The Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday, according to Schumer.
Meeting went well, Schumer told reporters at Tuesday’s Capitol briefing. “We are very familiar with one another, and we intend to continue communicating.”
Mamdani did not have his support.
The 33-year-old Democratic socialist is now leading a four-person contest for the mayor’s office, and the party’s left side has been pressuring Schumer and other Democratic leaders to openly support her.
Last week, New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chastised her Democratic colleagues for failing to back Alexandria Mamdani, urging them to “set aside their differences” and do so “for the good of the party.”
Although Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, has met with Mamdani twice, no endorsement has come of it.
A spokesman for Mamdani’s campaign, Jeffrey Lerner, stated that Zohran has known Senator Schumer for a long time and is pleased of the work they did together in the Assembly, which included preventing the development of a fracked gas power plant in Astoria and obtaining $450 million in debt relief for thousands of taxi drivers.
If Mamdani were to win the election in November, not only would he represent New York, but both Schumer and Jeffries are also New Yorkers. Both of the top lawmakers in Congress are originally from Brooklyn.
A survey that was released earlier on Tuesday showed that Mamdani was well ahead of his opponents in the mayoral race. Adams, the current mayor, former governor Andrew Cuomo, and Republican contender Curtis Sliwa were all in second place.
Attempts by Trump and his associates to pave the way for Cuomo by providing Adams a position in Trump’s administration have increased the pressure to back Mamdani.
To put an end to speculation that he was about to withdraw from the contest, Adams said on Friday afternoon that he would be carrying on with his campaign. While addressing reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump also rejected the idea of handing Adams the position of ambassador to Saudi Arabia.