{"id":217,"date":"2026-06-26T09:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=217"},"modified":"2026-06-26T09:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:41:14","slug":"mamdanis-movement-interests-may-collide-with-his-mayoral-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=217","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani\u2019s Movement Interests May Collide with His Mayoral Interests"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani audaciously backed left-wing U.S. House primary challengers to two Democratic incumbents and a third candidate whose main opponent was backed by a retiring incumbent. At the same time, he successfully pressured City Councilor and fellow socialist Chi Oss\u00e9 to abandon his campaign against the Democratic Leader of the House, Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, by convincing the city\u2019s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America [DSA] to withhold any endorsement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more What Life on Most College Campuses is Really Like<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet at the victory party for one of Mamdani\u2019s candidates, Claire Valdez of New York\u2019s Seventh District, supporters jeered when Jeffries appeared on the TV screen and began chanting \u201cYou\u2019re next.\u201d On X, when Oss\u00e9 chimed in, \u201comg this is so fun! Who\u2019s next???\u201d several of his followers proposed he revisit his planned challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After just six months in Gracie Mansion, the democratic socialist mayor has been astounding at picking his battles. Not only did he hit all three of his primary targets this month, but back in February, he played against type and endorsed the moderate incumbent, Governor Kathy Hochul, cutting off political oxygen for her primary opponent, Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, who soon quit. Mamdani then leveraged his newly forged relationship to help close a projected budget deficit in his first budget, with Hochul providing state aid and new tax revenue from luxury second homes in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But can Mamdani control the anti-incumbent fervor among his followers and continue to spare the most powerful New York government figures? And does he want to?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The odd aspect of Mamdani\u2019s endorsement strategy is not that he sometimes helps socialists and sometimes moderates. It\u2019s that he appears torn between two competing objectives: what will help him succeed as mayor and what will help build DSA\u2019s ranks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mayors don\u2019t have unlimited powers and often need state and federal help to shore up their finances and advance big projects. Recognizing that Hochul was likely to win re-election\u2014Delgado never polled higher than 16 percent in primary polls\u2014Mamdani got on the winning team to strengthen his position during budget talks. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Beyond his endorsement strategy, back in February, Mamdani set aside partisan and ideological differences to meet with President Donald Trump and pitch him on securing a $21 million federal grant for the city to kick-start a rail yard in Queens, the borough where Mamdani lives and where the president was raised. The meeting generated tons of favorable press for both men, but Mamdani has yet to reap any monetary rewards from Trump, and the project has not moved forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What Mamdani could really use is Democrats in control of the White House, the House, and the Senate who are sympathetic to New York City\u2019s interests. While a full trifecta can\u2019t happen until\u00a0 the 2028 elections take place, in the 2026 midterm elections, Democrats appear to be on the verge of taking over the House and have a puncher\u2019s chance at the Senate. And in an amazing coincidence, Mamdani became New York City mayor when the Democrats cued up to lead each congressional chamber are also from New York City! Any other mayor would be stupefied at being the beneficiary of such incredible luck. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But DSA has declared its opposition to the Brooklyn duo of Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Shortly after Trump\u2019s return to office, the national organization issued a statement that said the Democratic Party\u2019s \u201cleaders, like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, have failed to meet the moment and mount a credible defense against Trump. This is no surprise from the party that handed the White House to the Republicans, campaigning on a failed status quo instead of fighting to raise wages and stop price gouging. To beat fascism, we need socialism.\u201d That the two have longstanding relationships with the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) is surely not lost on DSA, which has an official position supporting \u201cthe end of Israel\u2019s colonization and occupation of all Arab lands\u201d and \u201cthe right of all refugees to return to their homes and properties,\u201d effectively supporting the end of Israel as a Jewish state. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more The Battle of Little Bighorn and Why It Never Ends<\/a><\/p>\n

