Dems call themselves the pro-democracy party. So why hasn’t party leadership endorsed Zohran Mamdani?
The clock is ticking on the New York City mayoral campaign. In less than two months, New Yorkers (aka Democratic base voters) will overwhelmingly vote Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani into City Hall. And yet the Democratic Party’s two top officials, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – who also both happen to hail from New York – have not endorsed Mamdani. There is much to make of this failure by Democratic Party leadership: A failure to comprehend shifting attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a failure to buck the wishes of the party’s capitalist donor class among them. But perhaps the biggest failure is how withholding support from Mamdani undermines the Democratic Party’s pro-democracy brand.
Over the last 10 years, as Donald Trump has flexed his authoritarian impulses, the Democrats have presented themselves as the party that will protect democracy. But over the last three presidential primary election cycles, the Democrats have fallen short of that pro-democracy value. Following the 2016 cycle, former DNC chair Donna Brazile and Sen. Elizabeth Warren both suggested that Hilary Clinton’s team had “rigged” the nominating process. In 2020, a surging Bernie Sanders was foiled again when virtually every other primary candidate dropped out of the race en masse and threw their support behind Joe Biden, effectively denying Sanders a path to the nomination. And in 2024, Kamala Harris was anointed the Democratic presidential nominee without ever appearing on a primary ballot. It’s no wonder that in the 2024 general election the Democrats’ pro-democracy message failed to carry the day, as when it came to their own nominating process, the Democrats were never really walking that walk.
Fast forward a year later and Democratic Party leaders are still not walking that walk. Earlier this month, a New York Times/Sienna University poll found that Mamdani was walking away with the NYC mayoral election, carrying 46 percent of likely voters in a four-way race. Mamdani’s closest rival is the disgraced former governor, Andrew Cuomo, who’s polling at 24 percent. And somehow at this late date Schumer and Jeffries have yet to throw their support behind Mamdani.
It’s true, Mamdani is a far-left candidate and self-identified democratic socialist. And Democratic leaders are rightly wary of its progressive wing after being rejected by an electorate that deemed them too consumed by identity politics. But Mamdani’s winning campaign message has largely turned on economic populism and affordability. The 33-year-old state assemblyman has also shown great facility and talent for connecting with voters via social media. The Democratic Party establishment, rather than reject Mamdani, should embrace this political wunderkind and learn from him. What’s more, if Democratic Party leaders fully back this candidate who has overwhelming support from its voters, it might just add some credibility to that pro-democracy brand.
Electoral politics aside, Axios reports that Jeffries’ failure thus far to endorse Mamdani is straining his relationship with House progressives.