2 top Democrats in NYC’s mayoral primary have starkly different views on police

Crime consistently ranks as one of the top issues for New York City voters, but the two mayoral candidates leading the Democratic primary have drastically different plans for public safety.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been leading polls as a more conservative Democrat who wants to swell the NYPD’s ranks. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, a state assemblymember from Queens, is surging in second place points behind, with no plans to expand the department but designs to coordinate social services to prevent crime and better manage mental health crises.

The divergence suggests the primary election, at least in part, reflects Democrats’ divided views on the role of law enforcement, which have continued to evolve since the nationwide protests and racial reckoning after George Floyd’s 2020 murder by a police officer in Minneapolis.

“ Remember when New York City was cutting police under the ‘defund the police’ slogan?’ I said it was a mistake,” Cuomo said in a recent interview. He said he plans to add 5,000 officers to the NYPD, about a 15% increase to the department’s ranks and the largest staffing boost pledged by any of the candidates.

“ Police have a critical role to play,” Mamdani said in an interview. “Right now we’re relying on them to deal with the failures of our social safety net, which prevents them from doing their actual jobs.”

He promised to create a new Department of Community Safety to coordinate gun violence prevention and homeless services as well as mental health outreach and crisis response.

Recent polls indicate public safety remains a top concern for New Yorkers even as official data shows major crime is declining citywide under Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent in the November general election. Voters in the June 24 primary will be able to rank up to five mayoral candidates in order of preference, and their picks will be tabulated in elimination rounds until one candidate exceeds 50%. Early voting began Saturday and goes until Sunday.

Gothamist interviewed the nine leading candidates appearing on Democrats’ primary ballots and reviewed their public statements on how they would keep New Yorkers safe. All but two — Mamdani and state Sen. Jessica Ramos of Queens — said hiring new police officers was at the top of their agendas.

Many said they would pay for it by reining in the NYPD’s use of overtime, which cost nearly $1 billion in fiscal year 2024, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office. Police overtime spending has reached record highs under Mayor Adams, and some candidates have seized on the trend to criticize his handling of the department.

But police overtime has been a perennial issue for both conservative and liberal mayors. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, the most progressive mayor New York City has had in the last 30 years, tried to cap police overtime, but the NYPD blew past it within eight months.

Several candidates have changed their stances on policing from those they expressed in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Most glaringly, none are running on commitments to defund the NYPD, following backlash by conservatives and moderates amid a crime spike during the COVID-19 pandemic.

City Comptroller Brad Lander, who supported cutting the police budget five years ago as a councilmember, has since called the defund movement a “failed political strategy.” He said he would hire around 1,500 more NYPD officers if elected mayor.

“ I think all New Yorkers are craving accountability right now and they want accountability for people who commit crimes and harm their neighbors or put their safety at risk,” Lander said.

Former Comptroller Scott Stringer also supported cuts to the NYPD’s budget in 2020, but now says he wants to hire 3,000 more police and “civilianize” administrative roles to free up more officers for street deployments.

Mamdani, the farthest-left candidate, was a vocal proponent of defunding the NYPD, but at the mayoral debate last Thursday said he would not do so at City Hall.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams in 2020 voted for a municipal budget that included $1 billion in cuts to the department, though as a candidate she has cast them as part of broader spending reductions spurred by the pandemic’s economic havoc. She cosigned a statement from Council leaders that year saying the budget “must reflect the reality that policing needs fundamental reform.” Today, Adams says she would fill 2,400 NYPD vacancies early in her tenure as mayor.

Other candidates — including former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn, who successfully sued the city over how police treated him and his now-wife at a 2020 protest — have also pledged to hire thousands of additional officers if elected. Former state Assemblymember Michael Blake said he would add more police but declined to provide a specific number.

Still, the candidates differ on how they would tackle priorities like an increase in residents’ quality-of-life complaints and many New Yorkers’ perceptions that the city’s streets and subways are unsafe. Myrie said he would pour resources into solving shootings, with a particular focus on neighborhoods that bear the brunt of gun violence. Lander said he would partly concentrate on hate crimes and retail theft, while Ramos said she would streamline 311 so law enforcement officials could more efficiently respond to complaints.

Multiple candidates, including front-runners Cuomo and Mamdani, said they would hire more mental health professionals to engage with people who are chronically homeless, as well as invest in supportive housing for those New Yorkers.

One point of commonality among all nine candidates Gothamist interviewed was praise for NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who has helmed the department since November.

Myrie, Tilson, Lander and Ramos said they wanted to keep Tisch in their would-be administrations, while the five others said they would consider doing so. Even though they seem to agree on little else, Mamdani and Cuomo both hailed Tisch’s work at the NYPD so far. She previously served as sanitation commissioner under Mayor Adams and has received positive reviews from a range of city leaders.

Given the tight race, the winner will likely not be known until a week after Primary Day, as the Board of Elections receives absentee ballots that will be included in the ranked-choice tabulations.