Mayor Magic

I’m the host of The World.

When I interviewed the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, recently, it struck me how popular he still was, more than six months after taking office. He had a 58 percent approval rating — something many national leaders can only dream of.

Some of this is almost certainly Mamdani himself. He’s a talented politician who has rolled out a number of popular initiatives, fast. But what if some of it is because … he’s a mayor?

Mayors around the world, of all political stripes, are seemingly bucking the anti-incumbency trend we’ve seen in recent years. Today, I’m writing about mayor magic — and whether leaders at the national level can learn anything from it.

Zohran Mamdani is not just popular; he’s more popular than he was when elected.

We live in anti-incumbent times. In 2024, every incumbent across the world’s major developed economies lost vote share in national elections. And yet Eduardo Paes, the former center-right mayor of Rio de Janeiro, won a fourth term in office that year with more than 60 percent of the vote. Andre Dickens, the center-left mayor of Atlanta, was re-elected the next year with 85 (!) percent of the vote.

Not every local leader is popular, of course. There are corrupt mayors, mayors who disappoint, mayors who are voted out like any other politician. Still, it’s striking how many of them, on both sides of the political divide, seem to hold on to voters’ trust even at a time when so many national politicians lose it so quickly.

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