For over four months, New York City\u2019s donor class and power brokers troubled by Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s rise to power have been mulling how to take him on.<\/p>\n
Some of them have now joined forces to formalize their angst through a campaign to work against him. The group formed NYC Common Sense, a nonprofit that was registered in Delaware and has already raised more than $1 million, according to a founding member and political consultant, Phil Singer.<\/p>\n
The group is being chaired by Jim Walden, a lawyer who ran an unsuccessful bid as an independent for mayor last year and criticized Mr. Mamdani through the general election in November.<\/p>\n
Late Tuesday evening, in a post he pinned<\/a> on his X profile, Mr. Walden said of Mr. Mamdani, the city\u2019s first Muslim mayor: \u201cA terrorist attack in NYC would be a complicated problem for the Mayor because he\u2019d be rooting for the terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n He was responding to a post from Mr. Mamdani\u2019s spokeswoman, Dora Pekec, who earlier on Tuesday had criticized an article that quoted a professor as saying that a potential terror attack would pose a \u201chuge liability\u201d for the mayor, given his Muslim faith.<\/p>\n Mr. Walden was tapped by Mr. Singer, founder and chief executive of Marathon Strategies, a political consulting firm that worked on a $30 million super PAC to assist former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the same mayoral race.<\/p>\n Mr. Singer would not divulge the names of any individual donors. But there is no shortage of wealthy people who tried unsuccessfully to defeat Mr. Mamdani and continued to oppose him.<\/p>\n The group will run digital ads highlighting what it perceives as his missteps, will issue policy papers about what it views as Mr. Mamdani\u2019s most troubling agenda items, and will file lawsuits against his administration accordingly.<\/p>\n This entity is the first organized effort to go after Mr. Mamdani<\/a>, a democratic socialist who emerged from relative anonymity to topple a Democratic Party institution, Mr. Cuomo, on his path to victory last year.<\/p>\n In an interview, Mr. Walden and Mr. Singer ticked off a litany of concerns with Mr. Mamdani\u2019s performance as mayor. They range from what they saw as a problematic shift related to traffic enforcement and homelessness to his decision not to expand a rental assistance voucher program<\/a> as a cost-cutting measure.<\/p>\n Though Mr. Walden raised an issue that many of Mr. Mamdani\u2019s politically connected opponents have seized on \u2014 his support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel \u2014 he said that it would not be central to the group\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s early in his tenure, but I haven\u2019t seen anything other than what I saw on the campaign, which was an incredibly ideological person who has programs and policies he might be able to justify with a single study from a city that is nothing like New York, and then try and implement that as policy in a way that is fiscally undisciplined,\u201d Mr. Walden said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n He insisted that, despite criticizing Mr. Mamdani early and continually, he has \u201cgiven him a fair shake,\u201d and said that he would be sure to point out the mayor\u2019s successes as well.<\/p>\n \u201cBut there is so much from his administration that I\u2019m seeing that is either a broken promise or dangerous,\u201d Mr. Walden added.<\/p>\n In response to news of the group\u2019s formation, Mr. Mamdani\u2019s spokesman, Joe Calvello, listed some of the mayor\u2019s accomplishments since taking office on Jan. 1. He also took a swipe at Mr. Walden, who dropped out<\/a> of the mayor\u2019s race in September but remained on the ballot two months later as an independent.<\/p>\n \u201cMayor Mamdani closed New York City\u2019s largest fiscal deficit since the Great Recession, made sweeping progress toward universal child care, and took decisive action to confront New York City\u2019s housing crisis and hold landlords accountable,\u201d Mr. Calvello said. \u201cWe do however welcome those who received less than 1 percent of the vote for mayor, to continue to share their unique perspective on New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Walden, a former prosecutor, said he expected to file a lawsuit against the administration by the beginning of June. He would not divulge the details of the likely legal action.<\/p>\n He did, however, home in on a few specific critiques, including Mr. Mamdani\u2019s decision in March to end criminal enforcement<\/a> against e-bike riders and cyclists for low-level traffic violations. In announcing the change, City Hall officials had blamed companies running food delivery apps for creating an incentive for speeding and unsafe cycling.<\/p>\n Mr. Walden, in the interview, said the riders were \u201cblowing through crosswalks\u201d and cited recent reporting on people filling Bellevue Hospital\u2019s emergency room with serious injuries from electric vehicles.<\/p>\n \u201cSo if you\u2019re going to have unregistered drivers and you\u2019re not going to give them criminal summonses, that\u2019s a very bad development for elderly people, for disabled people, for young mothers with strollers and for pedestrians in general,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He and Mr. Singer also criticized the city\u2019s housing shortage and uptick in homeless people, both problems that predate Mr. Mamdani but have continued under his tenure.<\/p>\n And Mr. Walden repeatedly went after Mr. Mamdani on defunding the New York Police Department, though the mayor has not actually done that. When pressed on that point, Mr. Walden said he was referring to the mayor\u2019s decision not to hire more police officers and to create an Office of Community Safety<\/a>, which would divert some calls to 911 to clinicians.<\/p>\n Both Mr. Walden and Mr. Singer said their group had no connection to Mr. Cuomo, who has also remained public in his criticism of Mr. Mamdani.<\/p>\n Pointing out problems with any mayor is easy; creating an environment for him to lose re-election, while not the stated mission of this group, is much harder \u2014 especially given Mr. Mamdani\u2019s overall popularity.<\/p>\n