Texas governor threatens New Yorkers fleeing state after Mamdani wins election
Freshly-installed New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign has sent shockwaves across the United States in recent weeks. They’ve even, it seems, reached all the way down to Texas. Governor Greg Abbott, a close ally of Donald Trump, made clear with a post on X that anyone from The Big Apple eyeing up The Lone Star State as an ‘escape route’ would have to pay for the privilege. He posted online: ‘I will impose a 100% tariff on anyone moving to Texas from NYC.’ Legal experts were quick to point out that people cannot be taxed like imported goods. (Picture: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Gov. Abbott’s presumably tongue-in-cheek warning followed a recent poll suggesting that nearly a million New Yorkers were considering a move away from the state if the Democratic candidate won. That same poll, conducted by JL Partners for Daily Mail, gave Mamdani a 15 point lead over his closest rival Andrew Cuomo, with Republican Curtis Sliwa trailing in third. The result proved rather accurate. Mamdani’s campaign, built on rent freezes and higher taxes for the rich, turned out to be rather popular with a new generation of younger voters, who came out in their droves to help get the man elected as mayor Eric Adams’ replacement. (Picture: Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Republicans have been quick to condemn the new mayor. Abbott’s comments echoed earlier attacks from President Trump, who had branded Mamdani a ‘communist’ and warned he would be ‘the worst mayor in history.’ Trump had also threatened to cut federal funding to New York if Mamdani took office, though insiders said he had already accepted defeat by the end of the campaign. Abbott’s tariff threat, however playful, summed up conservative frustration with New York’s political shift further left. (Picture: Getty Images)
Polls leading up to the election showed that many folk from New York City believed a Mamdani administration would actually worsen the city’s existing problems. Nearly half said they thought that crime would increase, 45% expected antisemitism to rise and 43% predicted a fall in business numbers. Only housing offered a glimmer of optimism. 39% of those polled in the city said that they expected homes to become more affordable under Mamdani, with 32% thinking the opposite. Even so, a quarter of Democrats surveyed still feared an uptick in terrorism. (Picture: AP)
The same survey revealed a sharp age divide. Among voters under 30, 49% said safety would improve under Mamdani, compared with just 26% of those over 65. Support among young Democrats was overwhelming, with 54% backing him compared to just 26% for the older candidate, Cuomo. To critics, the numbers suggested that political idealism had beaten experience and familiarity. To supporters of the new mayor, they indicated an overdue reset in a city buckling under living costs and stagnating wages. (Picture: REUTERS)
Mamdani, 34, was born in Uganda and moved to New York aged seven. The son of an academic and a filmmaker, he attended a private school in Manhattan where fees now stand at $66,000 a year. Despite this somewhat privileged background, the wily young politician has tapped into some serious disillusionment among working class voters. His platform promised free bus travel, city-run grocery stores, fully funded childcare and a $30 an hour minimum wage. Funding, Mamdani claims, will come from a 2% tax hike on millionaires and a rise in corporate tax to 11.5%. (Picture: AP)
Critics accuse Mamdani’s numbers of not adding up. They argue that higher taxes will drive wealthy individuals and businesses out of the city, cutting the very revenues needed to fund his promises. One poll respondent described the likely outcome in a single word: ‘Disaster.’ Others offered variations on a theme including ‘chaos,’ ‘hell,’ and ‘broken.’ Mamdani’s supporters, however, insist they have heard these sorts of warnings before. (Picture: REUTERS)
Even within Democratic ranks the view is a little mixed. While 52% said they believed housing costs would fall, a third expected crime to rise under Mamdani. Many expressed concern about antisemitism following his appearance in a photo with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn cleric once named by prosecutors as an unindicted potential co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Wahhaj was never charged and denied any involvement, but the backlash highlighted how exposed Mamdani’s campaign had become in its final stretch. (Picture: Getty Images)
With the polls closed and Mamdani officially installed as NYC’s very first Muslim mayor, attention has turned to what comes next. Whether his plans for rent freezes, higher taxes and city-owned services will bear fruit is unclear at such an incredibly early stage. God’s Country governor Abbott’s talk of tariffs may have been a social media gag, but will rich New Yorkers actually consider moving down to red states like Texas? Stay or go, it seems like the people of New York are about to enter brand new territory either way. (Picture: AP) Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google Add as preferred source
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