For over eight years, The Polis Project has reported on communities in resistance across Global Majority countries. Now we turn our lens inward, to New York City, where Zohran Mamdani is scheduled to assume office on January 1st, 2026.
Mamdani inherits a New York City beleaguered by an affordability and public health crisis, rising inequality, attacks on immigrants, defunding of public programing, and dismantling of safety structures. In fact, Mamdani’s own campaign was rife with Islamophobia and a weaponization of Washington’s political rhetoric.
The first 100 days of an elected official’s time in office sets the trend for the rest of their term. It is a time when key appointments are made, and when campaign promises are translated to plans of action.
In this time, our team of NYC journalists and analysts will report on the promises that built Mamdani’s coalition. We will focus on affordability where rent, childcare, transit, and food costs decide who gets to stay in New York; on immigration policy and law enforcement, including the city’s relationship to ICE. We will track policing and public safety through budgets and deployments; follow labor from public sector governance to wage theft and organizing; and cover protest and dissent, including the citywide reverberations of Palestine solidarity organizing. As always, we will focus on the movement — not simply the man.
