The governor of New York state, Kathy Hochul, has endorsed Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, a staunch pro-Palestinian advocate who has campaigned for a more equitable allocation of the city’s resources, for mayor ahead of a closely watched November election in the financial capital of the United States.
Writing in The New York Times, the state leader said on Sunday she made her decision after “frank conversations” with her fellow Democrat, who resoundingly won the support of the party’s voters in a primary election in May.
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“In our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighbourhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family,” Hochul wrote in the city-based newspaper.
“I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support,” Hochul added.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old left-wing politician who has promised to make buses free and freeze rents for subsidised tenants, won 56.4 percent of votes among registered Democrats in the primary race, easily beating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Yet Cuomo, a pro-Israel candidate who joined a team of lawyers defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against war crimes allegations in Gaza, has taken the unusual move of choosing to stay in the race, reflecting a continued divide within the Democratic Party.
While recent polls suggest Mamdani has a 22-point lead among New York voters, some prominent New York Democrats have appeared hesitant to back him, including US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres, and, until recently, Hochul — though the governor had been more positive in comments about Mamdani than the others.
Speaking in Iowa on Saturday, Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen criticised his Democratic colleagues for failing to endorse Mamdani, accusing them of the “kind of spineless politics” that “people are sick of”.
“They need to get behind him, and get behind him now,” Van Hollen said.
Mamdani, who has campaigned alongside independent Senator Bernie Sanders and progressive Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal in recent days, has received fewer endorsements from centrist Democrats like Hochul, less than two months out from the November 4 general election.
Thanking the governor for her announcement on Sunday, Mamdani acknowledged Hochul’s “support in unifying our party” as well as her “focus on making New York affordable”.
He also praised “her resolve in standing up to Trump”.
Trump has also weighed in on the race, saying Mamdani being “up by 20” in a recent poll shows there is a “rebellion against bad candidates … they’re tired of it”.
“I’m not looking at the polls too carefully, but it would look like he is going to win, and that is a rebellion,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” on Fox News on Friday, describing Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, as “my little communist mayor”.
A Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed Mamdani with 45 percent support among likely voters, and a comfortable 22-point lead over his closest rival, Cuomo, with 23 percent.
Repeat Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, who cofounded the Guardian Angels to combat “violence and crime” on the New York subway in the 1970s, is polling at 15 percent, according to the Quinnipiac poll, while embattled incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, running as an independent candidate, has just 12 percent support.
Trump has dismissed Sliwa as a candidate, describing the Republican candidate known for his trademark red beret as “not exactly prime time”.
Mamdani, meanwhile, has portrayed Adams as a “puppet” of Trump’s following meetings between the mayor and the US president and his team. Trump has described Adams as a “very nice person” but has denied recent reports that he offered the mayor an ambassadorship.
