House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) endorsed Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor on Friday, one day before early voting starts Saturday.
In a last-minute statement to The New York Times, Jeffries said it’s time to unite against the “existential” threat of President Donald Trump.
“Zohran Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy,” Jeffries said in the statement.
“In that spirit, I support him and the entire citywide Democratic ticket in the general election,” Jeffries added.
The endorsement comes after months of pressure for Jeffries and other Democratic leaders to endorse Mamdani, a state assemblymember and democratic socialist who recent polling shows is likely to win the mayoral race.
Mamdani is up against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who he trounced in the Democratic mayoral primary in June. Cuomo, who is now running as an independent, ultimately resigned from his job as governor in 2021 over sexual harassment allegations.
In a Wednesday debate, Mamdani made sure to remind Cuomo of the allegations against him.
“In 2021, 13 different women who worked in your administration credibly accused you of sexual harassment,” Mamdani said during the exchange. “Since then, you have spent more than $20 million in taxpayer funds to defend yourself all while describing these allegations as entirely political. You have even gone so far as to legally go after these women. One of those women, Charlotte Bennett, is here in the audience this evening. You sought to access her private gynecological records.”
Cuomo has denied the allegations, and responded to Mamdani by saying that the cases against him were dropped. He did not mention that he paid $450,000 to settle a lawsuit from an ex-aide who alleged he sexually harassed and groped her while he was in office.
Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from New York City should Mamdani win.
“Self proclaimed New York City Communist, Zohran Mamdani, who is running for Mayor, will prove to be one of the best things to ever happen to our great Republican Party,” Trump posted on Truth Social last month. “He is going to have problems with Washington like no Mayor in the history of our once great City.”
Trump repeated his talking point during a White House roundtable on Thursday, while also acknowledging Mamdani’s likely win.
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“And now it looks like they’ll have a communist mayor in New York,” Trump said. “That’ll be a lot of fun. But remember this: they have to go through the White House.”