Organizing as a socialist in the United States in 2025, you’ll find that people don’t hate your ideas. Why would working people reject the appeal of leading better, more comfortable lives? Who doesn’t want more leisure, democracy, ease, and lives we can afford?

The real difficulty is getting people to believe that any of that is possible. Thus, when Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor, many people (including myself) were skeptical that he could win. Once it became clear that he could, and even after he did, many doubted that he could deliver on his affordability platform of free buses, a rent freeze, expanded social housing, and universal free childcare.

Adding to that problem, a chorus of elite pundits insisted that he couldn’t. The childcare plank came in for special derision because of its hefty price tag. Atlantic writer Annie Lowrey called the whole platform “impractical at best”; of free childcare specifically, she wrote that it would require “a mammoth tax hike that Albany would need to approve, which it has shown no interest in doing.”

Well, eight days into the Mamdani mayoralty, he has already made significant progress on that very issue.

On Thursday, the mayor stood next to Governor Kathy Hochul and announced that the state would invest $1.7 billion in childcare to make pre-kindergarten (pre-K) universal care statewide, 3K care universal in New York City, offer free childcare for two-year-olds in New York City and expand childcare subsidies to thousands more families not covered by these programs.

Under the new plan, all four-year-old children in the state will have access to pre-K by the 2028–2029 school year. New York City’s 3K program will get the funding that it needs to serve all families that need it. The free 2K program will be offered in high-need areas of New York City in its first year and to all interested families across the city by year four.

Across the state, families will see a massive expansion in childcare subsidies and in funds for community care. The state is also creating a new Office of Child Care and Early Education to oversee the implementation of what Hochul’s office is promising will be “high quality, universal child care.” The state will also invest in scholarships for early childhood educators and the expansion of State University of New York and City University of New York degree programs to train early childhood teachers.

Socialist organizers rightly claimed credit. “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is entirely due to the Zohran campaign and the movement behind it,” said Jeremy Cohan, former cochair of New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA) and now an elected member of DSA’s National Political Committee.

In an ebullient video released Thursday, Jabari Brisport, a socialist state senator from Brooklyn who has been organizing statewide for universal childcare since 2021, called the announcement “big, joyful news,” noting that four years ago, he and his team were dismissed on this issue: “we were told our dreams were too big, that it would cost too much money.” He attributed the win to organizing, especially the election of a socialist mayor who campaigned on this demand.

Free public childcare is a long-standing feminist demand. Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and CEO of MomsRising, which advocates to improve the economic security of American families, called the announcement a “shining example of what government can do when lawmakers make it a priority to address the needs of working families. It stands in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s decision to sacrifice urgently needed federal child care funding to its anti-immigrant bigotry.” (She was referring to the Trump administration’s use of racist panic around Somali immigrants to defund childcare in Minnesota and elsewhere.)

It’s a huge victory for the city’s working class and for the mayor’s agenda. Research by the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) — which also applauded the announcement, calling it a “historic step toward making life more affordable for all New Yorkers” — shows that families with young children are 40 percent more likely than other New Yorkers to leave the state.

It’s a monumental win, but, Cohan emphasizes, “it’s a beginning, not an end.” Like Andrew Cuomo before her, when delivering on former mayor Bill de Blasio’s universal pre-K promise, “she is still doing her darnedest not to raise taxes on the rich.” Instead, she is using existing state funds, pointing out that New York is fiscally well managed and has the money. (The Fiscal Policy Institute’s Nathan Gusdorf predicted in Jacobin last month that state lawmakers might take that approach.)

Cohan also points out that it’s equally important to continue fighting for childcare for children under two, which can be even more expensive for working parents. (Mamdani has discussed programs to compensate relatives, friends, and neighbors for caring for babies, as many working parents might prefer to leave infants in the care of trusted kin or community members.)

Cohan also notes that the governor only committed to fund the two-year-old care for two years, which, remembering the sad expiration of Joe Biden’s child tax credit and its apparent role in fueling pro-Trump backlash, is worrisome. Social benefits of this kind, once given, should not be taken away. The FPI, too, emphasized that these programs deserve “a stable, long term revenue source” so they could be made permanent.

For his part, Brisport said in his video, still smiling, “we will not stop fighting until childcare is free for every child in New York, and childcare workers are paid like the educators that they are.”

It was the biggest win in a week that included a host of good policy moves on bicycle safety, tenants’ rights, consumer protections, and freedom to criticize Israel’s genocide, to name a few. Mamdani’s socialist state assembly colleague Claire Valdez joked Friday, launching her own bid for Congress, “We’re going to run out of things to win.” 

A humorous overstatement, of course. But it reflects the reality of what Mamdani has accomplished in his short time in office. It’s the strongest pro-worker opening salvo of any American elected official in decades.