Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took a dig at congressional Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries — and other establishment members of the party — Thursday for not backing Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral race.
The lefty “Squad” member noted that she backed former President Joe Biden when he became the 2020 Democratic nominee, prevailing over her favored candidate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“We have a Democratic nominee. Are we a party who rallies behind our nominee or not?,” Ocasio-Cortez, a Mamdani booster, told NY1 when asked about Schumer and Jeffries withholding endorsements of the Democratic mayoral candidate.
“Because what we do is we use our primary to settle our differences, and once we have a nominee we rally behind that nominee,” the congresswoman, like Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, said.
“I am very concerned about the example that is being set by anybody in our party … if an individual doesn’t want to support the party’s nominee now, it complicates their ability to ask voters to support any nominee later.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul also has not endorsed Mamdani, after the Queens Assemblyman defeated ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others in the June primary.
Schumer, the Senate Democratic minority leader and Jeffries, the House Democratic minority leader, have other considerations.
They’re both trying to win back majority control of Congress in the next year’s midterm elections.
Republicans are already attempting to tie Mamdani to Democrats in swing districts, where his brand of democratic socialism and his prior statements calling for defending the police are not popular. Mamdani now says he does not support cutting police funding.
Moderate Democrats are not only trying to distance themselves from Mamdani, they’re repudiating him.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat who represents part of Queens as well as Nassau County in the 3rd House District, even said that Mamdani and other DSA members should leave the Democratic Party and form their own left-wing party.
Jeffries, during an interview with Don Lemon Thursday morning said, “I just haven’t weighed in one way or the other. But stay tuned. I’ll have more to say [about the race] when I’m back in New York City. Sometime soon.”
Schumer declined to comment.
