By Kevin T. Dugan

It was just after finishing a set of pelvic floor exercises that a Pilates instructor on the Upper East Side recently brought up one of the least popular men in the neighborhood: New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani.

All of a sudden, the class, which costs $50 a pop, became something of a political confab. In between sets, some women strategized about helping former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who they see as more palatable, pull off an upset. Others gushed about a recent New York Post cover depicting Gov. Kathy Hochul, who had recently endorsed Mamdani, as a devotee of Mao Zedong.

New York's richest residents can't stop talking about Mamdani, the Democratic nominee. To many of the city's uber-wealthy, his sustained popularity has been a shock. The 33-year-old, self-described Democratic Socialist is the overwhelming favorite to win City Hall next month, on a platform that includes free buses and free child care -- programs that, as the moneyed are well aware, somebody needs to shell out for.

"I hope Mamdani is going to give out free Xanax," said Caroline Leventhal, a lifelong Upper East Sider who co-founded "Mic'd and Medicated," a podcast that dissects the lifestyle of cosmetic surgeries and private ski instructors. "It's hard to be chill and relaxed."

Lord knows, New York's titans of business have tried to stop him. They spent months on a a loosely coordinated effort to pressure two of the other three candidates -- Mayor Eric Adams, who ran as an independent; Cuomo, also an independent; or Republican Curtis Sliwa -- to drop out to clear the path for one viable alternative.

Billionaire Bill Ackman backed Cuomo, before backing Adams, until he landed back on Cuomo. (Adams dropped out last month.) In a last-ditch effort, Ackman recently threw $1 million to an anti-Mamdani political-action committee.

But the political counterattack has been flaccid. At one August fundraiser for Adams at Osteria La Baia, a tony midtown Italian restaurant, only a handful of supporters showed, including former Gov. David Paterson.

"I'm feeling terrible," said an Adams donor there, who has since reluctantly pivoted to Cuomo. The former governor, this person added, "would be a terrible mayor, but compared to Mamdani, he's Winston Churchill."

A familiar theme

It isn't as if New York's wealthiest are all in lockstep. A chunk of the city's 1% supports Mamdani, voting data show, though a few have expressed fear of losing their jobs or social status for saying so. Other wealthy neighborhoods, such as Brooklyn's Park Slope, show strong backing for the upstart candidate.

The class divide is hardly a new theme for Big Apple politics. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio rocketed to Gracie Mansion on a campaign that highlighted what he called the "Tale of Two Cities," promising to narrow the gulf between the rich and poor. Nearly two decades earlier, Rudy Giuliani campaigned from the other direction, railing against the "squeegee men" underclass.

Neither mayor got the city of 8.5 million to sing "Kumbaya." But with the median Manhattan apartment rental costing more than $4,600 a month, and Mamdani finding his strongest supporters in the outer boroughs, the haves and have-nots are, quite literally, further apart than ever.

One millionaire venture capitalist said that up until Mamdani's decisive primary win, she had been oblivious to the extent of anger among the city's youth.

Mamdani has been leaning into those class issues harder than his predecessors. In one ad, he tapped Morgan Spector, the bearded star of the HBO hit "The Gilded Age," to roast the rich for whining about socialism while chomping on lobster.

"It was hilarious and effective, and as fast as lightning that made its way around the Upper East Side chattering classes," securities lawyer Richard Farley said of the ad. The response, Farley said, was incredulous -- "a combination of 'how dare he?' and 'that's pretty clever.' "

"Wealthy people have always been objects of a certain amount of derision, and maybe that's part of the deal," said David Roberts, a retired managing director at investment manager Angelo Gordon, who now writes a Substack about money and status.

'Will you move to your home in Bedford?'

Eva Heyman, a former executive for Bloomberg LP and the co-founder of Leventhal's podcast, said Mamdani supporters are so rare in her circle that she only recently met one face-to-face for the first time at her child's school.

It was early October, and she and another mother were discussing Israel's responsibility for the war in Gaza, about which they disagreed.

"Then at one point, I said, 'Wait, are you voting for Mamdani? How far apart are we?' " Heyman recalled. "She was like, 'The last two administrations have done nothing good, so why not try this?' " The woman had ruled out Cuomo partly because of #MeToo accusations, which Heyman considers "silly."

The conversation was starkly different from most conversations Heyman has, especially with other Jews worried about the rise of antisemitic hate crimes in New York and Mamdani's sympathy for anti-Israel protests.

"Every dinner conversation, every lunch conversation, every pickup conversation, people are talking about -- what are we going to do if he wins? Will you move to Miami? Will you move to your home in Bedford? Will you move to Israel?" Heyman said.

Privately, most rich New Yorkers who talked to The Wall Street Journal said they won't move, at least not yet. Many that would have already decamped to Florida and Texas. Higher taxes would be annoying, but the city can't raise levies without Albany. Hochul recently backed Mamdani's expanded child-care plan, but has pledged not to raise taxes on the wealthy.

Still, some insist they will leave if crime gets out of hand. A few have quietly listed their homes.

Earlier this summer, Mamdani tried to make inroads with the business elite by speaking to members of the Partnership for New York City , a group of business executives who help steer policy.

At an event in July, Mamdani floated ideas for slimming down city government, including having fewer deputy mayors and using technology to develop lesson plans for schools, which would reduce the number of Education Department employees, said Kevin Ryan, founder of venture-capital firm AlleyCorp, who hosted the meeting. Such a proposal is typically catnip to New York's charter-school-obsessed billionaires.

Meanwhile, the giveaway centerpieces of Mamdani's campaign -- buses, child care and rent-freezes on some housing units -- mean little to a crowd that travels to the Hamptons by helicopter and pays well over $50,000 a year on private schooling beginning around age 3.

One New York-born chief executive who isn't a fan of the candidate said that if Mamdani wants to enact a redistributionist agenda, he needs to do more to retain the residents whose taxes would pay for his plans.

There are areas for agreement. A few executives say Mamdani is open to keeping New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who has overseen a stark drop in crime citywide. Tisch, who has worked in city government for decades, also happens to be the Harvard-educated daughter of a billionaire who speaks the upper crust's language.

One hedge-fund founder who was a major donor to President Trump proudly declared he is rooting for Mamdani to win, but only because he thinks a victory by the nominee would boomerang and make it easier for conservatives to take control in later elections.

Others are prepared to make the best of it. One CEO said she already spends as much time as she can in Rome and is thinking about making a more permanent move.

"It's not like the guillotine is coming out," said Roberts, the retired banker, who spoke via Zoom from a vacation in Paris.

Write to Kevin T. Dugan at kevin.dugan@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 16, 2025 22:39 ET (02:39 GMT)

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