In his first 100 days in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has combined standard municipal responsibilities with a level of celebrity-style attention more typical of national politics than local governance, according to the Associated Press. The report says the mayor’s news conferences have drawn crowds, and that the administration’s messaging has relied on high-profile entertainers and viral social media to promote city services.
As Mamdani approached the 100-day benchmark, his team emphasized the everyday mechanics of running the city—things like picking up trash, plowing snow and filling potholes—while also trying to make those responsibilities part of a broader conversation about government programs. The AP reports that Mamdani’s use of viral content and well-known figures has helped drive awareness, including for programs aimed at families and emergency preparedness.
The AP said that to promote a child care program for 2-year-olds, Mamdani recruited Cardi B to help judge a jingle contest that would determine the initiative’s theme song. The report also describes Mamdani’s use of slick social media videos to recruit thousands of new snow shovelers as a storm bore down on the city, and a public service announcement that, the AP said, led to more than 50,000 new subscribers to the city’s emergency alert system in a single week.
The administration also leaned on community participation events tied to the 100-day milestone. The AP reported that Mamdani, alongside Natasha Cloud of the New York Liberty, announced a bracket-style competition in which people could vote on small projects for him to come and personally fix on his 100th day. On Friday, the AP said, Mamdani selected a winner—a garbage-filled lot in the Bronx—and joined sanitation crews to help pick up trash, in a celebratory event that included a trash can mascot and a cheerleading squad.
At least some Democrats viewed the early results positively. “It’s early but so far, so good,” Jay Jacobs, chair of the state’s Democratic Party, told the AP. Jacobs, the AP said, made waves in the election by not endorsing Mamdani but said they may not agree on everything philosophically while adding that Mamdani is “getting the job done.”
Still, the AP said Mamdani’s celebrity approach has also produced backlash. During a bitter cold snap, the report said, his appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon drew criticism from Curtis Sliwa, a Republican who ran against Mamdani in last year’s election. The AP reported Sliwa saying “Too much styling and profiling,” tying the concern to what he described as longstanding problems with street homelessness, public housing and infrastructure.
The AP also said Sliwa’s criticism comes with qualified acknowledgment of stability after a prior administration. Sliwa, the report said, pointed to the mayor’s work schedule and said, “So having Zohran as the alternative, I think for a lot of people even if they disagree with him, there’s some stability.” He made the comparison by referencing Eric Adams, describing him as “swagger man who’d party to the break of dawn,” before contrasting it with what Sliwa said he sees as Mamdani’s more normal working routine.
Beyond politics and messaging, the AP report described a major public-health announcement delivered close to Mamdani’s 97th day. It said that on that day, at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, Mamdani announced the city would begin transferring Rikers Island jail detainees with serious medical illnesses to a specialized unit at the hospital. The AP said the announcement drew applause and people holding up cellphones to record.
According to the AP, among those who turned out for the hospital announcement was Ricardo Granados, a 67-year-old retiree. The report said Granados had been on his way to take his son to a medical appointment but stopped after hearing attention was focused on the mayor, and that he said he was “extremely fond of him” and believed Mamdani “is going to make a real difference,” adding that Mamdani “wants to find out who needs what and he wants to help.”
The AP said Mamdani’s star power has remained a feature of his early tenure and that it has yet to be proven whether he can translate that attention into progress on the progressive policy agenda that helped propel him to office. It also said critics continued to view past criticisms of the police department and Israel as major issues, even as Mamdani eased concerns with at least some skeptics.