Mamdani's First 100 Days: Promises Made, Promises Kept, and the Ones Still in Progress
On January 1, 2026, Zohran Kwame Mamdani was sworn in as the 111th mayor of New York City inside the historic Old City Hall subway station. He became the city's first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian descent, and the first born in Africa. At 34, the democratic socialist took office as one of the youngest mayors in generations, inheriting a $5.4 billion budget gap from the Adams administration and a city grappling with affordability, housing, and public safety challenges.
Now, 100 days in, the question every New Yorker is asking: has he delivered?
The Scorecard at a Glance
Mamdani ran on a platform of radical affordability: free childcare from six weeks old, free buses, a rent freeze, 200,000 new affordable homes, and a $30 minimum wage. Some of those promises have seen real momentum. Others are still works in progress. And one, free buses, has already been pushed back.
Housing and Tenant Rights
Housing was the centerpiece of Mamdani's campaign, and his administration has moved aggressively on tenant protections. One of his earliest moves was reviving the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants, appointing longtime housing advocate Cea Weaver as director. The administration has secured more than $9.3 million in settlements from negligent landlords, with over 6,000 apartments now under active repair as part of more than $30 million won from bad actors. That includes an intervention in the bankruptcy of the Pinnacle Group, a notorious slumlord with 5,000+ violations across 83 buildings.
The promised rent freeze, however, remains in limbo. Mamdani has appointed six of the nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board, giving him a sympathetic majority, but the vote on rent-stabilized apartment rates isn't expected until June 2026. The 200,000 affordable homes over ten years is a longer-term commitment. The administration has launched the LIFT and SPEED task forces and restarted the Just Home initiative, but construction at that scale will take years to materialize.
Free Universal Childcare
This is arguably Mamdani's biggest early win and his highest-rated policy area in polls. In partnership with Governor Kathy Hochul, the administration launched "2-K," free childcare for 2-year-olds, backed by state funds. The program will launch in the fall with 2,000 seats, expanding to 12,000 in its second year. Mamdani also launched NYC's first free on-site childcare pilot for city workers, covering ages six weeks to three years.
Full universal coverage from six weeks old, the campaign promise, is still being expanded, but the foundation has been laid. How subsequent years of the 2-Care program will be funded remains an open question, and one that will test the mayor's relationship with Albany.
Buses, Bikes, and Potholes
The potholes may be the most visible accomplishment of the first 100 days. Mamdani's administration filled 100,000 potholes, the most in the first 100 days of any calendar year in more than a decade. The administration deployed 80 crews across multiple citywide blitzes, each filling a week's worth of potholes in a single day, culminating in the symbolic 100,000th repair on Olympia Boulevard in Staten Island.
On transit infrastructure, Mamdani revived four bike and bus lane projects shelved by the Adams administration, including protected bike lanes along McGuinness Boulevard in Brooklyn and an extended double bus lane along Manhattan's Madison Avenue. Bike lane expansions have continued in SoHo, the East Village, Union Square, and a new Brooklyn Bridge connection.
The headline disappointment? Free buses. Mamdani has conceded this won't happen in 2026, citing ongoing budget conversations and the need for replacement revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. "It continues to be a budget conversation," the mayor said. A pragmatic retreat from one of his most ambitious campaign promises.
Policing, Community Safety, and Rikers
Mamdani launched the Office of Community Safety, though with limited staffing compared to the $1.1 billion envisioned on the campaign trail. The B-HEARD program, which dispatches mental health workers instead of police for certain 911 calls, is being expanded. The administration also announced the largest Sammy's Law expansion in city history, committing to 15 mph Slow Zones at every eligible school, and activated red light cameras at 250 intersections with plans to reach all 600 by year-end.
On Rikers Island, Mamdani has taken the most decisive action of any mayor in years. He released a plan to end nearly five years of emergency orders that had suspended basic jail rules. For the first time since 2021, a mayor acknowledged that repeated emergency extensions lacked a path to compliance with the city's own laws. He ordered corrections officials to produce a concrete plan for abiding by long-deferred limits on solitary confinement within 45 days and appointed Stanley Richards as Department of Correction commissioner, the first formerly incarcerated person to lead the department.
Sanctuary City: Doubled Down
In perhaps his most politically charged move, Mamdani signed Executive Order 13 reinforcing New York's sanctuary city protections. The order bars ICE from all city property, including schools, shelters, and hospitals, without a judicial warrant. The administration launched a "Know Your Rights" campaign in 10 languages, distributing 30,000 flyers to immigrant communities, and announced plans to close all remaining emergency migrant shelters by year-end. This came in direct defiance of the Trump administration's escalating pressure to end sanctuary city policies nationwide.
Affordability and the "True Cost of Living"
Mamdani released a landmark report revealing that 62% of New Yorkers, approximately 5.04 million people, cannot meet basic needs. The report was released alongside the city's first preliminary racial equity plan, underscoring the administration's view that affordability and equity are inseparable.
The $30 minimum wage by 2030 remains a work in progress, with an incremental pathway branded "$30 by '30" proposed but requiring state legislative action. A proposed millionaire tax has strong public support and is currently being considered by the state legislature. And in one of his more unconventional proposals, Mamdani included funding for five city-owned grocery stores, one per borough, in his budget proposal.
The Numbers
According to Emerson College Polling, Mamdani holds a 43% approval rating with 27% disapproving, a net positive of +16 points at the 100-day mark. He scores highest on childcare (54% approve), followed by housing affordability (49% approve) and public safety (45% approve). However, a majority of New Yorkers still say the city is on the wrong track. A reminder that even a popular new mayor inherits deep structural problems that don't resolve in 100 days.
The Bottom Line
Mamdani's first 100 days paint a picture of a mayor who is moving fast on the things within his direct control: executive orders, appointments, tenant enforcement, potholes. At the same time, he's acknowledging that his most transformative promises (free buses, universal childcare, 200,000 homes, $30 minimum wage) require Albany cooperation, budget negotiations, and time. He signed 12 executive orders in his first week alone, the most aggressive opening of any NYC mayor in recent history.
The question going forward isn't whether Mamdani has the ambition. It's whether the political and fiscal realities of governing an $80 billion city will bend to match it.