{"id":113,"date":"2026-05-30T14:45:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T14:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=113"},"modified":"2026-05-30T14:45:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T14:45:23","slug":"who-else-might-mamdani-endorse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=113","title":{"rendered":"Who else might Mamdani endorse?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani shook up the political scene Thursday night when he endorsed Darializa Avila Chevalier, the little-known challenger to Rep. Adriano Espaillat who\u2019s backed by Justice Democrats and the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the mayor\u2019s political home. And there are more big endorsements coming, ahead of the June 23 Democratic primary.<\/p>\n

Read more Opinion: Make the Charter Revision Commission count<\/a><\/p>\n

The mayor had previously endorsed DSA-backed Assembly Member Claire Valdez, who\u2019s running to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez against Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s preferred successor, and Brad Lander, who\u2019s challenging Rep. Dan Goldman. And after endorsing Avila Chevalier, Mamdani said he won\u2019t be wading in to any more congressional races. (Sorry to Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg, who\u2019s been campaigning on the fact that he endorsed Mamdani before the primary.)<\/p>\n

People close to Mamdani and NYC-DSA told City & State that the mayor plans to endorse a number of state legislative candidates as soon as this weekend, and we can make some educated guesses about which candidates he\u2019ll endorse.<\/p>\n

(Editor\u2019s note: Mamdani announced a slate of five endorsements on Saturday morning, after this story was initially published. As first shared with Hell Gate, he is backing Samantha Kattan, Aber Kawas, Illapa Sairitupac, Eli Northrup and Brian Romero.)<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with NYC-DSA\u2019s slate of candidates. In New York City, the socialist group has endorsed eight Assembly and state Senate candidates. Mamdani has already endorsed Assembly Member Diana Moreno, who won the special election to succeed him in the Assembly back in February. What about the other seven candidates?<\/p>\n

Three NYC-DSA candidates are running for open seats: Samantha Kattan (for Valdez\u2019s western Queens seat), Aber Kawas (for retiring state Sen. Mike Gianaris\u2019 western Queens seat) and Ilapa Sairitupac (for Assembly Member Grace Lee\u2019s lower Manhattan seat). It\u2019s pretty safe to assume the mayor will back all of them.<\/p>\n

The other four NYC-DSA candidates are challenging incumbents \u2013 and that\u2019s where it gets awkward, since endorsing against incumbents could strain his relationships with legislative leaders like Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. It\u2019s not a coincidence that Mamdani didn\u2019t make any moves before the state budget was passed.<\/p>\n

The most likely challenger for Mamdani to endorse is David Orkin, who\u2019s trying to unseat Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar, who was a close ally of former Mayor Eric Adams. It\u2019s rumored that Mamdani helped recruit Orkin to run for Rajkumar\u2019s Queens seat, and Rajkumar isn\u2019t especially close with Albany leadership, making this a pretty safe endorsement for the mayor. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Orkin on Thursday night, providing even more political cover for Mamdani.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AOC also endorsed DSA-backed candidates Christian Celeste Tate and Eon Huntley. Celeste Tate is challenging Assembly Member Erik Dilan, who previously fended off a DSA challenger in 2022 but whose father, erstwhile state Sen. Martin Dilan, was unseated by DSA\u2019s Julia Salazar back in 2018. Huntley is challenging Assembly Member Stefani Zinerman for the second time, after losing to her by less than 7 points in 2024. Zinerman\u2019s Bedford-Stuysevant district is in the heart of Black Brooklyn, and she has powerful friends like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and state Attorney General Letitia James, which may make Mamdani think twice before backing Huntley. But Mamdani endorsed Huntley the last time he ran against Zinerman, so he might feel obligated to do so again.<\/p>\n

The DSA-backed challenger that could be the most politically complicated for Mamdani to endorse would be Conrad Blackburn, who\u2019s challenging Assembly Member Jordan Wright in Harlem. Wright is the president of the Manhattan Young Democrats and his father Keith Wright is the head of the Manhattan Democratic Party. The Wrights backed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary but switched their allegiance to Mamdani after he became the Democratic nominee. The mayor has already shown he\u2019s willing to endorse against establishment politicians who endorsed him in the general election \u2013 just ask Espaillat \u2013 but Mamdani might not be inclined to cross a politically powerful family like the Wrights if Blackburn is unlikely to win.<\/p>\n

Read more Mamdani\u2019s EDC, still leaderless, still stressing out the NYC business community<\/a><\/p>\n

That said, it\u2019s unlikely that Mamdani would endorse everyone on the NYC-DSA slate except for Blackburn. More than 500 DSA members have signed an open letter calling on Mamdani to endorse the full NYC-DSA slate, and Black DSA members have specifically called on the mayor to support Black socialist candidates who are challenging more moderate Black incumbents.<\/p>\n

Mamdani could also endorse a handful of candidates who are not part of the NYC-DSA slate \u2013 like Eli Northrup, Assembly Member Jessica Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas, Brian Romero, Shamsul Haque and former Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou.<\/p>\n

Northrup is running for an open Assembly seat on the Upper West Side. JGR is looking to unseat state Sen. Jessica Ramos, who infamously backed Cuomo over Mamdani in the Democratic mayoral primary \u2013 and there\u2019s no love lost between the mayor and Ramos. Romero, who previously worked as JGR\u2019s chief of staff, is now looking to succeed her in the Assembly. All three of those candidates \u2013 Northrup, JGR and Romero \u2013 have already been endorsed by AOC. But one potential strike against Romero is that he insisted on running for the seat even though Mamdani and DSA favored a different candidate.<\/p>\n

Haque, a former New York City Police Department detective, was a prominent surrogate for Mamdani during the mayoral campaign and is now running for an open Assembly seat in Queens. His main opposition is Patrick Martinez, who\u2019s backed by the Queens Democratic Party. Niou is an ex-lawmaker with a good but not especially close relationship with the mayor who\u2019s running for an open state Senate seat in Lower Manhattan with the support of the New York Working Families Party. Mamdani is more closely aligned with Niou than he is with her main rival, Assembly Member Grace Lee, but Lee is favored to win and the mayor may opt to just stay out of the race.<\/p>\n

All of these impending endorsements are all quite frustrating for Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez, who\u2019s seemingly made a point of endorsing against<\/em> DSA candidates this year, ever since Valdez and Mamdani bucked her succession plans.<\/p>\n

Vel\u00e1zquez told City & State she has endorsed \u201cpeople that I know, people that are rooted in community,\u201d pointing to Jasmin Sanchez, who\u2019s running against Sairitupac in lower Manhattan. \u201cShe has been organizing and working on housing issues and protecting public housing forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what does she think about Mamdani\u2019s plans to endorse a slate of legislative candidates?<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, who am I to tell him not to do it?\u201d she said. \u201cHe will face the outcome of those (races). It’s not guaranteed, it’s not a given. And going forward you need your allies and the coalition that put you there. He didn’t win because of the socialists. He won because he was able to put together a coalition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Will a remedy bill for sex-abuse cases stall in the Assembly again?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After endorsing Darializa Avila Chevalier for Congress, the mayor could turn attention to legislative races. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,77,20,45],"tags":[78,79,21,46],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-dsa","category-new-york-city","category-zohran-mamdani","tag-commentary","tag-dsa","tag-new-york-city","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"yoast_head":"\nWho else might Mamdani endorse? - Business Relocation Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=113\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who else might Mamdani endorse? 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