Journalist Mark Halperin — who first reported former President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 election — claims House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is not supportive of Zohran Mamdani’s bid for New York City’s mayor. In an interview with Axios, Halperin explained, “Hakeem Jeffries strongly believes that if Mamdani wins, [Jeffries] can’t win the majority.”
Although Jeffries denies this statement, he can’t deny that Democrats have been notably divided over Mamdani’s campaign, and multiple prominent Democrats — such as Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — have not yet endorsed him. When asked about a possible endorsement during an interview, Jeffries said, “I didn’t get involved in that primary election, and I don’t know him well.”
After a sit-down meeting with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Mamdani last week, Jeffries showed that he was still not ready to endorse Mamdani but will “reconvene with other members of the [New York] delegation and high-level community leaders in Brooklyn upon [Mamdani’s] return to the country.”
Some other rank-and-file members have also been distancing themselves from Mamdani, such as Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) who emphasized that Mamdani was not “speaking for our party.” Even the media is catching on after CNN’s Chief Data Analyst Harry Enton claimed the “Democratic establishment” is the biggest opponent of Mamdani’s Democratic nomination. “We have seen poll after poll after poll showing Democratic voters fed up with their leaders in Washington, fed up with their leaders in government,” Enton highlighted.
Although Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) endorsed Mamdani’s campaign during the primaries, he reportedly insisted that Mamdani censor his anti-Semitic views and statements while the New York mayoral candidate was visiting Washington. According to a close source, Sanders told Mamdani to “not let himself seem like he’s minimizing the fear Jews in New York and elsewhere feel from the threat of hate against them.” Mamdani seems to be distancing himself from his former statements supporting the phrase “globalize the intifada” — a term which notably encourages violence against Jews. Though Mamdani has not condemned the phrase, he has claimed he will “discourage” its use.
The stark contrast between Mayor Eric Adams’s (D) trip to Washington after his primary victory and Mamdani’s post-primary trip to Washington is also telling. After Adams’s primary victory in 2021, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) invited him to speak to the House Democratic caucus and was introduced to then-President Joe Biden in the White House. But Mamdani’s four-hour Washington tour was absent of interactions with any leaders of the Democratic Party.
Republicans will look to harness the division within the party and expose the Democrats’ new leftward movements. “The radical left and the socialist wing of the Democratic Party is moving everybody to the left,” Nicole Malliotakis, the only Congressional Republican from New York City, highlighted. “[A]nd these folks who are supposedly centrists are afraid of their shadow so they’re just going along for self-preservation.”
Other radical statements from Mamdani are creating riffs in the party, such as his free-housing objectives. “If there was any system that could guarantee each person housing, whether you call it the abolition of private property, or you call it a statewide housing guarantee, it is preferable to what is going on right now,” he said in 2020. His campaign website outlines his plans to achieve this goal, including “constructing 200,000 new units over the next 10 years” from “public dollars.”
His other priorities, such as free child care, housing, transportation, and government-owned grocery stores, are key aspects of the DSA agenda. “If we want everyone to be full participants in the economy, we need worker ownership of the means of production,” Mamdani wrote on X. The self-proclaimed socialist has not given up on his radical, communist ideas, and other rank-and-file members on the Left have shown their support.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) announced her endorsement of Mamdani in a YouTube video last month promoting early voting. Democratic House members like Rep. Luz Rivas (Calif.) and Rep. Lateefah Simon (Calif.) attended an AOC-organized breakfast event for Mamdani and left “inspired” and claimed they “learned a lot.”
The country will see how the candidate’s socialist objectives play out and how long their deep flaws will stay hidden. Sources such as the Washington Examiner have already exposed the significant mathematical errors in Mamdani’s plan for government-owned grocery stores, claiming his plans to “redirect city funds” are not as simple as they seem — it will take 42 years for Mamdani to raise the $140 million he plans to spend.
A July survey conducted by HarrisX evaluated 585 of the city’s registered voters and shows Mamdani leading the race, but his margins are closing. According to the poll, Mamdani is leading with 26% of the votes, former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) with 23%, Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa with 22%, and incumbent Mayor Adams with 13%.
AUTHOR
Caily Shriver
Caily Shriver serves as an intern at Family Research Council.
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