Every fall, the Wall Street analysts who cover the real estate giant CBRE troop to the company’s local headquarters in the Met Life Building on Park Avenue to hear executives tell them about the state of business and why they should recommend the company’s stock to their clients.
Months ago, before the mayoral election, New York region CEO Mary Ann Tighe had given her presentation and answered the analysts’ questions when, throwing a curveball, she looked at the group and said, “Now I have a question for you.”
“How many of you live in the city?” she asked. About three quarters of the 29 analysts, who looked to be 35 or younger, raised their hands. “And how many of you intend to vote for Mamdani?” she continued.
Most of the hands stayed up.
Tighe retells that story to make a point. CEOs may have spent millions trying to block the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and now are mobilizing to prevent tax increases on executives like themselves and their companies — but the people who work for them are on the mayor’s side.
The dichotomy will be important as the city’s leading business group, the Partnership for New York City, crafts an aggressive new approach to Mamdani after its outgoing leader drew criticism during the mayoral campaign over her praise for the young democratic socialist.
But before they attempt to convince voters that the mayor’s progressive policies may harm New York, the partnership’s leaders may have to persuade their own employees.
An analysis by THE CITY found that Mamdani’s mayoral campaign received contributions of more than $242,000 from 1,971 employees of the 300 companies belonging to the partnership.
“You can’t just tell workers to do something and expect them to do it because it’s good for you,” said Bradley Tusk, a key political aide to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and one of the loudest voices calling on the partnership to be more assertive in the city’s rough-and-tumble politics. “If you can’t persuasively explain why it tangibly and directly matters to them, it won’t work.”
Mamdani’s Big Tech Base
The young talent that CEOs say are the reason they keep their companies in New York represent Mamdani’s base. A recent Marist poll showed that the mayor’s strongest approval ratings came from college graduates between the ages of 18 and 29.
Employees at tech companies led the list of contributors, even as Mamdani targets Big Tech for practices like making it difficult to cancel subscriptions.
Google employees – 323 of them, mostly software engineers and researchers – gave more money to Mamdani during his campaign than those from any other partnership company, followed by employees at Amazon and Meta. Google employees donated $55,726.61.
Roughly 40% of the partnership member employees who donated to Mamdani lived in Brooklyn, while nearly 23% reported Manhattan addresses, while others live outside of the city.
The average donation among employees in partnership members was $93, a little lower than the campaign’s final average contribution of $99, with the majority of them small-dollar donations, according to city Campaign Finance Board data.
Until recently, tech company executives skewed to the left, said Julie Samuels, CEO of the local tech trade group Tech: NYC.
“They are young, they live in Brooklyn and what’s interesting is not that they support Mamdani but that for the first time there is a split between tech workers and their bosses,” she said.
She also notes that tech executives have been mostly silent on the topic of the mayor — even as other CEOs work to block Mamdani’s efforts for higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
‘Adverse Reaction’
Steven Fulop, the former Jersey City mayor who became CEO of the partnership in January, says the anecdotes and campaign contributions do not necessarily reflect the views of the 800,000 people who work for member companies.
“People had an adverse reaction to the choices that were presented to the electorate in November, and he was best for those people,” Fulop said of Mamdani. “But that doesn’t speak to that segment embracing socialism.”
He says his task at the partnership isn’t to be for or against the mayor but to develop common sense policies to make New York a better place. He suggests it is too early for judgements.
“One hundred days into his term, people thought Eric Adams would be elected president,” Fulop said.
Tighe sees a benefit to the support for Mamdani within New York companies.
“What you have to remember is that, for young people, having a 34-year-old mayor is cool and having him as mayor makes that talent want to live here more,” she said.
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The post Big Business Fears Mamdani. Its Workers Gave Him Big Bucks. appeared first on THE CITY – NYC News.
