New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rides a go-kart before a press conference at Coney Island in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S., July 13, 2026.
Whatever the current focus on the “progressive” agenda of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other “Democratic Socialists” gaining ground in this year’s lengthy primary season, New York mayors are judged by their efficiency at getting garbage cleared, snow removed and rats held at bay.
The media attention often falls on anti-Israeli government positions or demanded attention to childcare and taxing the super-rich. But over time, it is the rat index and city services that count.
Mamdani appears to recognize that fact and has a full city agenda of municipal improvements aimed at everyday life, from faster, more reliable bus service to the now controversial plan to collect extra tax from those owning more than one home worth five million dollars. By comparison, the several allied Democratic Socialists making headlines in Michigan, Colorado, and beyond seem to be struggling to win converts among those who chose other candidates.
The political messaging around affordability and access to health care, to reliance on consulting U.S. intelligence before going to war with Iran rather than afterwards, to stop Donald Trump’s hyper-attention to grandiose personal pet projects rather than to prices all suggest a wider populist message than what the reports on Democratic schisms in the primary have reflected to date.
Those seeking hints about successful coalitions – like Mamdani’s, I would suggest — might do well to look past the public smiles, the ever-present “I am a fighter” logos and the most confrontational positions to see what these candidates want to deliver as results.
Yes, Mamdani went public with his controversial, if futile desire for the NYPD to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on war crimes charges over Gaza actions voted by the International Criminal Court. (Interestingly, Netanyahu said on Sunday that he would buck disarmament proposals from Trump and his “Board of Peace” in Gaza rather than fall in line).
Meanwhile, Mamdani is also delivering on chasing out the rats and pursuing a range of city service improvements under difficult financial restraints.
That is the point, of course. Theoretical labeling of “socialists,” “Communists,” “Trump derangement syndrome” victims and the other partisan ridiculing attempts about supposed ideology skip the central question: What would these candidates do about high prices or health care or reported excessive, unaccountable brutality by ICE agents?
Do we really have as much unresolvable division as depicted or is this just political noise?
That’s why the rat control question matters.
The Rats
There are about three times as many rats in New York City as there are people. The city manages rat control by giving food and waste cleanup duties to property owners, creating local mitigation zones, and encouraging public reporting.
There are pilot fertility control programs as well as poisonous baiting. Residents are encouraged to notice signs of infestation like gnawed wood and plastic and evidence of rat trails, and inspectors look for burrows around pipes in the boroughs. In the last year, there are new trash containers in areas of higher rat populations. Mamdani is about to expand those streetside trash container zones, which have eliminated thousands of street parking places.
Mamdani threw out many projects pursued by his predecessor, Eric Adams, but kept rat control, recreating Adams’ city Rat Czar position into a permanent Mayor’s Office of Rodent Mitigation.
The results: There has been a 22% decline in rat sightings reported to the city 311 hotline over 2025, which had showed a substantial decline over 2024. It is the first time since 2020 that rat sightings dropped below 10,000. More than 70% of New York City’s trash is now mandated to be stored in sealed, rat-proof containers rather than piled in black plastic bags on sidewalks, with plans for full compliance by 2031. Groups have formed to track rat-control progress.
The Guardian noted the progress this week, reporting that “New York’s long-running rat war is in a period of uneasy detente.” Mayor Adams may have been fixated on rats, advertising for a czar who would have “swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor and general aura of badassery,” but give Mamdani credit for building out the campaign.
The rat population spiked during Covid because trash went uncollected and there were increases in take-out and delivery food, as well as outdoor dining sheds that provided snacks and refuge. Adams ordered teams to tackle the estimated 600,000 rats that live in the city’s street tree beds.
Mamdani has expanded the “containerization” program to six districts, bringing oversize bins with lids to 25,000 new residences. West Harlem sightings are down, but parts of the East Village and Chinatown are up.
Expect that if any of Mamdani’s plans for new housing proceed, each new construction site will, as always, unearth the ever-present rats. In the subway, scurrying rats on the tracks are still likely to prompt human shifting on the platform areas above.
The rats are clever and intent on survival, relying on less and less sustenance to do so, say the rat experts.
Let’s elect candidates who want to do more than wave a banner at them.
Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times, Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times and leadership jobs at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team part of several Pulitzers in New York.
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