video<\/a> released on Tuesday, Mamdani said his committee has raised $3.5 million from 30,000 donors, which includes donations not yet included in disclosure statements. The haul exceeds the total amounts raised by Mayors Eric Adams and Bill de Blasio when they assumed office. Mayor Michael Bloomberg self-funded his transition committees.<\/p>\nMamdani emphasized that the vast majority of donations came from small-dollar contributors. But unlike the campaign, the transition and inauguration lack a matching funds program meant to encourage small donations.<\/p>\n
Enter the maxed out donors like California-based Rami Elghandour, CEO of the biotech firm Arcellx seeking to cure cancer; Paul Jacobs, head of the Nasdaq-listed telecommunications firm Globalstar; and Connecticut-based Ahmed Khattak, founder of US Mobile.<\/p>\n
Notable names from the arts and media world also gave $3,700 donations, including Ruhin Hossain, the publisher of popular Bangla newspaper Thikana News and founder of the telecom company River. Others include Andrew Jarecki, the Emmy-award winning filmmaker of \u201cThe Jinx\u201d; \u201cAngels in America\u201d playwright Tony Kushner; and fashion stylist and host Stacy London.<\/p>\n
So far, six people have served as intermediaries for Mamdani\u2019s transition helping raise additional money for the committee. The biggest bundler is Brooklyn-based jewelry designer Alexis Bittar, who helped the campaign raise nearly $164,000, including his own max donation.<\/p>\n
Neil Barsky, founder of the Marshall Project and maker of the film \u201cKoch,\u201d gave $3,700 and helped the committee raise another $14,800.<\/p>\n
Overall, the filings show the average contribution to the committee is just $94, a starkly lower amount compared to Mamdani\u2019s predecessors. The 884 donors to Adams\u2019 transition gave an average of $1,219. De Blasio\u2019s 820 donors gave an average of $2,392.<\/p>\n
So far, Mamdani\u2019s transition committee has spent $673,124 primarily to pay the salaries of staff working on his transition. The committee has another $129,670 in outstanding liabilities. If the committee were to continue its current rate of spending, that would bring its expenditures to roughly $1.6 million through the end of December, far below the $4 million Mamdani has said he\u2019s trying to raise.<\/p>\n
But soon, the committee is expected to release more information about Mamdani\u2019s inauguration, which comes with a big price tag. The ceremonial event traditionally takes place on New Year\u2019s Day, and has often been held on the steps of City Hall.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the transition committee did not respond to a Gothamist request about how the committee plans to spend all of its money.<\/p>\n
Mamdani was coy about his plans on Tuesday, saying when the committee has details to release about the inauguration, it\u2019ll share them.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aIt’s an inauguration that we want New Yorkers to understand, not just as mine but also as theirs, of a new era in this city,\u201d Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
After handing out handwarmers to reporters at his press conference on Tuesday, the city\u2019s coldest day since March, Mamdani was asked if the inauguration will be held outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis morning is definitely prompting some difficult questions,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n
Listen here<\/b>We want to hear from you<\/b><\/p>\n
Should Mayor-elect Mamdani hold his inauguration outside?<\/p>\n
We’ll share responses in next week’s newsletter. (Sign up<\/a>!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This column originally appeared in The Politics Brief, our weekly newsletter on the people, power and policies that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":440995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-440994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115703155794532895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}