Four days into early voting ahead of the November 4 election, turnout in New York has already surged to nearly five times the level recorded during the 2021 mayoral race.
The surge comes as affordability emerges as the election's defining issue. For many New Yorkers, the cost of living has become untenable. Surging grocery prices now compete with sky-high rents for top spot among economic grievances.
According to US federal data, prices for eggs, meat, poultry and fish have climbed by nearly 9 per cent over the past year in the city.
“Grocery prices are out of control – as mayor, I will create a network of city-owned grocery stores,” said Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens and the race’s frontrunner, in a recent social media post.
Mr Mamdani has built his campaign around an unorthodox proposal: five city-run grocery stores that would sell food at near-wholesale prices and operate without a profit motive. The stores, he said, would be built on city-owned land, would be exempt from rent and property taxes and would be stocked through bulk purchasing agreements.
His pitch is simple, even blunt. “New Yorkers can’t afford groceries,” the mayoral hopeful said. “We will redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores, whose mission is lower prices, not price-gouging.”
Mr Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has argued that the initiative will combat inflation-driven food insecurity and loosen what he calls the “corporate stranglehold” on the cost of living. His supporters see his idea of city-run markets as a moral response to skyrocketing prices.
“I think it’s the correct approach,” said Jose Suarez, 31, a bartender. “Prices have risen a lot because of inflation and it's less money for my family. I’m not able to save at all. I think his plan can work.”
Others see in Mr Mamdani a broader vision for a fairer city. “I like Mamdani because he wants to bring affordability back to New York, making rent affordable, which is something every New Yorker suffers from,” said Lisa, 52. “He represents a reset button.”
Maddi, 26, a Brooklyn resident who has canvassed for Mr Mamdani, shared a similar view. “I love that he answers questions directly,” she said. “It looks like he has a plan and is very transparent. I like that he’s young but not too young … he has energy. He has no problem apologising. I want a system that makes things more equitable.”
The idea of city-run markets carries echoes far beyond New York City. Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, noted that a similar system of municipally backed food programmes helped shape the political ascent of Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
As mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s, Mr Erdogan established a network of subsidised markets and urban welfare programmes that built deep reservoirs of grassroots support.
“It’s the same kind of ecosystem of urban subsidies that Mamdani is proposing,” Ms Aydintasbas said. “Grocery stores, free buses, rent control, these become both social safety nets and political tools.”
A similar experiment unfolded in Venezuela under its former leader Hugo Chavez. The Mercal network of government-run supermarkets expanded rapidly in the early 2000s and provided cheap staples such as rice, milk and oil to millions of low-income households.
At its peak, it symbolised the state’s promise to feed the poor and counter the power of private distributors. But as inflation rose and corruption seeped into procurement, Mercal’s shelves emptied.
Mr Mamdani’s plan draws from the same logic that access to food is a public right, not a privilege dictated by private profit. But unlike Turkey or Venezuela, where state-backed markets operated as arms of centralised power, his proposal would unfold in a city governed by budget constraints, labour protections and fierce political scrutiny.
His supporters view the plan as a response to what they describe as an affordability crisis, while critics – including President Donald Trump, who has called Mamdani a “communist” – believe the idea goes too far, calling it an example of government overreach.
Pershing Square Capital Management CEO Bill Ackman asserted at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh on Tuesday that having a socialist mayor would be "catastrophic" for New York.
John Lowrey, an assistant professor of supply chain and information management at Northeastern University, questioned the “suitability and sustainability of publicly funded grocery stores in New York City, or elsewhere”.
“Ironically, city-funded stores could undercut or ‘crowd out’ small, independent grocers that compete in the same geographic area,” he said. “This could have the unintended effect of greater market concentration and a higher market share for larger-format stores.”
As for alternatives, Dr Lowrey suggested that “a more practical approach is to lean on existing market infrastructure”, such as increasing funding for food banks and non-profit organisations that recover and redistribute food. “Food banks,” he added, “are among the most efficient types of non-profit.”
While Mr Mamdani has put a fresh, younger face on city politics, critics say he lacks the experience and know-how needed to lead the biggest urban area in the US.
“He is articulate and intelligent but has zero real-world experience,” a New York City legal worker, who asked not to be named, told The National. “It’s naive to believe raising taxes on the middle and upper-middle class will solve inequality."
The legal worker added that Mr Mamdani's previous comments on the police and Israel were alienating to many, and that this is not what the city needs.
"He’s spent his career disparaging both the police and the Jewish community and now claims to support them. That doesn’t ring true," the legal worker said. “New York needs a leader who wants to bring people together and find ways to improve services and opportunities for all … that is not him. He is going to discourage business, hurt property owners and make it more difficult and dangerous to live here."
The legal worker cast his ballot on Monday for former New York State governor Andrew Cuomo, but conceded a final point about Mr Mamdani: “He’ll probably win, and if he does, I fear he’ll do more damage than [former mayor Bill] de Blasio.”
Like Mr Mamdani, Mr de Blasio, who served two terms as mayor from 2014 to 2021, supported socially liberal and progressive policies, including free universal pre-kindergarten, de-escalation training for police officers and closing the programme of post-9/11 surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers. He left office with low approval ratings, his critics saying his policies had harmed law enforcement and sowed division in the city.
