![\"Mayor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/NDILBBGFPPTDCCM6G6DAE36N2M.jpg\")
Mayor Michelle Wu held her one-month-old baby during a hearing in Washington in 2025.SAUL LOEB\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
At the time, Boston\u2019s mayor was coming off a remarkable stint in the national spotlight. She\u2019d had an impressive turn in Washington defending Boston\u2019s \u201csanctuary city\u201d policies before Congress. With ashes on her forehead and her baby at her side, she adeptly dispatched her conservative foes. She was profiled in major magazines<\/a> and cruising toward a landslide reelection. <\/p>\n Mamdani would soon be mayor himself. And now, just seven months in, he\u2019s launched so much, so fast, that it\u2019s actually making some progressive Bostonians a little envious.<\/a><\/p>\n Mamdani and Wu have much in common, said Katherine Levine Einstein, a Boston University political science professor who co-leads the Menino Survey of Mayors<\/a>. They\u2019re dyed-in-the-wool progressives with growing national profiles. Both harnessed social media to build their political capital and won big-city mayor jobs while in their mid-30s. (Wu was 36 when she took office; Mamdani is 34.)<\/p>\n But as both campaigned last year, Einstein said, just one candidate captured the imagination of her BU students: Mamdani. <\/p>\n \u201cThey were so energized,\u201d she said. Students from across the country \u2014 not just New York \u2014 were deeply invested and \u201caware of this local election.\u201d <\/p>\n Of course, Einstein noted, Boston is not New York. The Big Apple affords its mayor a spotlight like no other. And Mamdani\u2019s a fresh face, still in his honeymoon era, while Wu has been in office for nearly five years now, which has given her, as Einstein put it \u201cmore opportunity to disappoint her progressive constituencies.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, comparisons are inevitable, even if \u2014 Wu\u2019s allies argue \u2014 they\u2019re not necessarily fair.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not apples and oranges. It\u2019s apples and chain saws,\u201d said Matt O\u2019Malley, a former Boston city councilor and longtime Wu confidant. \u201dNew York celebrates the spectacle of governing. I think Boston values the substance of governing, and that\u2019s what Michelle Wu\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n Tapping \u2018bing bong\u2019 energy<\/p>\n As a city councilor during the 2010s heyday of Twitter, Wu used the platform to rise to prominence. She\u2019d share videos, on her personal @Wutrain handle, of her kids and daily struggles with the Orange Line, communicating an image as a relatable Boston everywoman. She\u2019d rally support there too, when needed, for various political fights<\/a>. By the time Wu became mayor in 2021, @Wutrain had over 150,000 followers, far more than her official mayoral account, which hovered at 65,000. <\/p>\n Twitter, of course, is not what it was, and by early 2023, Wu basically left the service,<\/a> saying it had gotten \u201cmore and more toxic\u201d<\/a> since Elon Musk took over. And while the mayor\u2019s office still posts on to Instagram and TikTok, Wu\u2019s advisers say she has intentionally pulled back on social media. <\/p>\n Mamdani, in contrast, is everywhere, especially on the video-first platforms that have come to define how so many Americans \u2014 particularly young people \u2014 get their news<\/a>. Mamdani is just a few years younger than Wu, notes Daniel Schlozman, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University and Wu\u2019s friend and consultant. But he\u2019s a native of today\u2019s attention economy.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a microgenerational difference,\u201d Schlozman said. \u201cThis is a politician who just exists on video\u201d as a natural state of being. <\/p>\n In a roundabout way, Boston played a role in Mamdani\u2019s remarkable rise. It started with a raucous 56-second video<\/a>, shot in the street outside Madison Square Garden after a Knicks win over the Celtics in October 2021. Rowdy orange-and-blue-clad fans mugged for the camera, mocked Tom Brady and Boston generally<\/a>, and unleashed an expletive-laden tirade that was crass, exuberant, and unabashedly New York.<\/p>\n \u201cBing bong!!!!