Zohran Mamdani’s stunning mayoral win has sent New York’s elite parents into panic mode — and packing.
Since Tuesday night’s results, school placement consultant Christopher Rim says his phone hasn’t stopped buzzing. The founder and CEO of Command Education told The Post that at least 23 clients have reached out since the Associated Press called the race, desperate to get their kids into private schools outside the city.
“Within the first 30 minutes of AP announcing Mamdani’s victory, I got three messages from families looking to move,” Rim said.
Some saw it coming months ago.
“Over the summer, I started hearing families say, ‘I don’t know what we are going to do if this guy wins,’” Rim said. Sure enough, six of his clients already fled to Connecticut towns like Greenwich, Darien, and Riverside before the school year began. “They were like, ‘He’s going to win, and there’s no reason [to wait],’” Rim recalled.
The exodus includes families with kids enrolled at some of New York’s most elite schools — Trinity, Riverdale, Horace Mann, Ramaz, and Avenues — with students ranging from third grade through high school.
Many, Rim said, are Jewish parents rattled by rising antisemitism and Mamdani’s controversial stances on Israel.
“They’re saying they’re worried about safety in their everyday life,” Rim said. “I don’t even think it’s a financial thing. I don’t think it’s the taxes or how much more money they would have to pay to live here.”
As families flee, Rabbi Marc Schneier of the Hampton Synagogue is preparing for an influx. He announced plans Tuesday to open the Hamptons’ first Jewish day school.
“This is in anticipation of the thousands of Jewish Families that will flock to the Hamptons and greater Suffolk County to escape the antisemitic climate of Mamdani’s New York,” Schneier wrote on Facebook.
A J.L. Partners poll released just before Election Day found 9% of New Yorkers said they would “definitely” leave if Mamdani won, and another 25% said they were thinking about it.
According to Rim, most of his clients are now eyeing schools in Florida — including American Heritage in Plantation, Lehrman Day School in Miami Beach, Pine Crest in Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Ransom Everglades in Miami, and Miami Country Day School.