Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral election on Tuesday night, ushering in a rare moment of optimism for progressives seeking to push the Democratic Party left and New Yorkers hoping he’ll make the city more affordable.

But in order to implement his sweeping agenda, Mamdani will have to confront an establishment that tried to keep him out of office and tackle one of the key issues it sought to leverage against him: the New York City Police Department and its powerful union.

As Mamdani’s opponents seized throughout the race on his past criticism of police, his public safety pledges on the campaign trail reflected an attempt to thread the needle between the NYPD and its critics — strengthening the power of the department’s civilian oversight board, keeping NYPD Commissioner Jessi

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