\u201d one fan screamed at the top of his lungs, echoing the distinct chime of a subway door closing. The catchphrase went viral, and became synonymous with New York City swagger. <\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s communications team showed him that clip as they began to map out campaign strategy. The goal: Mamdani, already comfortable in the spotlight thanks to a stint moonlighting as a hip-hop artist<\/a>, would channel bing bong energy all the way to the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n To be clear, Mamdani wasn\u2019t bashing Boston on the campaign trail; indeed in one debate he called Wu the most effective Democratic politician in the nation. And many of his priorities \u2014 from more affordable housing and child care to free public transit \u2014 were straight from her playbook. <\/p>\n It worked. He won. And now Mamdani\u2019s mashup of bing bong energy and progressive policy is the talk of New York and Democratic politics alike. <\/p>\n \u201cHis charm reaches through the television,\u201d said Frances Malarkey, a longtime renter who works as a server in one of the Museum of Modern Art\u2019s restaurants. Mamdani\u2019s upcoming rent freeze on one- and two-year leases that starts after Oct. 1 means her East Village studio will stay affordable, she said. \u201cI think he\u2019s the most adroit politician on the scene right now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s getting things done,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n In the first half of this year, Mamdani\u2019s administration has filled 100,000 potholes, launched a citywide snow-shoveling campaign, cut red tape for small businesses<\/a>, and passed a pied-a-terre tax<\/a> that could bring in $500 million in annual revenue. Working closely with New York Governor Kathy Hochul, he secured billions in additional aid dollars for the city, a move that closed the city\u2019s budget gap<\/a>. <\/p>\n Like Wu<\/a>, Mamdani has prioritized making the city more affordable for families. His plan to roll out universal free child care citywide got a major boost last month, when Hochul committed $73 million to provide free child care for 2,000<\/a> 2-year-olds, on top of $1 billion more in child care investment overall this year. And he signals that parents have needs too, launching a citywide Parents\u2019 Night Out initiative<\/a> to help caregivers \u201cenjoy a little free time.\u201d <\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s political acumen extends to Washington, no small feat for a progressive politician right now: In February, he charmed President Trump<\/a> in hopes of getting $21 billion to build housing, though that has yet to materialize. (Wu shrugged off their \u201cbromance.\u201d<\/a>) And increasingly, Mamdani is being viewed as a kingmaker in New York, after helping a slate<\/a> of hand-picked congressional candidates win Democratic primaries last month. <\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s social media team has documented every win \u2014 seemingly every minute of the mayor\u2019s time in office \u2014 with videos that put his charming, goofy personality center stage. Some of it is just the New York sensibility: the things Mamdani talks about aren\u2019t all that sexy or different from municipal matters anywhere, they\u2019re just being presented with a bit more verve. <\/p>\n Those videos spread wide, including to Boston. And now, some local progressives \u2014 and even one Boston city councilor<\/a> \u2014 are looking at our longtime rivals to the south with a bit of Mamdani envy. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve felt it so badly,\u201d said Benjamin Siegel, a 41-year-old father of two from Jamaica Plain. Siegel\u2019s a transit-oriented voter who volunteered for Wu\u2019s first mayoral run and contributed to her campaign. But he\u2019s increasingly disenchanted with what he calls her \u201cregression\u201d on transportation issues<\/a>, so much so that he left his ballot blank for last year\u2019s mayoral election. When Mamdani recently announced expanded bus and bike lanes in New York, Siegel called a friend there and admitted he was jealous.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is wild for me to see someone go kind of full steam ahead and to exercise power in ways that seem to deliver value to New Yorkers,\u201d he said. \u201cOur mayor has moved into a model that\u2019s an an anemic vision of leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a sentiment that\u2019s bubbling in housing circles too. While Wu has talked for years about loosening zoning to spur sluggish construction, Mamdani in May set a bold target: 200,000 new affordable homes over a decade<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m jealous,\u201d said Jesse Kanson-Benanav, executive director of Abundant Housing Massachusetts. \u201cI would love Mayor Wu to be more visionary and aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n And every time Mamdani puts out a video, it\u2019s a little reminder of the difference. Eliza Parad hears it all the time. The longtime community organizer is now leading Boston\u2019s Better Budget Alliance, which is pushing back on cuts to the city\u2019s budget. Members, she said, keep forwarding her videos of Mamdani, who seems able to balance New York\u2019s books while also pushing new policies to help working people.