It has been a strong first 100 days for New York’s new mayor Zohran Mamdani. As per an NYC.gov website detailing his achievements, his administration has defied naysayers by securing $1.2 billion for universal childcare expansion, filling over 100,000 potholes, somehow getting on Trump’s good side, fulfilling his campaign promise of a rent freeze, and seeing record-low crime figures.
He’s also steadily gaining influence beyond the mayor’s office by securing major electoral wins for candidates he personally endorsed in U.S. House races, with the BBC noting that this indicates a steady momentum for dragging the local Democratic party to the left and away from corporate interests.
No politician is perfect, and Mamdani’s popularity amongst New Yorkers is likely to waver at some point, but right now everything’s coming up Zohran.
Now there’s even talk of Mamdani somehow mounting a run for the presidency. On paper, a popular and charismatic Democrat who’s been NYC Mayor would seem like a natural fit for a future presidential run.
However, Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, moved to the United States aged 7, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018. This means he’s constitutionally ineligible for the presidency. Now ABC’s Jonathan Karl has wondered if this rule could be changed. In an interview on This Week aired on ABC News, he asked:
KARL: There's a constitutional requirement that you have to be a natural-born citizen to run for president. You were not born here. Do you think that's something that should be changed?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 28, 2026
MAMDANI: No. I think the Constitution looks good just the way it is. pic.twitter.com/Zc1c4MfDFP
Karl: “I noticed that you’re turning 35 soon. So you now hit one of the constitutional requirements to run for president. But there’s another one that says you were a natural-born citizen. You were not born here. Do you think that’s something that should be changed in the Constitution? It would take an amendment, but do you think we should change that?
“I’m very excited to focus on New York City”
Mamdani grinned and gave a firm reply:
“No. I think the Constitution looks good just the way it is. I’m very excited to focus on New York City.”
Amending the constitutional requirement for a presidential candidate to be a natural-born citizen has been pushed before. In the mid-2000s, Republicans actively pushed for a constitutional amendment specifically to make the Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger eligible for president.
Known popularly as the “Arnold Amendment”, the Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment was proposed by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch in 2003 and would have allowed naturalized citizens who had been U.S. citizens for 20 years to run for president or vice president. This failed and didn’t advance far in Congress.
If the Democratic Party were minded to push Mamdani for president, they’d need 2/3 of both houses of Congress and ratification by 3/4 of states to amend the Constitution to allow it. As such, Mamdani looks set to focus his efforts on improving the city that put him in office for the foreseeable future.
