, but deliver. They want to know one fundamental truth: can it be done?

I can say definitely — and I know better than anyone — that the answer is yes.

https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/09/02/bill-de-blasio-why-i-am-endorsing-zohran-mamdani/