By The takeover is just getting started. When New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani invited the head of the painters’ union to Gracie Mansion last month, he wanted to know who the union liked for president in 2028 and what it would take to win its endorsement. He also wanted to know whether the man across the table, Jimmy Williams Jr., had ever considered running for office himself.
The democratic socialist mayor has been sounding out labor leaders about who could carry the left into the Democratic presidential primary, four people familiar with the discussions told Axios. Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and later became a U.S. citizen, is ineligible for the presidency. The ally he might most like to see on the ballot, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is weighing a White House bid and a run for the U.S. Senate.
Even Mamdani says he is unsure which way she’ll go.
Mamdani was talking about 2028 well before Democrats knew how the midterms would turn out. He told a Brooklyn rally that the presidential race was already underway. The Democratic Socialists of America asked its roughly 250 chapters to submit their picks ahead of a possible endorsement at its 2027 convention. National co-chair Megan Romer made clear that even Ocasio-Cortez would have to make her case to the members.
The mayor has a particular scenario in mind. One person who spoke with him said Mamdani “wants the progressive ecosystem to mobilize quickly, strategically and efficiently if a moderate candidate is clearly on the rise,” pointing to 2020, when former President Barack Obama appeared to help Democrats close ranks behind Joe Biden as Sen. Bernie Sanders threatened to win the nomination. as he makes striking AOC admission
Ocasio-Cortez has already shown she can draw a crowd well outside New York. On Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” tour last year, the pair drew 34,000 people in Denver, the largest crowd of his career, according to his aides. Mamdani gave little away when WNYC asked last month whether he wanted her to run for president. “I want to see AOC do whatever it is that AOC wants to do,” he said, calling her “an inspiration.”
One alternative already drawing interest on the left is Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed, who has yet to take his seat. El-Sayed won a battleground state with the backing of the United Auto Workers, but his campaign also exposed a split that followed Democrats all the way to Election Day. Two days before the vote, Rep. Haley Stevens, the Democrat he defeated in the primary, appeared at a Detroit church with Republican nominee Mike Rogers and endorsed him after a public fight with El-Sayed over Israel and his campaign’s rhetoric. California Rep. Ro Khanna is also widely expected to enter the presidential race.
Some on the left would prefer to put a union member at the top of the ticket. Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation and a former Sanders surrogate who previously urged Ocasio-Cortez to run, is now making that case. “Progressive ideas only win when working-class voters see themselves in the fight,” Sunkara told Axios. “There’s no better way to do that than to run an actual worker for president, not a professional politician.”
Mamdani has also discussed 2028 with flight attendants’ union president Sara Nelson and plans to meet with UAW President Shawn Fain. Spokespeople for Mamdani, Nelson and Fain declined to comment. Fain, whom activists have encouraged to run, told The Detroit News last month he has “no plans” to do so.
Back at Gracie Mansion, Williams had recent election returns to back up the idea. The president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades told Axios he is “absolutely supportive” of people from organized labor running at every level. “We put a freaking ironworker in Congress. We put a IUPAT member in the Senate,” Williams said. As for putting his own name on a ballot, he said he has no interest.
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