<\/p>\n Their message, she said, is clear: \u201cLook at what Mamdani is doing with the budget in New York City. How come we can\u2019t have nice things in Boston?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s not going to go out clubbing.\u201d<\/p>\n The obvious, of course, should be stated: Boston and New York are very different cities. And the differences are not just in style, but substance. <\/p>\n Mamdani runs a city with more residents than all of Massachusetts, and it\u2019s the nation\u2019s media capital, giving him plenty of ways to get face time.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also not bound by home rule policies that have left some of Wu\u2019s more ambitious initiatives \u2014 rent control, property tax shifts \u2014 to flounder on Beacon Hill, and has worked closely with Governor Hochul, who herself benefits from Mamdani\u2019s halo of good will.<\/p>\n \u201cIn New York City, you have a state government and a governor who have been real partners to Mayor Mamdani,\u201d said Hessann Farooqi, executive director of the Boston Climate Action Network. \u201cWe have a state government that consistently gets in the way of cities like Boston.\u201d <\/p>\n There\u2019s also the reality that Wu and Mamdani are simply different. His brand is charisma and cracking jokes, hers is policy smarts and cerebral. He\u2019s bing bong. She talks up Boston\u2019s AAA bond rating. And they\u2019re at different stages in life: Mamdani\u2019s 34, with seemingly untapped energy. Wu, now 40, has three young kids, including a toddler.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a second-term mayor. She\u2019s Harvard-educated lawyer. She\u2019s proved her bona fides. She\u2019s not going to go out clubbing,\u201d said O\u2019Malley. \u201cShe\u2019s going to do the job that she was elected to do. And by the way, that\u2019s precisely why she was reelected.\u201d<\/p>\n If anything, Wu won a far more commanding mandate in last fall\u2019s elections. She drove her main challenger, Josh Kraft, out of the race before we even made it to Election Day, while Mamdani took just over half of the vote in a three-way race, and continues to contend with powerful constituencies that seek to undermine his success<\/a>. But Mamdani\u2019s early wins \u2014 and his talent for getting young people fired up<\/a> \u2014 beg a larger question: Should Wu be borrowing from Mamdani\u2019s playbook?<\/p>\n Parad says yes, particularly when it comes to marshaling political power. She pointed to how the Mamdani administration used its powerful get-out-the-vote coalition to galvanize support for his agenda in Albany. <\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest lesson that Mayor Wu could learn from Mayor Mamdani is engaging community members who care,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to be part of the strategy and part of the solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n Others noted that Mamdani\u2019s success is happening precisely because he\u2019s still using Wu\u2019s playbook; it\u2019s just getting more attention because he\u2019s in the national spotlight. <\/p>\n Many of Mamdani\u2019s wins, Farooqi noted, are policies that Wu has already \u201ctaken leadership on and delivered in some way here in Boston.\u201d She\u2019s expanded access to early education, launched three free bus lines, and funded a wave of new affordable housing during her time in office.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s exactly what bothers some longstanding Wu supporters, like Keegan Dougherty of Jamaica Plain. Mamdani\u2019s delivering more loudly, while Wu seems to be pulling back in her second term, which Dougherty described as a \u201chuge letdown\u201d so far.<\/p>\n \u201cWu has these incredible approval ratings. But rather than capitalizing on this massive primary win and cruising through this next term she\u2019s done the opposite,\u201d Dougherty said. \u201cShe\u2019s in retreat whereas Mamdani is on the march.