New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani can’t be president, so he’s trying to be the next best thing: a progressive kingmaker for 2028.
Mamdani has been meeting privately with union leaders, urgently talking up the need for a labor-aligned or leftist candidate to run for the White House, four people familiar with the talks told Axios.
He’s arguing that progressives can’t afford to squander their midterm momentum.
Why it matters: Behind closed doors, Mamdani has made a striking admission that helps explain why he’s so eager to huddle with allies about 2028: He’s uncertain whether New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, his close political partner, will launch a White House run, the sources said.
If Ocasio-Cortez stays out of the 2028 race, it would upend the Democratic primary — and potentially leave the party’s insurgent left without a candidate.
Archive: https://t.co/YOEpYUhXiF
Heʻs going to have to compete with Hasan.
So when is going to stop supporting Hakeem Jefferies?
Publicly? Once he’s no longer speaker. Privately? Never has.
Y’all get real stupid when a politician does politics, huh? He could rock the boat publicly on Jeffries, but it’d eat up all his political capital and net him nothing in return. Which would also doom the DSA, since they’d be seen as nothing but a liability to both politicians and the general public.
He’s doing good work, sit on his neck about important things, like illegal Israel land sales in NYC and divesting from Israel. Don’t waste time on intraparty nonsense like this.
Nore centrism bullshit. You guys are so stupid to believe Hakeem will help dsa members accomplishing their promises. He literally voted for condemning socialism just after Mamdsni won.
Why do you want to transform politicians to could leaders qe could praise him when he does good things and criticize him when he does not
Criticize him on things that actually impact governance, not bullshit party shit. Yes, he was forced to endorse Jeffries, that doesn’t taint what he’s doing for NYC and the DSA
I know Jeffries is an obstacle and in no way sympathetic to the DSA or progressives writ large (thus why the DNC picked a black man for the position, so they can weaponize his identity). I think if Mamdani called him out, that obstacle becomes an insurmountable hurdle in NYC. Jeffries’ political base is inside Mamdani’s city, if he pissed him off it would eat up all his office’s resources just to deal with that. Thus he’d accomplish nothing, thus fucking over the DSA since he’s their poster child to the country.
Let’s be honest, most Americans are tragically uneducated about politics in general. I’ve seen people already blam8ng newly elected democrats for things happening right now in congress…thus blaming people who haven’t even been sworn yet. Things didn’t magically change overnight, so they’re saying the Dems failed to acknowledge the electorate’s mandates. Social media is awash in people’s political ignorance.
Schumer and Hakim has impact on governance and very bad one
Yeah, but not for the mayor of NYC. There are much better uses of his office than fighting bullshit political games with the pissed off hive of Jeffries’ fans he annoyed in the city for no immediate political gain. He could spend that time fixing potholes and showing New Yorkers the benefit of democratic socialism and functioning government. Things that have actual value besides assuaging the childish fears of keyboard warriors afraid that he’s lost his way cause he’s not bothering to pick a fight that helps basically no one.
You can’t be a king maker if you don’t listen to the base. No Hakeem is what the base want and would boost mamdani approval ever more
I’d wager to say that 60% of the base doesn’t even know the name Hakeem
Yeah, and you also can’t be a kingmaker if people view you as incompetent or incapable. If he spent all of his time and political capital (which is what it would cost) to endorse a different speaker, his days of accomplishing wins in NYC are over for the immediate future. That hurts him and the DSA more than a lukewarm endorsement he gave over a year ago, one that he doesn’t even bother to repeat nowadays (he says ‘you know where I stand on that matter’ rather than repeating his endorsement)
I love AOC, but for the love of god, I hope she doesn’t run. If she does, the Republicans will retain the White House, because this country absolutely will not elect a woman. We’ve two women already, who were both moderates, and both lost because of sexism. The US can’t elect a woman when a large portion of women won’t even consider a woman for President. I don’t like it. I’d love to have AOC as our President, but I do not have that kind of faith in my fellow Americans.
