Abundance won—but our work’s not done
What we're loving, lamenting, and learning from yesterday's election results
Abundance Won.
Yesterday, New Yorkers decisively approved transformative changes to the city charter to speed housing production. We elected a mayor who promises a clean break from a broken status quo—unquestionably committed to housing affordability, public transit, and public sector capacity. And we elevated our foremost abundance champion to citywide office.
E.B. White wrote that in New York, the chances for sudden rejuvenation are endless. We feel rejuvenated today—but the work that got us here was anything but sudden.
Since last summer, Abundance New York has grown from a few hundred people to well over 4,000—and you all showed up to deliver yesterday’s results. Over the last month, 70,000 people saw the recommendations in our general election Voter Guide. We individually reached over 3,000 voters through our 1:1 relational organizing program. And dozens of you rallied and canvassed across the city to build a pro-housing majority.
Our Work is Not Done.
Now, it’s on us to ensure that the Mamdani administration is successful—and that the incredible energy the mayor-elect has unleashed is directed towards true abundance.
To help, we’re building a talent database for the new administration. Submit yourself or nominate others! We’re also developing our own “Project 2026” which we’re excited to roll out as the next administration and legislative sessions get underway.
Read more about our takeaways below—and we’ll see you after a well-deserved rest!
What We’re Loving About Last Night’s Results
A whopping win for housing!
Our big focus was on ballot questions 2-5, which streamlined the process to get affordable housing built. All of these questions passed decisively, with margins from 13% to nearly 50%. (Turns out New Yorkers are passionate about digitizing the city map!)
In case you need a refresher on what they’ll accomplish:
Ballot Question 2 will create an expedited review process for publicly financed affordable housing and for developments in the 20% of community districts producing the least amount of affordable housing. This unlocks huge swaths of the city—districts developers currently avoid because they know their projects will be rejected—for desperately needed affordable housing.
Ballot Question 3 will expedite the review process for modest developments (think 3-4 stories or up to 30% denser than surrounding buildings) and climate resiliency infrastructure. These smaller projects—the types of projects New Yorkers say they want more of—are currently not even being proposed because ULURP is not right-sized for them. As more modest housing gets built, we hope to see a positive policy feedback loop, as New Yorkers realize that three-story buildings aren’t so scary and more housing benefits their neighborhoods.
Ballot Question 4 will take on the convention of member deference in the Council, which essentially gives the local Council Member veto power on a given project. It creates an appeals board—made up of the Mayor, relevant Borough President, and City Council Speaker—that can give projects a second chance if the Council votes them down.
Ballot Question 5 digitizes the city map, which is currently kept in 8,000 paper documents that live within each of the Borough Presidents’ offices. Since these maps need to be used in any new project, the current process creates yet another logistical hurdle to approving and building new housing.
YIMBY resurgence in the Bronx
In District 13 in the Bronx, Shirley Aldebol won by just 1,800 votes, or about 5%. Republican and dyed-in-the-wool NIMBY Kristy Marmarato had flipped the district in 2023, which some interpreted as a referendum on housing in the district. We’re seeing the tide turn: Aldebol proudly campaigned on a pro-housing platform and succeeded last night.
An abundance-curious mayor driving enthusiasm for local government
And finally, we’d be remiss not to note the big news of the night: Zohran Mamdani’s commanding victory in the mayoral election. We’ve been optimistic about his openness to abundance since meeting with him in February. Since then, he has become a forceful avatar for progressive abundance, demonstrating nuance on market-rate housing; a belief in the power of streamlined, effective government; and a laser-sharp focus on the problem of affordability. Importantly, he has inspired millions of New Yorkers—many of whom are young, first-time voters—to rebuild and reshape the city alongside him. Yesterday’s record turnout speaks to New Yorkers’ dissatisfaction with the status quo, and equally to widespread belief in Mamdani’s vision of a city that can provide for everyone.
The $117B question, now, is whether and how the Mamdani administration will deliver on this vision. Again, we’re feeling positive: we’re pleased to see abundance champions like Maria Torres-Springer on his transition team. But we’re also being proactive: we hope to contribute an abundance of talent and policy ideas to the incoming administration. If you’re interested in serving in the next administration (or know someone who should), fill out our nomination form here!
