Zohran Mamdani Should Mobilize NYC’s Pension Fund Leverage

While the mayor of New York has relatively limited economic powers, the big sums invested by the city’s public pension funds are a real source of leverage for Zohran Mamdani and other elected officials. They should make plans to use it.

Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary for New York’s mayoral election set off a panic in the city’s financial services industry. Wall Street players have been threatening to relocate to Texas or Florida and promising to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into his opponents’ campaigns. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon got on his soapbox recently to brand Mamdani “more a Marxist than a socialist.”

In reality, the hostile reaction to Mamdani’s policy platform merely shows how Wall Street depicts even social democratic proposals as a plan for f