What NYC Real Estate Should Do About Its Election Disaster

“New Yorkers sent a clear message last night,” YIMBY leader Annemarie Gray said after Tuesday’s elections. “They want leaders focused on real solutions to the cost-of-living crisis, and building more homes is one of the most effective answers there is.”

Excuse me?

The election results had nothing to do with “real solutions” or building more homes. If only!

Gray, who runs pro-housing group Open New York, was trying to put a positive spin on things. No one was fooled.

Reality check: The election was a setback for real estate and a clear win for the Democratic Socialists of America, a group focused on fake solutions like seizing buildings, not on building them. All of its candidates won.

This will affect real estate policy because more moderate Democrats will support DSA’s agenda — not because they agree with it, but to avoid being primaried by a DSA candidate.

“Every politician makes decisions based on the next election and nothing else,” political strategist Bradley Tusk said in an interview.

The New York Apartment Association and Real Estate Board of New York will be playing defense for the next year and a half, not advancing their own agenda.

Socialists’ agenda

DSA is all about freezing rents, social housing, taxing the rich and getting Israel’s boot off the Palestinians’ neck.

How are socialists winning elections in a city that gets richer every year because of capitalism, has the highest taxes and spends far more than any city on social programs?

In a low-turnout, closed primary (meaning only Democrats could vote), DSA’s relentless door-knocking and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s support made a major difference for far-left candidates.

Elections rarely turn on a single issue, but the Netanyahu government’s aggression since Hamas’ on Oct. 7 atrocities have been a major motivator for DSA. So has Donald Trump’s second term.

“They’re able to capture that emotion and use it to win,” Tusk said. “Mamdani did the same thing.”

It might seem crazy that Trump and Netanyahu could result in rent stabilization going statewide in New York, but that’s the way politics works. Remember how Trump’s election in 2016 led to a progressive takeover of the state Senate in 2018 and radical rent reform in 2019?

The anti-Semitism factor

Many TRD readers don’t want to hear this, but I believe blaming anti-Semitism for growing anti-Israel sentiment, and DSA’s election wins, is a cop-out.

Tusk, who is Jewish (like me) and a supporter of Israel, believes underlying anti-Semitism is a factor, but adds, “The pro-Israel advocates have totally failed to understand that sentiment has shifted among American Jews.”

Tusk has said on his podcast that Netanyahu has made it impossible for many Jews to defend his government. One of them, former city comptroller Brad Lander, absolutely crushed moderate incumbent Daniel Goldman in a congressional primary.

I grew up in that district, hanging out in a reform temple where congregants today are decidedly opposed to Netanyahu.

(Goldman has also been critical of Netanyahu, but Lander’s support for the Palestinians was the major policy difference between them. Lander’s win, however, had more to do with his long history in the district. Mamdani’s endorsement also helped.)

Blaming anti-Semitism for anti-landlord sentiment is also shortsighted. It’s more the case that anti-landlord sentiment causes anti-Semitism.

“Extremely lazy” strategy

When candidates backing radical or simplistic policies win, the kneejerk reaction is to throw up your hands and say “they just hate Jews” or “they just want free stuff.” The typical response is to fund opposing candidates, a strategy that in New York has failed miserably for about a decade.

“The real estate community and REBNY specifically are guilty of being extremely lazy, politically,” Tusk charged. “They do the same thing over and over again, which is write checks.”

The DSA and other groups, he said, “work really hard to build an organization, to recruit candidates, train candidates, do field [work], policy, build a bench.”

Real estate interests, however, “wait until there’s an election, a crisis, and they jump in with money, but at that point the die has been cast.”

One way to elect moderate, rational representatives is to adopt open primaries, as California did. New York City’s charter revision commission decided against putting that reform on last November’s ballot, although DSA was open to it.

Mamdani’s own commission now has another chance, but given his success under the current rules, and strong opposition to open primaries by the Democratic Party, NAACP and Working Families Party, don’t count on it.

Tusk has been pushing to allow voting by smartphone, because right now only the most motivated people, who are more likely to be ideologues, vote in primaries. Turnout is generally 10 percent to 15 percent.

Tusk ran campaigns for mobile voting in five blue states this year, yet couldn’t get a single law passed. Democrats’ failure to embrace reform could come back to haunt them, as it has in New York.

“You can’t keep telling people the same things, relying on the same donors, the same messages,” said Tusk, “and expect a different result.”