Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in New York’s Democratic Party primary for mayor in June 2025 and victory in the general election on Tuesday has provided a dose of hope to a Left seeking a path forward amid a dire political landscape. His campaign succeeded by offering real solutions to working-class concerns — including on climate policy and its connection to New Yorkers’ material conditions.

The climate crisis is heightening the cost-of-living crisis. As a political issue, climate has become less of a priority with voters, with the economy surpassing it in poll after poll since 2019. But this does not mean that people have stopped caring about the climate crisis. The pressing affordability crisis is front of mind for most. People need to believe and see the climate crisis not as an economic burden but as an opportunity to make their lives more affordable. Mamdani’s campaign did this with a laser focus on material improvements in working-class people’s daily lives through climate action via promises like fast and free public buses.

Although the Mamdani campaign has not framed his buses proposal in terms of public democratic ownership, the focus on rebuilding the capacity of an already existing public institution, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), to act like a public good through public investment is in line with public democratic ownership. After forty years of neoliberalism, many public entities function like private corporations, prioritizing revenue over public service. Mamdani’s plan challenges this trend.