Democratic Discontent With Mamdani Mounts In New York City’s Outer Boroughs

NEW YORK — When Queens Borough President Donovan Richards accused the Democratic Socialists of America of perpetuating “white supremacy” earlier this month, it marked a rare instance of a well-known local Democrat taking direct, withering aim at the group that propelled Mayor Zohran Mamdani into City Hall.

Since Mamdani’s ascension there, local elected Democrats have been hard pressed to publicly blast him and his hard-left base. The mayor’s approval ratings remain strong and the DSA has emerged as a serious political force in the city. So Richards’ X post — which was referencing the DSA’s majority white membership nationally — hinted at a potential turning point.

His attack also points to a more broadly felt symptom: Growing discontent with Mamdani from Democratic politicians in the city’s outer boroughs.

Days after Richards’ online lament, more anti-Mamdani sentiment erupted in the Bronx, where City Councilmember Oswald Feliz accused the mayor of giving his community “crumbs” by not pairing a bus lane project in his district with enough infrastructure upgrades in surrounding areas. Like Richards, Feliz made a reference to race, albeit a more subtle one.

“Is this community not trendy enough to justify the kind of improvements that other communities receive, even without asking?” Feliz said in a statement last week. “If this was a wealthier neighborhood, I have no doubt that a more ambitious proposal would have been on the table. Minority communities are important, and deserve better.”

Elected leaders in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island have complained for years about not enjoying the same attention from City Hall as Manhattan. The outer boroughs are generally more diverse, not as wealthy, and, in the case of Staten Island, more Republican, leading to resentment against the urban core. And while gentrification has scrambled the demographics in some enclaves, especially western Brooklyn and Queens, those dynamics continue to mostly hold true.

The fresh batch of criticism against Mamdani is coming from politicians representing neighborhoods that have experienced negligible gentrification, raising the question of whether the discontent will persist and turn into a political liability, or simply fade into the background as past criticisms from the outer boroughs have before them.

Feliz’s concerns were echoed by Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, who is, like Richards, a progressive and a former City Council member.

“I am frustrated and I do share many of the sentiments shared by Oswald,” Gibson told POLITICO after skipping the Mamdani administration’s bus lane groundbreaking last week. Assemblymember George Alvarez, whose district overlaps with Feliz’s, said he has “some of those concerns” as well.

The new rebukes of Mamdani — especially the racially-tinged barbs — appear to have struck a nerve.

After Feliz issued his remarks referencing trendy neighborhoods and minority communities, Mamdani’s office told him the mayor was upset with the suggestion he doesn’t value outer borough enclaves, a person with direct knowledge of the exchange said. The mayor’s team then scheduled a meeting with Feliz to discuss his concerns further — a sit-down that took place this past Monday and also included Gibson, according to the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss the private talks.

Deputy Mayor for Operations Julia Kerson, Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn and other Mamdani administration officials were on hand for the meeting and told Feliz and Gibson they would look into their requests for improved road paving, street signs and expanded pedestrian areas. But the officials made no immediate capital commitments, saying that would have to wait until next year’s budget, the person with knowledge of the discussion said. The mayor didn’t attend the meeting.

Asked about his talks with Mamdani’s team, Feliz said: “The Bronx cannot be treated as an afterthought and deserves more than rhetoric and speeches. I hope this isn’t a sign of how they intend to govern.”

Mamdani spokesperson Jeremy Edwards dismissed the idea that the mayor has mistreated the outer boroughs. He noted the Bronx bus lane project includes pedestrian space upgrades and is only moving forward because his administration reversed former Mayor Eric Adams’ pause on the initiative.

“The mayor has been steadfast in his commitment to delivering for New Yorkers across our city, including outer borough residents,” said Edwards, who also shared a list of street safety initiatives the city has advanced in the Bronx since Mamdani took office. “From launching free 2-K in neighborhoods like Canarsie and Brownsville, to making buses faster and more reliable in the Bronx, to distributing flood preparedness kits in Queens, the Mamdani administration will continue working with local leaders to get these communities the resources they deserve.”

At the urging of the mayor’s office, four Council Democrats also contacted POLITICO to voice support for Mamdani’s work in the outer boroughs, including Councilmember Ty Hankerson, who represents Southeast Queens. He made the distinction between concerns about the DSA’s relationship with Black communities, which he considers valid, and Mamdani’s approach to governance as mayor, saying the mayor has “been pretty receptive to us.”

Richards, the Queens borough president, declined a request for an interview about his thoughts on the DSA.

When it comes to street redesign projects, in Feliz’s view, the mayor rolled out a far more ambitious plan for Manhattan’s ritzy Park Avenue this spring. That plan, situated in a much wealthier area, features expansive pedestrian and green spaces.

Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, another Bronx Democrat, told Playbook that outer borough needs, like installing new stop signs and other basics, are ignored. Outer borough tension with City Hall is nothing new, but he said Mamdani hasn’t made it better.

“I can't say this administration has been more responsive than the previous one,” said Dinowitz.

Gibson agreed, saying she was taken aback by the fact Mamdani’s team only scheduled a meeting on the bus lane in Feliz’s district after the groundbreaking took place.

“Now they want to talk about it — after the announcement,” she said. “That’s not how I work.”

Asked about that pushback and the timing of the meeting, Edwards said Mamdani’s office was in active conversation with local stakeholders before the bus lane groundbreaking in the Bronx.

From a blunt political perspective, the displeasure from outer borough Democrats may not cost Mamdani all that much.

Gibson, Richards, Dinowitz, Feliz and Alvarez didn’t endorse him in the June 2025 Democratic primary for mayor. All of them did endorse him in November’s general election, but none are particularly aligned with his socialist style of politics.

And, as POLITICO recently reported, Mamdani doesn’t necessarily need the electoral support of that many outer borough communities to prevail politically, as evidenced by his 2025 mayoral race victory. A Marist University poll from April also found a majority of Black and Latino voters in the city approve of the job the mayor’s doing.

When it comes to Feliz in particular, there might be some especially sour political grapes at play too. Feliz is a protege of Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who lost June’s Democratic primary to Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist endorsed by Mamdani.  

Still, the new pushback undercuts the sweeping appeals to outer borough, working class New Yorkers that Mamdani, a former Astoria, Queens resident, has touted in speech after speech after speech.

And while the 2029 mayoral election feels like it’s a lifetime away, Richards, the Queens borough president, is frequently floated as a potential Mamdani challenger.

So his jab at the DSA takes on another layer of significance, especially when taken through the lens of a previous public spat between the borough president and the mayor.

Earlier this year, Richards assailed Mamdani directly for threatening to raise local property taxes to address the city’s budget deficit — a levy that would have hit his political base in southeastern Queens especially hard.

“The bottom line,” he said at the time, “is we should not arbitrarily put the city’s budget on the back of everyday New Yorkers.”