Jordan Wright, a professional canvasser and sometime customer service representative, moved to Astoria shortly after his new mayor did, and is among the many in the neighborhood visibly thrilled about the prospect of living in the new era of Zohran Mamdani.
“It reminds me, maybe, on like a smaller scale, of how I felt about Obama becoming president. You know, with Zohran being the first Muslim American [mayor]. That’s revolutionary,” said Wright, currently unemployed and speaking at length with the Chronicle inside a McDonald’s on Steinway Street, shortly after Mamdani was publicly inaugurated.
“When I see Zohran, I’m like, yes, this is who we need. And I’m going to be there with him the whole ride,” promises Wright, who has been around a political campaign or two, having picked up some work canvassing for Andrea Gordillo’s failed City Council campaign last year, over in Manhattan.
In fact, Wright says, he had been on the verge of picking up a canvassing job from the campaign of the race’s then-frontrunner, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, when he spotted the changing headwinds surrounding his local assemblyman, whose career Wright admitted he had not been following in any sense until hearing about Mamdani’s suddenly insurgent mayoral campaign.
“Embarrassed to say, I was actually going to work on Cuomo’s campaign. Once I found out about Zohran and everything, I literally refused to do that,” said Wright, now a loyal convert to the winning side. “I love how he talks. I love what he represents.”
Describing himself as a lifelong Democrat, born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, Wright says Mamdani got the better of his high-profile meeting with President Trump.
“His presentation, his demeanor, he didn’t back down,” said Wright. “He still was maintaining who he was. He didn’t switch up. He maintained exactly who he was and his position and his convictions. And that’s what I feel like Zohran represents. He represents everybody else.”
Before his mayoral campaign, Mamdani bested five-term incumbent Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas by fewer than 500 votes for a seat in the state Legislature in 2020.
Gabi, who does operations work for a nonprofit and declined to give her last name when interviewed by the Chronicle at a nearby coffee shop, said she remembered looking up Mamdani’s positions shortly after moving to the neighborhood.
“I thought he had some good points when he was running,” she said. After he won, “I started getting his newsletter and I liked the way that the writing was in that, and I thought it seemed personable, from someone who actually cares. I love that.”
Many of his supporters sounded realistic about the difficulty of enacting Mamdani’s sweeping promises of greater affordability and instead appeared to appreciate the meaning behind the larger gesture of electing him. Things felt different, they said.
“I think his election is one of the few glimmers of hope from last year,” said Alex, a software engineer who moved to Astoria last year, interviewed by the Chronicle in a nearby park.
“Honestly, for me, I thought it was good enough of a sign or a message just electing him. I will take that. I’m hoping it doesn’t hurt,” said Alex. “There’s a lot of expectations and I think anyone looking for a quick fix will be quite a bit disappointed, but it’s very hard to get things done in this climate. I’m sure he’ll do his best. I think it’s at least a welcome change to have someone actually trying to help.”
Wright, the canvasser, still remembers the victory speech Mamdani gave shortly after winning — or at least some of it.
“I forgot exactly what the thing that he said was, but I remember the feeling of the words,” he said. “I was just like, ‘Yes. That’s what I want to see.’”
Wright is excited about free buses too, one of the signature promises animating Mamdani’s campaign.
“It’s an atrocity,” he said. “You have people living paycheck to paycheck, getting from point A to point B. I know for me, even recently, there’s been times when I haven’t had money to pay for it. And I had to do what I have to do because, maybe, I’m trying to get to work. You know what I mean?”
For some, the notion of Mamdani superseded even consideration of the possible; in a world of diminished ambition and decades of political cynicism and an overall poverty of the public imagination, it was enough that Mamdani existed, that he would try, publicly and very hard.
“I moved to New York in 2012 and Zohran moved me to register to vote in this state for the first time,” said Sarah Cook, a paralegal who made her way to Astoria in recent years.
“I’m excited. I doubt he’ll meet all of his campaign promises but ‘campaign’ might as well mean ‘aspirational.’ I bet no significant, living elected official has ever kept all of their promises. Our president sure hasn’t,” said Cook. “Zohran’s efforts to move New York in a humane and equitable direction are bound to be net good.”
“It’s time for change. It’s time to see someone new and someone different and someone, especially so young, whose values appear to be so good,” said Marta, a paralegal who declined to give her last name and has lived in Astoria for about 18 years, interviewed by the Chronicle at a coffee shop on Steinway.
Sophia, her child, aged 12, was more critical, and reported that Mamdani would be facing some opposition among certain gifted elementary school students in Astoria to some plans announced during his candidacy. Those entail reversing the Adams administration’s move to maintain the gifted program for elementary school students, which previous mayor Bill de Blasio promised to phase out.
“They’re all upset about the gifted program,” reported Sophia, who says that it’s the talk of the schoolyard.
Matt Scho, a high school history teacher in Astoria and Mamdani supporter, interviewed by the Chronicle while photographing his dog, said he wants to see Mamdani use the Department of Education to develop “a clearer stance on how schools should be supporting the large immigrant population” in the schools in the area. That, he says, is something the DOE under just-departed Mayor Eric Adams shied away from.
“Our schools don’t seem to have a collective response,” said Scho.
Mamdani’s critics told the Chronicle they were maintaining a kind of skeptical, distant, if wary hope.
“I’m not a fan of anything that he’s done, because I don’t know anything that he’s done. And he represented Astoria. I haven’t seen anything,” said Lisa Pitts, a part-time program assistant who has lived her entire life around the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, and was among the million New Yorkers who voted against Mamdani. Pitts declined to say whom she voted for, with opposition to the Assemblyman split last November between Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate.
“I think a lot of the platform that he ran on is not attainable, it’s not new ideas. But I’m still willing to give him a chance. I know he can’t do any worse than Adams,” said Pitts.
“I’m trying to give him room so that if he does well, then I’m happy for him,” said Cal Vargas, who works in cybersecurity and recently moved to Astoria. He said he didn’t vote in the last election at all.
“I don’t think he’s going to deliver, or anyone could. I think just politics in general in New York are so ingrained in a specific way of doing things and you can fight that system,” said Vargas.
“I like to see someone not apathetic about trying to fix things,” said Ryan Jones, an audio engineer and Mamdani supporter.
“Can he raise his taxes? Can he do those things? It’s going to be a fight. It’s going to be a hell of a fight. A lot of things that he wants to do are going to have a lot of pushback. But at least he’s somebody that’s trying. Because I know Adams didn’t do anything,” said Jones, interviewed while walking his dog.
“I appreciate how he’s taking the time to actually get to know locals,” said Natalie Rice, who worked, briefly, for the de Blasio administration, as a sous-chef at Gracie Mansion. (“He would always ask for lots of popcorn,” Rice remembers of the former mayor.) Interviewed by the Chronicle inside a different Astoria coffee shop, Rice said she was supporting Mamdani too.
“I want him to make an example of bad landlords,” said Rice, who lives in a rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria, like Mamdani had been since moving to the neighborhood.
“I was at the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden on the day he got elected. It was like some of the best energy I’ve been around in a long time,” recalled an ebullient Lydia Winter Grosswendt, a part-time bartender and actor who moved to Astoria last year.
“A year ago, basically, no one knew who he was, and now everybody does and I don’t think he’s going to change because people know his name now. I think that he’s the kind of person who will stay consistent and stick to his word and do what he can and try his best … I’m into socialism, I’m into everything that he’s talking about.
“What I’m mostly hoping for is that people start to see more hope and feel like it’s possible to create change. I think just the general attitude of New Yorkers is going to change,” said Grosswendt, still beaming.