Forty percent of Jewish voters who cast ballots in last year's New York City mayoral race say Zohran Mamdani is doing a "poor" job, and an overwhelming majority tie the city's rising antisemitism directly to the mayor and other public figures who they say have made anti-Zionism mainstream.
Those are the headline findings of a new survey by The Jewish Majority, an advocacy group that polled 665 Jewish voters from all political parties between Feb. 17 and 28. The group shared the results exclusively with the New York Post.
Only 32 percent rated Mamdani's performance "excellent" or "good." Eighteen percent called it "fair." The rest were undecided. That means the mayor's approval among Jewish voters who actually showed up to vote sits well below a third, a striking deficit for a Democrat in a city where Jewish voters have been a reliable part of the progressive coalition for generations.
Eighty-two percent of Jewish voters surveyed said they are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about rising antisemitism. That figure includes two-thirds of the respondents who voted for Mamdani himself. The concern is not abstract. NYPD statistics show 143 reported hate crimes in New York City from January through March, an 11.7 percent increase over the same period a year earlier. Of those 143 incidents, 78, more than half, targeted Jews.
The numbers alone would be alarming. What makes them politically devastating for City Hall is the next finding: of those who expressed concern about antisemitism, 73 percent attribute the spike to Mamdani and other public figures "normalizing" anti-Zionism.
Jonathan Schulman, executive director of The Jewish Majority, told the Post:
"This data validates something felt in the Jewish community for a long time: a sense that antisemitism is really spiraling out of control.... and also how strongly people link that to the normalization of anti-Zionism."
Schulman added that the results should serve as "a real kind of a wake-up point here." Whether City Hall hears the alarm is another matter.
Mamdani's early tenure has already drawn criticism on everything from housing vouchers to homeless sweeps. But the antisemitism question cuts differently. It is not about a missed budget deadline or a broken campaign pledge. It is about whether a mayor's own ideological commitments have made a targeted community less safe.
Sixty-one percent of Jewish voters believe Mamdani's refusal to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada" has emboldened pro-Hamas protestors. Only 19 percent disagreed. The rest were undecided.
The phrase is not some obscure slogan. It has been chanted at rallies across American cities since the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel. For Jewish New Yorkers who hear it outside their synagogues and on their subway platforms, a mayor's silence is not neutrality. It is a signal.
The poll also found that Mamdani has repeatedly skirted the two-state-solution question and has said he doesn't think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. Yet 84 percent of Jews who voted for him support a two-state solution in Gaza if it resolves the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That gap between the mayor's stated position and the views of his own Jewish supporters is wide enough to drive a political crisis through.
Mamdani's associations have drawn scrutiny as well. He has been linked to figures such as Hasan Piker and Linda Sarsour. His wife, Rama Duwaji, has come under fire for recently resurfaced social media posts she liked, posts that praised Palestinian militants' attacks against Israel and characterized Hamas's rapes of Israelis during the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack as a "mass hoax."
Those are not peripheral controversies. They go to the question Jewish voters are clearly asking: does this mayor see us?
Mamdani captured 31 percent of the Jewish vote during November's general election. Among Jewish voters ages 18 to 29, he secured 44 percent, according to exit polls. Schulman called those numbers historically weak for a Democratic candidate in New York City.
"I think that such a large percentage of Jews in New York City didn't support the Democratic candidate is unprecedented."
The erosion is not limited to Jewish voters. Mamdani-backed candidates have struggled in recent City Council races, suggesting the mayor's brand of politics is losing ground across constituencies that once seemed friendly.
Schulman framed the disconnect bluntly. While Mamdani "makes the comment constantly 'I'm the mayor for all New Yorkers,'" Schulman said, "unfortunately, Jewish New Yorkers don't seem convinced that's the case."
Mamdani himself has offered little beyond the boilerplate. His public response, as captured in the survey coverage, amounts to a single line: "I'm the mayor for all New Yorkers." That kind of empty reassurance may play in a press conference. It does not answer the 73 percent of concerned Jewish voters who say the mayor's own rhetoric is part of the problem.
Phylisa Wisdom, executive director of the Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism, defended Mamdani's record. She told the Post:
"Since taking office, Mayor Mamdani has made it a priority to consistently show up for and build relationships across New York City's Jewish communities, listening to a diverse array of Jewish voices, celebrating holidays, and engaging with the full richness of Jewish life across neighborhoods and traditions."
Wisdom added that the administration is "developing the nation's first municipal-level plan to combat antisemitism." That plan, she said, reflects the mayor's shared concern about rising hate. Whether a plan still in development reassures a community watching hate-crime numbers climb in real time is an open question.
One concrete step did come from the City Council, not from Mamdani's office. In March, the Council approved legislation championed by Speaker Julie Menin allowing the NYPD to set up buffer zones around synagogues and other houses of worship. The measure drew broad support: 84 percent of Jews who voted for Mamdani backed it.
That level of consensus from the mayor's own voters on a law-enforcement measure is telling. Jewish New Yorkers, including those who pulled the lever for Mamdani, want protection. They want police presence near their places of worship. And they are not hearing enough from the man they helped elect.
Mamdani's broader governance struggles only compound the credibility gap. He recently asked lawmakers for permission to blow past his own budget deadline, and former supporters in neighborhoods like the East Village have turned on his administration over policy reversals.
The poll surveyed 665 Jewish voters, including 174 who voted for Mamdani. That subsample matters. It means the disillusionment is not coming only from Republicans or voters who opposed him from the start. It is coming from people who chose him, and now regret it, or at least doubt him.
The Jewish Majority's data does not exist in a vacuum. Across the city, former Mamdani backers are pushing back on his administration's decisions, from shelter siting to public safety. The Jewish voter survey is the starkest expression yet of a pattern: the coalition that carried Mamdani into City Hall is fracturing under the weight of his own choices.
And the mayor's broader political ambitions make the disconnect even more glaring. Mamdani has hinted that his brand of politics could go national, even as he struggles to hold together the city that elected him.
A mayor who cannot convince a third of Jewish voters that he is doing a good job, in a city that is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel, has a problem that no municipal antisemitism plan can paper over. The numbers say what the mayor will not: his ideological commitments have a cost, and Jewish New Yorkers are paying it.
You can celebrate holidays and show up at community events all you want. But when 73 percent of your concerned Jewish constituents say you are part of the reason they feel unsafe, the photo ops are not working.
