Mamdani Tries to Coalesce Union Support for a Left-Wing Hopeful for 2028
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has held several closed-door meetings with top union leaders in recent weeks, using his influence to try to build early consensus for a left-wing presidential candidate.
The mayor recently met with the head of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Jimmy Williams Jr. The two holed up for a 45-minute discussion at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s Upper East Side residence.
Mr. Mamdani also met with Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represents flight attendants at 20 airlines. On Wednesday, he will sit down at Gracie with Shawn Fain, the head of the autoworkers union.
The mayor’s goal, his political aides said, is to try to build labor support for the best progressive presidential candidate in order to counter any momentum from a more moderate Democrat as the 2028 presidential race draws near. This comes as the left is looking to reconnect with union members who shifted toward the Republican Party during the Trump era.
The behind-the-scenes effort may seem like an overreach for a politician who was scarcely known just two years ago. But since his ascension to mayor, Mr. Mamdani has spearheaded a handful of like-minded progressive candidates, including some who were elected to Congress last week.
Mr. Mamdani was particularly helpful in boosting Representatives-elect Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez in their primary wins over more established foes, establishing kingmaker qualities that he seems intent on building out to the White House.
The mayor on Monday acknowledged the meetings with union leaders, first reported by Axios. He stressed that his loyalties were still with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a fellow democratic socialist and the leading contender for a leftist presidential bid.
“I think that she would make an amazing whatever it is that she wants to run for,” Mr. Mamdani said on Monday at an unrelated news conference. “I know that the congresswoman makes her determinations on the basis of the most amount of good she can do for the largest number of working people.”
But the mayor said it made sense to try to find common ground with some of the country’s most influential union leaders.
Whether Ms. Ocasio-Cortez will decide to jump into the 2028 fray — either for the White House or to challenge Senator Chuck Schumer in a Democratic primary — is the subject of raging chatter, including among members of Mr. Mamdani’s political circles.
The prospect of her potential presidential bid has sown discord even within the Democratic Socialists of America. Some members believe the congresswoman has strayed too far from her democratic socialist roots; other members have launched a petition hoping to draft her to run.
On Monday, an organization called Ready for AOC said it was starting an effort to get 10,000 community leaders across the country to gather a million signatures from people who would support Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s presidential bid.
But with the congresswoman still weighing her plans, Mr. Mamdani, who cannot run for president because he was born in Uganda, is preparing for a Plan B.
His team reached out to Mr. Williams, the Philadelphia-based president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, for what was billed as a “get-to-know-you” meeting, the first time the two had met in person. They discussed the way the union’s rank-and-file members view the 2028 race, which contenders Mr. Williams supports and how the union’s endorsement process works, according to a person familiar with Mr. Mamdani’s thinking.
Mr. Mamdani also asked Mr. Williams if he would consider running for elected office. Mr. Williams emerged feeling that he and Mr. Mamdani were in agreement on wanting to support a union-aligned candidate for 2028, according to a member of his team.
In the meeting with Ms. Nelson, the head of the flight attendants’ union, Mr. Mamdani similarly talked about the union’s endorsement process and how members were thinking about the 2028 race, the person familiar with the mayor’s thinking said.
Mr. Mamdani would not be the first mayor of New York City to use his local prominence to try to be a presidential kingmaker or king.
During the 2016 presidential election, Bill de Blasio, then the city’s mayor, initially withheld endorsing his former boss, Hillary Clinton, as he toyed with getting behind Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in what amounted to a bitterly contested Democratic primary that year. He eventually endorsed Ms. Clinton, but angered her team along the way.
Mr. de Blasio barnstormed the country in an effort to generate support for a left-of-center agenda that cycle, and sought to host a bipartisan candidate forum on economic issues, which was thwarted when no one agreed to attend. Four years later, Mr. de Blasio ran for president himself as a long-shot Democratic candidate.
While mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg also considered running for president in 2007, even changing his party registration in the process, while insisting he was not a candidate. He ended up waging an expensive, ill-fated campaign in 2020.
Emma Goldberg is a Times reporter who writes about New York City and the Mamdani administration.
Sally Goldenberg is a Times reporter covering New York City politics and government.