The rightwing New York Post has attacked Zohran Mamdani as a communist, a hater of the police, an antisemite, a driver-away-of-billionaires, and as someone who isn’t very good at bench press.
But six months into his mayoralty, Mamdani has so far succeeded where most of his predecessors have failed: he has bested the city’s most powerful tabloid.
Despite enduring near daily criticism from the Post, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, since he launched his campaign for mayor in late 2024, Mamdani’s popularity in the city has grown in line with his influence – which saw the three candidates he endorsed for Congress win their primaries in June.
“The New York Post is very influential, but there’s a real chance that it has met its match in Mamdani, that’s the shift here, and there’s never been a politician of his national stature and ability to combat the Post until he arrived on the scene,” said Ross Barkan, an author and columnist whose latest book, The Revolutionary: Zohran Mamdani and the Remaking of American Politics, will be released in October.
Indeed, rather than Mamdani being diminished by rightwing attacks, a Siena University poll in late June found that Mamdani’s favorability had actually increased over the previous two months. About 58% of New Yorkers approve of the mayor, with only 26% disapproving – ratings that are better than the Democratic party as a whole.
The popularity surge is not for want of trying from the Post, which publishes multiple pieces on the mayor every day. From Monday to Wednesday this week the Post has published 29 pieces that were tagged “Zohran Mamdani”, stories which ranged from criticizing the mayor over his stance on Israel, for his plans for public supermarkets, for his plans to invest more in public schools, over the spelling of a police officer’s name, for “ignoring Little Italy” on a map of New York’s immigrant neighborhoods, and for his wife going on holiday.
Historically, the Post has managed to weaken liberal mayors. Bill de Blasio, a progressive, served two terms as mayor from 2014 to 2021, but parts of his agenda stalled in the face of relentless criticism – as did his subsequent bid for the presidency.
“He did have relative popularity, but he was never beloved, and he did not have the same ability, unlike Mamdani, to exert his political will in various [political] races,” Barkan said. He said the Post had failed to find a line of attack that sticks and resonates with readers.
“With De Blasio they had one, and it was very straightforward: the feckless liberal who can’t govern the city, doesn’t care about the city, he’s too busy trying to burnish his national image, and no one takes him seriously,” Barkan said.
“They got that, and they got that quickly. Mamdani isn’t like that. He can’t run for president [because Mamdani is a naturalized American citizen], so he’s not distracted by the national spotlight. At the same time, he’s such a national figure, you can’t argue with a straight face that he isn’t relevant, and he isn’t taken very seriously by every Democrat across the country.”
Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, a media watchdog, said the Post had instead pursued a “spaghetti against the wall strategy”.
“One of the problems for the Post is that Mamdani understands media. He’s out-Murdoch-ing Murdoch,” Carusone said.
“Part of what gave the Post the edge is that they were able to sort of be the mainline right into the zeitgeist, and that’s the power of the tabloids. What Mamdani does is totally bypass that process. He has his own distribution system, his own ability to engage with the public. He doesn’t rely on a third-party system, he’s his own storyteller, and that is a really effective way of neutralizing the attacks.”
In the lead-up to the election Mamdani faced months of hyperbolic attacks from the Post. The paper variously warned that companies and millionaires would flee the city, that crime would soar, and that the city would declare bankruptcy.
But none of that has happened – there is no evidence businesses are relocating, while data showed more offices being leased in the city in the first quarter of 2026 than the previous qquarter.
“Everything was apocalyptic, but the amount that they’ve overexaggerated all these things becomes sort of self-defeating,” Carusone said.
“The Post is basically saying it’s going to be a war zone, and yet people are not feeling that day to day. The vibes are actually pretty good, whether or not they’re credited to Mamdani.”
Barkan, who ran for New York state senate in 2018 with Mamdani as his campaign manager, said the Post was still figuring out how to deal with Mamdani, but for now was a “ship at sea”.
“While the New York Post is benefiting in terms of page views and interest, because they never run out of ways to attack him, the reality is they have not moved the needle politically against him,” he said.
“They attack Mamdani every day, but the average New Yorker looks at some of their criticisms and rolls their eyes, because they’ve not yet found the talking point that sticks.”
