By Martin Baccardax

Mike Myers' 1992 comedy classic, "Wayne's World," includes a scene in which his eponymous character, along with sidekick Garth, have a backstage encounter with music legend Alice Cooper.

Sharing trivia tied to his Midwest roots, Cooper, the "godfather of shock rock," inexplicably tells the star-struck pair that Milwaukee is "the only major American city to have ever elected three socialist mayors."

New York hasn't elected one yet, but Zohran Mamdani took a big step in that direction last night, declaring victory in the Democratic mayoral primary (the race's ultimate outcome still has to be decided by a ranked choice count). Mamdani won largely by putting housing affordability at the heart of the political debate in America's largest city.

Vacancy rates are hovering at around 1.4%, according to city officials, the lowest since 1968. Average rents, meanwhile, have risen more than 18% over the past five years to around $3,400 a month, according to Realtor.com.

Data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller's benchmark house price survey, published Tuesday, showed New York City home prices rising 7.9% in April. That is the fastest pace in the country and well ahead of the national average of 2.7%.

New York isn't the only city in America where front-line workers in healthcare, education, and the military don't earn enough to obtain affordable housing, but this year's Democratic primary, and the election in November, likely will to vault that issue into the center stage of national politics.

Mamdani, a 33-year New York state assemblyman from Queens, topped the established figure of Andrew Cuomo, a disgraced former governor and scion of one of the state's most-famous political families, by around nine percentage points in last night's ranked-choice voting.

His victory, which came via concession from Cuomo, was in part tied to his housing policies, which include rent freezes, publicly funded housing, and an overhaul of the city's development rules.

A savvy social media campaign, as well as the endorsement of political heavyweights such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has added extra heft to his election efforts.

The city's Democratic primary, and the formal November election that could still include Cuomo as an independent candidate, could foreshadow the dust-up the national Democratic party will face in choosing a presidential candidate in 2028. Young progressives, in both cases, will challenge established elites with the issue of affordable housing and the cost of living at center stage.

And it could have big implications.

Young people are increasingly opting out of the housing market, as mortgage rates, house prices, and insurance costs make new purchases difficult. But they're also broadly supportive of spending plans funded by taxes on the uber wealthy, and willing to sacrifice fiscal probity for social justice.

A win for Mamdani could be an interesting dry run for the kinds of policies Democratic lawmakers are likely to champion in a few years time.

A self-described socialist, Mamdani wants free bus rides, new city-owned grocery stores, and acres of new public housing. He'll need to do all that, and a lot more, on a budget of just $115 billion.

A win for Cuomo, meanwhile, whose housing policies are focused on new unit development over price controls, would have paved the way for a more centrist approach in 2028.

The rivals lined up as expected: Cuomo said rent freezes would stifle investment, Mamdani said Cuomo was in the back pocket of billionaire developers.

Neither approach, though, likely won't prune the thicket of New York's housing crisis. More units are needed, but developers aren't incentivized to put up new buildings that the average New Yorker, who earns just over $50,000 a year, according to Census Bureau data, can afford.

Rents are too high but a freeze on increases in city-owned housing stock will only stifle organic movement and lift monthly costs higher in the private sector.

Neither candidate, a well, will have any influence on the broader issues that affect new-home construction, such as mortgage rates, tariffs on lumber and steel imports, and the government's crackdown on migrant workers who comprise around a quarter of the construction industry.

Alice Cooper told Wayne and Garth that Milwaukee's name was derived from the Algonquin word for "the good land."

Manhattan was derived from "Manahatta," a Lenape translation for the "island of many hills."

Putting houses on those hills would be a good way to keep it from turning into just an island of many millionaires.

Write to Martin Baccardax at martin.baccardax@barrons.com

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June 25, 2025 08:52 ET (12:52 GMT)

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