Prior to New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City’s Democratic primary, there were questions about whether disability would shape the story of the election.
With Mamdani’s meteoric rise, and resounding win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo—56.39% to 43.61% on June 24—questions persist about his disability platform prior to the November 4 general election, where he is running against Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate. According to recent polls, Mamdani holds as much as a 25 percentage-point lead over Cuomo.
Mamdani’s disability-focused policies haven’t always been clear. In an April meeting reported by Christopher Alvarez, a reporter for Disabled-led outlet Able News, it seemed obvious that disability wasn’t as clear a campaign priority for Mamdani and some earlier candidates, as some of their other areas of concern. At least one attendee criticized Mamdani’s events for being inaccessible to people requiring sign language interpretation, a failing that Cuomo was sued for in his capacity as governor.
The Mamdani campaign did not respond to an email about the candidate’s disability policies by the time this story published.
In his coverage, Alvarez highlighted that Mamdani proposed creating a specific source of funding for Disabled New Yorkers looking to access employment opportunities after Mamdani criticized outgoing Mayor Eric Adams’ deployment of dedicated disability funding.
“The mayor [Adams],” Mamdani told Alvarez, “had promised a specific amount of funding be allocated for it and then combined it into a larger pot. Now, that money, when you put it in a larger pot, it doesn’t have specificity. It starts to get absorbed elsewhere.”
However, contrast that relative lack of specificity with the most recent debate and we see Mamdani’s approach to disability being far more firm. In perhaps his most quoted line from the second mayoral debate, Mamdani homed in on Cuomo’s approach to nursing homes after the former governor insinuated that Mamdani’s youth would make him unfit should another health emergency emerge during his term.
“If we have a health pandemic, then why would New Yorkers turn back to the governor who sent seniors to their death in nursing homes? That’s the kind of experience that’s on offer here today. What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity; and what you don’t have in integrity, you could never make up for in experience,” Mamdani said.
Cuomo responded by calling the statement false. However, numerous reports–including reporting done by DJA—have highlighted Cuomo’s link to the deaths of numerous disabled people.
In a Sept. 6 town hall co-hosted with Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mamdani also responded to a question about how he would improve the city’s accessible transit service, known as Access-A-Ride, connecting it to broader health-policy issues in one of the world’s most populous cities.
“We need not wait for a federal government to understand our own role in reckoning with this broken system. And I think of Access-A-Ride as one of many examples of city government’s own failures,” he said.
During that town hall, the high flying assembly member said he would look at the program as part of a broader audit of public transit, a cornerstone of his campaign. He is also reportedly focusing on educational opportunities for disabled students, improving mental-health programs, and has previously voiced support for homecare programs. This is in addition to Mamdani’s vocal support of communities where Disability is also common, such as a well received video laying out how he would help trans people while in office.
Overall, while disability is not expressly named on Zohran’s platform page, health appears 19 times, including in sections about health benefits and improving the broader healthcare system. Housing, a common problem for many Disabled New Yorkers, is also central to his campaign.
However, just like any political hopeful, how successful he will be in implementing this agenda if elected is difficult to predict. Still, there is hope amongst New York’s Disabled people—and those farther afield—that despite the Democratic Party leadership’s reluctance to endorse Mamdani, he can be the ripple that turns into a wave of change.
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