House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries plans to endorse Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor, two people with knowledge of the situation told Politico on Friday.
The report comes only a day before early voting opens, and one source said Jeffries would formally announce his backing on Friday afternoon.
The House Minority Leader added in a piece in The New York Times that “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 will join New York Governor Kathy Hochul and a number of other senior Democrats to announce support for the controversial socialist candidate.
Unlike Hochul and New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, New York Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs has said he would not endorse Mamdani.
Born in Uganda to Indian parents, at 33, Mamdani is one of the youngest candidates for New York mayor in history, only beaten by Hugh Grant, who became mayor at 30 in 1889. He is a Shia Muslim, a Twelver, and if he wins, he will become the city’s first Muslim mayor as well as its first millennial mayor.
Controversy surrounding Mamdani
The Jewish community in New York has been vocally against Mamdani for his history of pro-Palestinian commentary, which included his defense of calls to "Globalize the intifada." Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have popularized the phrase, which, for Jews, recalls the First and Second Intifadas when terrorists targeted Israeli civilians with suicide bombings. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators who use the phrase say it is a call for resistance and deny that it is a call to violence.
Mamdani has been an outspoken critic of the Israel-Hamas War and has alleged that Israel is committing genocide.
At the meeting, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla pushed Mamdani about the meaning of genocide, and defended Israel’s war in Gaza, The New York Times reported, citing two meeting attendees.
Jerusalem Post Staff and Joanie Margulies contributed to this report.