\u201d <\/p>\n Wu is facing an inflection point with her core constituents, said Boston political strategist Wilnelia Rivera, one that has only been heightened in the wake of the recent death of transportation advocate Louisa Gag<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rivera, who has worked for Wu, described herself as \u201cdisenchanted,\u201d and said she hopes that Wu can reignite the Wutrain energy and tap back into what excited people about her to begin with. <\/p>\n \u201cThere are always forces larger than one elected official can control,\u201d Rivera said. \u201cBut what Mamdani shows is you do what you can with what you can control.\u201d<\/p>\n Wu, for her part, said she\u2019s heartened to see Mamdani \u2014 and the minutiae of city government in general \u2014 arrive in the national spotlight. And in a recent interview in her office she acknowledged that many of the \u201cbig swings\u201d of her first term were helped along by federal COVID funds that have since run out. <\/p>\n \u201cThis first year of a second term is vastly different from the first year of a first term, largely because of the wider world and where we are,\u201d Wu said. The city faces different challenges, too, not least including a federal government that has turned expressly hostile to much of what makes it thrive, including research and higher education sectors, and the international population. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are under attack daily for the community we are, and the diversity we represent,\u201d she said. \u201cBoston has been in the crosshairs, and our larger economy is in a very different place as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Wu said Mamdani\u2019s relationship with Albany also \u201ccarries a different dynamic\u201d than hers with Beacon Hill, and the political math just isn\u2019t the same. Getting \u201ca billion dollar investment from the state goes a long way\u201d toward creating universal child care, she noted wryly. <\/p>\n But Boston has had a good summer<\/a>; Mamdani wasn\u2019t the only mayor managing an influx of soccer fans, tall ships, and Fourth of July revelers. And Wu hoped the events of the last six weeks can set the tone for future city-state partnerships, ones that can help keep her agenda chugging forward. More collaboration, she said, would allow \u201cBoston to be fully unleashed.\u201d <\/p>\n There have been some glimpses of what a more unleashed Wu \u2014 and Boston \u2014 might look like. <\/p>\n Last month, she got 1.5 million views on a TikTok video<\/a> announcing plans for a sister city partnership with Glasgow, home of the Tartan Army<\/a>. She\u2019s pushing to extend the 3 a.m. closing times at bars and public drinking zones to extend beyond the summer<\/a>. She\u2019s putting political muscle behind challengers to two Boston state senators<\/a> who have at times thwarted her agenda. And in a major move last week, she announced a slate of proposals to improve street safety<\/a> and memorialize Gag\u2019s contributions to transit advocacy.<\/p>\n Carlos Aramayo, president of the powerful Unite Here Local 26 hospitality workers union, said that instead of comparing mayors, Bostonians should be celebrating how progressive agendas in New York and Boston can feed off one another. <\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s amazing that we\u2019re in a situation where these two great American cities have these forward-thinking progressive-minded mayors who are trying to figure out these really, really big problems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n And for once, some aren\u2019t seeing the cities as rivals. <\/p>\n \u201dI hate to say it as a Bostonian,\u201c said Farooqi, \u201dbut I\u2019m cheering on Mamdani just as I\u2019m cheering on Mayor Wu.”<\/p>\n Janelle Nanos can be reached at janelle.nanos@globe.com<\/a>. Follow her @janellenanos<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Supporters](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/PYS7O7X6ICUZR25BW3RMFPWGQ4.jpg\")
Supporters of Mamdani cheered before he took, the stage at his primary election party on June 25, 2025.Heather Khalifa\/Associated Press<\/p>\n![\"Trump](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/P24Y3D7TZXDH6WX2NWL245LMFY.jpg\")
Trump shook hands with Mamdani at the White House on Nov. 21, 2025.Eric Lee\/The New York Times<\/p>\n![\"Wu](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/WYHHZZDQO7TMUPI5KZXPNO63BI.JPG\")
Wu addressed supporters during her reelection campaign launch in 2025.Erin Clark\/Globe Staff<\/p>\n![\"Mamdani](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ILWCVZWREFLNQEE2RRTBCF4IMY.jpg\")
Mamdani was passed a replica World Cup trophy after making an announcement in May.Adam Gray\/Associated Press<\/p>\n