What We’re Lamenting
A missed opportunity to increase turnout
In addition to promoting Ballot Questions 2-5, we advocated in favor of Ballot Question 6. That amendment would have endorsed moving city elections to even-numbered presidential years—increasing turnout in municipal elections by 50-150%. Unfortunately, this measure failed, 53% to 47%.
This year’s record-high voting numbers were an indication that New Yorkers can get excited about off-year, local races. Still, 40% more voters turned out in the 2024 Presidential election. If we truly believe in a local government responsive to all New Yorkers, we should advocate strongly for policies that maximize turnout rather than protect incumbents.
As Jerusalem Demsas notes today, “this failure is just another in a long line of election timing manipulation efforts to ensure officials can choose the electorate they want. As many people have noticed, off-cycle voters look very different than on-cycle voters. In effect, Mamdani and those who pushed to keep elections off-cycle were choosing to have lower turnout.”
The City Council’s electioneering efforts
As we’ve written about previously, we were disappointed in the City Council’s efforts to tank the housing-related ballot questions—which ranged from trying to get them off the ballot altogether (in a Trumpian, anti-democratic campaign with the Board of Elections) to sending out likely illegal mailers, using taxpayer dollars and with the Council’s insignia, to encourage voters to vote No.
We’re feeling vindicated that these efforts were unsuccessful, but we’re frustrated at the damage done: to voters’ trust; to the idea of better, more efficient government; and to the cause of housing affordability.
What We’re Learning
Building more housing is really, really popular.
We’ve long argued that NIMBY policies pass not because the electorate doesn’t want housing, but because a small, NIMBY slice of the electorate has undue influence over policymakers. The opposition has organized to dominate Community Boards, Democratic Clubs, and other political institutions where electeds hear from their constituents.
By mobilizing abundance constituents, we’re holding electeds accountable to the majority of New Yorkers who want the city to build more housing and climate infrastructure. We’ve seen these efforts work in Midtown Manhattan, on the Brooklyn Waterfront, and in Long Island City—and yesterday’s results show us that larger parts of the map are ripe for abundance organizing.
Seven of the 10 Assembly Districts with the highest “yes” vote shares on Question 4, for example, were in the Bronx, represented by Council Members Kevin Riley, Oswald Feliz, Althea Stevens, and Eric Dinowitz. 77% of voters in Assembly District 32 in Queens voted Yes on Question 4—despite being largely represented by Speaker Adrienne Adams, who led the Council’s anti-amendment campaign.
Adams’s successor, Ty Hankerson, should take note of just how pro-housing his new constituents are—indeed, so should the new class of council members across the city.
In New York, pro-housing sentiment is correlated with progressivism—with some caveats.
Since the popularization of “Abundance” as a book and policy framework, the online discourse has seized on a perceived conflict between abundance and populist leftism. And, indeed, in some blue cities (e.g., San Francisco), abundance has occupied the “moderate” lane electorally, pushing back against a left NIMBY flank.
We’ve maintained that abundance is its own axis rather than a point on the left-to-right ideological spectrum—and that different cities and states will see different political coalitions forming around abundance.
If we take the ballot questions as a proxy for abundance-mindedness or YIMBY sentiment, and Zohran vote share as a proxy for ideological progressivism, we see a correlation between the two. NYC’s least Zohran-friendly, conservative districts—places like Staten Island, southern Brooklyn, and the far reaches of southeastern Queens—opposed the ballot questions three- or four-to-one.
Zooming in on the right two-thirds of this chart, though, complicates the story. As Mamdani’s vote share climbs beyond 50%, we continue to see strong support for Ballot Question 2. Above 60%, though, support for Ballot Question 2 plateaus (still well above 60% in favor—but not continuing the trend line).
While we saw several progressive champions lead in the fight to pass these ballot questions—from Brad Lander to Cea Weaver—we still have work to do to demonstrate how abundant housing is truly aligned with the left’s priorities, alongside our ongoing work to bring more establishment spaces along to abundance.