New York leftists have long looked forward to a 2028 primary challenge to Schumer, and the chants heard Tuesday night indicate they want to take on Jeffries, too. Would Mamdani intervene again to prevent such challenges? We cannot assume. Mamdani\u2019s interest in supporting House challengers this time around was clearly not informed by mayoral<\/em> interests but by movement<\/em> interests. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Middle East politics loomed large in all three House contests in which Mamdani endorsed. And, like the DSA, Mamdani clearly relishes taking on AIPAC, referring to the group as one of \u201cmonsters that we are up against\u201d during a rally this month for his endorsed candidates. Some argued the harsh language was tantamount to antisemitism and ensnared Jews broadly. At the same time, Mamdani maintained his criticism was fairly targeted: \u201cwhen we ask ourselves how such death and destruction is happening overseas, we also name those who allow it to take place.\u201d As far as the ballot box is concerned, Mamdani won the argument.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of his defeated targets, Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, sits on the House Appropriations Committee and is not the sort of lawmaker a mayor typically wants to lose. But Mandani preferred to see him replaced with Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old DSA member with no experience in elective office and a checkered social media past that includes blistering attacks on establishment Democrats. Mamdani can\u2019t expect Chevallier to get her first choice of committee assignments, let alone bring seniority to bear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is not a strategy designed to bring home the earmarks in the short run, but to build up the DSA ranks and validate DSA arguments in the long run. \u00a0<\/p>\n

As well as the left has been doing in primaries this year, this so-called \u201cDemocratic Tea Party\u201d will still only amount to a small faction of the next Congress. Including Mamdani\u2019s three House endorsements, Senator Bernie Sanders and the Justice Democrats political committee have combined to endorse 24 non-incumbent House candidates. Thirteen have won primaries so far, including two that advanced in California\u2019s \u201ctop two\u201d primary system and face Democratic incumbents in November. (Seven have lost primaries, and four candidates await their primary election day verdicts.) Seven of the 13 winners are general election shoo-ins, per Cook Political Report <\/em>ratings, and will join nine incumbents backed by Justice Democrats (not all of whom are DSA members). In a hypothetical narrow majority of 218 or slightly more\u2014as Republicans learned these past two years\u2014a loose-knit faction of at least 16 insurgents could give Democratic Party leaders agita and perhaps set the stage for further inroads by leftists in subsequent elections. But it is unlikely to help steer additional dollars into New York City coffers before Mamdani faces voters again in 2029.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s successes aside, Mamdani could conclude that taking on one or both top congressional Democrats in 2028 is a bridge too far that could complicate his ability to govern. But even in this scenario, after DSA\u2019s smashing successes this year, could Mamdani successfully intervene once more and block a DSA endorsement? He may have created his own monster, an incumbent-devouring Frankenstein that he can\u2019t control. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani alone sets his priorities and must assess the extent to which his mayoral and movement interests are in tension. But to my eye, Mamdani\u2019s greatest value to the socialist movement lies in his ability to govern effectively. Considering his outreach to Hochul and to Trump, on some level he grasps that the more state and federal help he gets, the greater his chances of administrative success. He escaped one budget season with Hochul\u2019s help, but the city\u2019s structural deficits are worsening, and he would rather not balance his future budgets by cutting services and abandoning promises. He needs as much additional funding as possible to build more housing, support public education, and maintain city infrastructure. If the city\u2019s economy turns sour, whether it\u2019s Mamdani\u2019s fault or not, and the public views him as more preoccupied with national and international politics than the price of food cart halal chicken and rice, he won\u2019t get re-elected. That would be a huge blow to his brand of \u201csewer socialism\u201d and negate any endorsement wins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani flexed some serious political muscle this week, but that may not be what he and his movement need the most. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more A Unified Theory of Donald Trump\u2019s Presidency<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani flexed his DSA political muscles on Tuesday. But is that the best way to win federal grants and earmarks?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-economy","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nMamdani\u2019s Movement Interests May Collide with His Mayoral Interests - USA Business Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=217\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mamdani\u2019s Movement Interests May Collide with His Mayoral Interests - USA Business Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani flexed his DSA political muscles on Tuesday. 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