Former New York Governor David Paterson says he would not be surprised if Jessica Tisch became the city's next mayor. Tisch, the NYPD commissioner, has spent the past year straddling an odd political line between billionaire technocrat and progressive administration holdover. Paterson's prediction has injected a new name into speculation about who might lead the city in the future.
Paterson made his case after hearing Tisch speak at a Police Athletic League event, according to the New York Post. He said Tisch was “fabulous,” praising her command of crime statistics and what he described as her sensitivity to different communities. Paterson said she wants to make the city safe enough that “people can walk their dogs at night again,” and he called her manner of addressing a crowd dynamic, according to the same report.
Paterson was not alone in the assessment. John Catsimatidis, a radio-show host, vocal Mamdani critic, and chairman of the Police Athletic League board, said Tisch would be a top contender in 2029 if she chose to run, per the Post's report. Tisch was seen at the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn on September 7, an appearance that has fed chatter about her public profile beyond policing.
A Résumé Built Across Three Mayoral Administrations
Tisch's path to political speculation runs through more than a decade inside city government. Mayor Eric Adams appointed her as the NYPD's 48th police commissioner in November 2024, making her the second woman and first Jewish commissioner in the department's 179-year history, according to NYPD - NYC.gov. She took office on November 25, 2024, succeeding interim commissioner Thomas Donlon.
Before that, Tisch spent roughly 11 years inside the NYPD, including five years as Deputy Commissioner of Information Technology, then led the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications from 2019 to 2022 and the Department of Sanitation from 2022 to 2024, per City & State New York. A Harvard-educated member of the billionaire Tisch family, she holds a BA, JD, and MBA from the university, that outlet notes.
Mamdani chose to keep her on when he took office, pointing to a nearly 20 percent year-to-date drop in homicides and historic declines in subway and transit crime during her tenure, The Guardian reported in November 2025. City data released around the same time showed New York recorded its lowest number of shooting incidents and victims since the CompStat tracking system began in 1994, alongside the seizure of more than 4,800 illegal firearms.
Paterson's Break With Mamdani Over Israel
Paterson's enthusiasm for Tisch comes bundled with sharp criticism of Mamdani's approach to Israel. Paterson has criticized what the Post describes as the mayor's divisive anti-Israel rhetoric, and he noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Mamdani “the antisemitic mayor.” Netanyahu leveled that attack directly during his September 24 address to the UN General Assembly in Manhattan, where diplomats from more than 70 nations staged a walkout, according to CBS News.
Mamdani had earlier threatened to arrest Netanyahu if the Israeli leader set foot in New York City, then acknowledged he lacked the power to do so, per the seed reporting. That admission tracks with the legal reality described by the Times of Israel: local officials have no authority to enforce International Criminal Court warrants against foreign leaders, since the United States never signed the Rome Statute and federal law bars local governments from assisting ICC enforcement.
Paterson took the dispute further by co-writing a letter with Dov Hikind, a former Brooklyn assemblyman and founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate whether Mamdani violated federal law. That complaint fits a pattern documented elsewhere: Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent Mamdani a formal letter in August requesting information on allegations of unequal protection for Jewish residents, after Hikind met with her in Washington, according to VINnews.
Hate Crime Numbers Fuel the Debate
The friction is playing out against a backdrop of stark hate-crime statistics. NYPD figures from 2025 recorded 330 anti-Jewish hate crimes citywide, accounting for 57 percent of all reported hate crime incidents, and mid-2026 figures showed Jewish residents still targeted in more than half of all such cases, according to the National Jewish Advocacy Center. Jews make up roughly 10 percent of the city's population, the group notes.
Not every prominent Democrat shares Paterson's view of the mayor. Governor Kathy Hochul defended Mamdani after Netanyahu's UN remarks, saying the prime minister was not telling the truth when he suggested Mamdani supported Hamas or had incited violence against Jewish New Yorkers, according to WXXI News. Hochul said Mamdani has explicitly condemned Hamas as a terrorist organization and has not called for riots against Jewish people in the city.
The 2029 Timeline
The discussion has focused on a potential 2029 mayoral run for Tisch. Whether she has any interest in leaving the police department for elected office remains an open question that Paterson's comments do not resolve.
