Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson has a message for every financial firm still doing business in New York City: Texas is open, the taxes are low, and the welcome mat is out. Johnson, a Republican, told Fox News Digital that New York City's progressive leadership is driving a growing exodus of financial giants southward, and that Dallas is ready to catch them.
The mayor's pitch comes as a public feud between New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Citadel founder Ken Griffin has thrown the broader debate over the city's economic direction into sharp relief. Mamdani posted a viral video outside Griffin's condo promoting a plan to tax second homes in New York City worth more than $5 million. Griffin fired back, warning that tax hikes, anti-business rhetoric, and rising crime risk are pushing firms out.
Johnson said the clash proved his point. He framed it as the latest evidence that New York's political class has chosen ideology over prosperity, and that Texas Republicans see a historic opening.
Johnson did not mince words about what he sees happening in America's largest city. He told Fox News Digital:
"The recent back-and-forth between Mayor Mamdani and Ken Griffin exemplifies exactly what I have been saying publicly for some time: New York City, under its current leadership, does not believe in rewarding success."
He went further, saying the city "believes in punishing success." That framing, reward versus punishment, sits at the center of a competition between red and blue states that has been building for years but now appears to be accelerating.
Johnson argued that Dallas is helping lead the shift. He described what he calls "Y'all Street" as an emerging major center for financial services, built on a foundation New York's leaders seem determined to tear down: low taxes, light regulation, and a city government that treats business owners as partners rather than targets.
"Instead of demonizing those who have achieved the American dream, we embrace our local business leaders as partners in building a better city, a city of genuine opportunity for everyone."
Gov. Greg Abbott has joined Johnson in making the pitch to Wall Street firms, though the Fox News Digital report did not include specific remarks from the governor.
The rhetoric has real-world weight behind it. A steady stream of financial firms has expanded operations in Texas in recent years. Goldman Sachs has grown its footprint in Dallas. JPMorgan Chase has expanded its workforce across the state. And in a move that would have been unthinkable a generation ago, the Texas Stock Exchange is preparing to launch in Dallas to rival legacy markets like the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, both of which are themselves expanding into Texas.
Texas reported a record $24 billion budget surplus in 2025. That number alone tells a story about the fiscal environment firms encounter when they cross the state line. No state income tax. A government that runs a surplus instead of chasing new ways to soak high earners. For firms weighing where to grow, the math is not complicated.
Johnson credited Dallas's pro-business approach for fueling the migration. And the trend, he said, is accelerating even more under Mamdani's leadership in New York, which is to say, the harder New York pushes left, the faster the money moves south.
Mamdani has pushed for higher taxes on corporations and top earners in New York City. His viral video stunt outside Griffin's residence was designed to rally populist support for the second-home tax. But the spectacle had the opposite effect on the business community, turning a policy debate into a personal confrontation that reinforced every concern about the city's direction.
The political dynamics around Mamdani extend well beyond city limits. Breitbart reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Mamdani for mayor ahead of early voting, after months of hesitation. Jeffries said Mamdani "has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers." But the endorsement drew immediate fire from Republicans. Rep. Elise Stefanik said Jeffries' backing links national Democrats to Mamdani's platform and could hurt the party's chances of winning a House majority.
Meanwhile, some major Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, had still withheld their endorsement, a sign of internal party unease over Mamdani's far-left policy proposals and controversial rhetoric. The reluctance from senior figures in his own party suggests that even Democrats recognize the political risk of being associated with an agenda that treats wealth creation as a problem to be taxed away.
That internal tension matters. When a city's own political allies are nervous about its mayor, the business community takes notice. And when Mamdani dismisses the wealthy-resident exodus as fiction, firms that are already packing boxes have little reason to stick around for the debate.
Dallas is not the only city benefiting from the flight. Citadel's Ken Griffin has made Miami a major hub for his operations, and Griffin has pledged to double down on that commitment as New York's political environment grows more hostile to the financial industry. The competition between red-state cities for Wall Street's business is real, and it is intensifying.
What makes the Texas play distinctive is scale. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are not boutique shops. They are among the largest financial institutions on the planet. When firms of that size expand in a new state, they bring thousands of jobs, billions in investment, and a gravitational pull that draws smaller firms, service providers, and talent behind them.
The Texas Stock Exchange adds another dimension. If Dallas can host not just bank offices but a functioning securities exchange, the city moves from being a satellite of Wall Street to a genuine competitor. The fact that the NYSE and Nasdaq are also expanding into Texas suggests that even legacy institutions see where the momentum is heading.
Republican-led governance at the state and local level has created the conditions for this shift. Texas runs budget surpluses while blue states chase deficits. Texas keeps taxes low while New York debates new levies on the wealthy. Texas treats business growth as a public good while New York's mayor films videos outside billionaires' homes to promote tax hikes.
The pattern is not limited to finance. Across the country, Republican-led cities and states have moved to align local policy with conservative governance principles, often in direct contrast to the progressive experiments playing out in places like New York.
The consequences of this migration go beyond bragging rights. Every firm that relocates operations from New York to Texas takes jobs, tax revenue, and economic influence with it. New York City's budget depends heavily on revenue from the financial sector and from high-income residents. When those residents and firms leave, the tax base shrinks, which, in a bitter irony, creates pressure for the very tax increases that drove them out in the first place.
Johnson framed the competition in simple terms: Dallas welcomes success, and New York punishes it. That is a political argument, but it is also a factual description of two very different policy environments. One state runs a $24 billion surplus with no income tax. The other is debating new taxes on second homes, corporations, and top earners while its mayor picks public fights with the founder of one of the world's largest hedge funds.
The open questions are significant. How many more firms will follow Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan in expanding their Texas operations? Will the Texas Stock Exchange succeed in drawing listings away from New York? And will Mamdani's agenda accelerate the very exodus he claims is not happening?
None of those questions have final answers yet. But the direction of the trend is clear, and Republicans at every level are positioning themselves to capitalize on it.
Eric Johnson is not shy about what he is doing. He is recruiting Wall Street to Texas, and he is doing it by pointing at New York and saying: look at what happens when your city government treats wealth as a sin. The firms are listening. The money is moving. And the people left holding the bag are the New York taxpayers whose leaders decided that demonizing success was more important than keeping it.
When you spend years telling the most productive people in your city that they owe more, eventually they find a city that says thank you instead.