That bullshit again. Hilary won the popular vote meaning she lost because of the electoral system, not being a women. Kamala lost because she did a terrible campaign, not because she is a women. People used to say a black president will never happen. I assure you if Newsome is thr candidate he would lose harder than Kamala
More to the point, both Hillary and Kamala lost because they were establishment liberals.
Who the hell said I wanted Newsome? I just don’t want Trump winning an illegal, unconstitutional 3rd term because of American misogyny. Make excuses all you want for Hillary and Kamala, the fact is, they still lost. It doesn’t matter if it was a popular loss or an electoral loss. They lost. Michelle Obama was correct when she said that Americans aren’t ready to elect a woman. Call it bullshit until you’re blue in the face. It won’t change that fact. I don’t like it, but I’m not going to delude myself into believing fairy tales. Sexism is rampant in the US.
Nobody said you want Newsome. I am using him to show how incompetent people like him could lose even harder than a women candidate like Kamala
No. Neither Clinton nor Harris lost due to sexism.
I think there is an element of sexism in play for both but especially Hilary, she had been painted as the unltimate enemy of every “red blooded” American man for close to three full decades prior to that election. But they didn’t exclusively lose because of sexism.
Hillary Clinton, the woman who declared all poor black and brown children to be super predators and as First Lady lead a popular nation-wide propaganda campaign to get far-right bills passed which essentially created the school to prison pipeline that is still causing generational harm to Americans today and has, in fact, been tied directly to the Trump-era propaganda against immigrants which uses the exact same playbook, is the enemy to every single American citizen.*
But it wasn’t just her incredibly racist history, it wasn’t just that she was another Clinton after we saw what happens with legacy presidents with W. Bush, it was her campaign. “It’s Her Turn.” She refused to campaign in most battleground states, she assumed all blue states would automatically vote for her and felt like she didn’t need to campaign hard in those either, and her entire platform was just a more conservative, more war-mongering version of Obama’s 2012 platform – after 4 years of that failing.
Like Harris, she also simply ignored the working class and its concerns and issues. Things weren’t great in 2016. They’re so much better than they are now, but it was already on a downturn and some member of the elite, someone who has never suffered once in her life, someone who has never been hungry or had to pay bills herself, comes in and declares herself the next president, that she’s the only one worthy of being the next president, that she’s the most qualified, that does not once listen to or echo back the actual problems people are having every day and provides no solutions to them…
She had zero chance to win. The fact she funded and encouraged news coverage of Trump also didn’t help. She fundamentally did not understand how unpopular she was, how unpopular her platform (or lack thereof) was, or how popular anyone that was not establishment would be against her.
There may be some sexism involved, in extremely small communities. But the fact there are plenty of red states with women governors, senators, and house members proves it is not about sexism, it is simply the fact they were both incredibly shitty candidates. They had no hope of converting people from the right, and had no want for people from the left to vote for them.
Totally agree, both bad candidates full stop, and as you illustrated so well there were a litany of reasons why. I personally wasn’t happy voting for either because they were bad candidates but did begrudgingly because duh.
I fully am on board that the dems abandoned the working class, because they did, and Hilary was instrumental in all that shit.
But I also have worked and grown up around men and women that don’t believe women are capable of leading a country for whatever obviously ridiculous sexist reason. But because they don’t understand civics they are fine with a woman governor because the president is the man and he’s on top in their minds
There is a significant percentage of sexist people that are fine with women being in charge on a certain scale but not as final decider.
Overall though you and I agree I just wanted to provide some nuance
Its crazy how liberals how to ignore litterally EVERYTHING about the past so that they can flatten conversations into “its sexism, woman bad”.
I appreciate your response thanks for writing it down.
I forgot why Hillary Clinton was so shitty, your words make me hopeful for AOC
I’m scared we’ll get more of the same with Newsom
I get she’s pretty popular but I’ve never been a fan of AOC. I understand the idea of keeping up the momentum but if the Dems wanna guarantee taking the white house they’ll need a good safe bet which, unfortunately, is another white guy but definitely not a centrist. Maybe they can tap AOC as the VP?
