Patrick Gaspard, the former ambassador to South Africa, Barack Obama aide, and veteran New York City political insider, shares much in common with mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani – despite their age and time in New York City politics spanning decades apart. They were both born in Africa to immigrant parents, Gaspard in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mamdani in Uganda. They both moved to the city with their parents at a young age. Both have ties to Columbia University, Gaspard as a graduate and Mamdani as the son of a professor, and are fans of Bill de Blasio.
Gaspard, who has emerged as an informal but key adviser in Mamdani’s campaign, said that what drew him to the 33-year-old Democratic socialist was “his seriousness of purpose, his moral clarity, his natural gifts as a communicator and thinker.”
For Gaspard, these qualities of Mamdani recalled his time advising Obama, at once a similar progressive upstart candidate. Gaspard discussed these parallels, his role as a veteran sounding board in Mamdani’s campaign, and the importance, or lack thereof, of the New York Assembly member receiving endorsements from Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer in an interview with City & State.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Prior to Mamdani running and prior to this mayoral race, were you taking time off from being involved in New York City politics?
I’ve never taken time off from engaging. I’m a New York nationalist, so no matter where I am on the planet, I’m always engaged with New York City and public service and the civic life of New York. Sometimes my friends are really surprised when they’ll say, ‘Wait, you knew this council member and you’re talking to this Assembly member?’ Yeah, I come from a community where this matters. Even when I was in South Africa, I was still in touch with New York – it’s home. I think it’s the greatest place on the planet, particularly and most especially because of the pluralistic nature of New York. How New York just, as Zohran’s campaign proved, quickly absorbs people from every corner of the earth and integrates them in a way that they renew the city every generation and make it their own. And that for me is the greatest quality of a great city. So I’m never not involved in New York civic life and New York politics. There’s no vacation from that for me.
Did former Gov. Andrew Cuomo also want your help in advising his campaign?
I’ve had a decades long relationship with the former governor and in my role as the political director at SEIU, I had the good fortune to work with him to achieve some important things, and I have seen him in different phases of his public service. This was a moment when I thought something, something necessary and essential and dynamic was available to New York in Zohran’s candidacy, and I wanted to be able to lift that up. I also had a sense of the possible right, because most folks who were operating in politics thought that there was an inevitability to the governor’s campaign, and there was no way he would lose, and if anybody would press him and be close it certainly wouldn’t be a 33-year-old democratic socialist. But I have the good fortune that I don’t stay in bubbles in the city. I ride the trains. I go into neighborhoods. I understand the ways the city has a permanence, but I also know the ways the city changes. There have been changes in the composition of the city and changes in the spirit of the city that helped me appreciate what was possible in the way of participation from average folks this year, and I thought that Zohran could speak to that. And clearly he has. Bill Clinton taught me, and many other people a long time ago, that campaigns are never about the past; they’re always about the future. Zohran always made this campaign about the future, and the former governor did not. He had 10 toes down in the past, and the present that he described to New Yorkers was not one that they could locate themselves or their aspirations in.
Many have drawn parallels between Barack Obama and Zohran Mamdani – both being inspiring, talented and young candidates. Obama’s first year and transition was in many ways a reality check, and was very challenging. How do you view the parallels between the two and do you think Obama’s transition into his presidency signifies anything about Mamdani’s potential first year as mayor?
I would just question – it was not a reality check for Barack Obama. He understood how difficult it was going to be, how challenging it was going to be, which is why he worked really hard to surround himself with a cabinet that he was proud of on day one, because he felt as if he had achieved his goal of having excellence in all those positions. The president was clear that he was not looking for a collection of people who were all 100% in lockstep, ideologically aligned with him, but he wanted them to be clear about being in the service of the American people, to be clear about the core things that he hoped to be able to accomplish, and that they would run the government with excellence and with all of their commitment, and they would do it without any self-serving tendencies. … And so the parallel extends here, because Zohran is very clear, very sober about how difficult this job is. He understands how gargantuan the city government is, the city budget is, how complicated the politics are in New York, the wonder of our constituencies and diasporas and all the things that makes New York just its own vibe. He’s clear about all of those things. And he’s also clear that on day one, there are a set of actors who are not rooting for his success, and those actors have real resources of considerable power. And so he appreciates how difficult the job is on a best day, and he knows that’s going to be compounded by the reality that there are some who are going to be investing in trying to make him not a successful mayor, without any concern for that means for the lives of New Yorkers. That being said, both of them, Obama and Zohran, share a sense of that constant affirmation. These are people who believe in the best of others. They believe in the best of their city, the best of their nation.
How are you going to be involved if Mamdani wins the election? Are you going to be part of the administration?
I continue to do whatever I can in my own modest way – to make introductions and to offer thoughts, suggestions and perspectives on other phenomenal public and private sector talent that’s available in the country, not just New York, but the country. Being mayor of New York and being 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani, who has arrived like a lightning bolt at a time when many Democrats are dispirited, that means that you actually can attract many people who might not necessarily have thought they would be serving in municipal government as their next point of service. And I think he has a special and unique opportunity to persuade some exceptionally talented people to do so.
Do you think it matters that Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are not endorsing Mamdani so far? Are we making too much of a big deal about that?
Yes, the media, the media is making too much of a thing that not a single voter in New York is focused on. As I remind many of my friends, not a single newspaper in New York endorsed Zohran, instead they actually all editorialized against Zohran, and the vast majority of elected officials did not endorse Zohran. The unions didn’t endorse Zohran, and yet voters were not looking as they entered the ballot booth. They were not looking around to say, ‘Oh, let me see, did X, Y or Z person tell me that it was OK to vote for this person?’ We live at a time of a kind of hyper agency in how New Yorkers participate. We are one of the last great machine politics cities. And I think that the machine, the entire machinery, was exposed in this campaign, because this young man had over 40,000 volunteers, and yet he didn’t have a single endorsement from elected from unions for many of the traditional sources, tens of thousands of people volunteered for him, and he managed to get the most votes in a mayoral primary in New York since 1989. So when you ask me whether or not the media is making too much about political endorsements, the answer is an obvious, clear, resounding yes with an exclamation point.
Could it matter more in terms of coming into office knowing that you have the support, the committed collaboration of Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who are very powerful?
I’m confident of, and I know Zohran is confident that when he is mayor, he will be working in healthy partnership with Democratic leadership. I’m really confident of that and he is as well. And I have known Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries each for several decades, and I know how much both of them just care with every fiber of their being about New York City and its neighborhoods, and each of them will do everything they can towards the success of anyone who is in City Hall, and I’m confident that, and I can say this as somebody who’s spoken to both of them, I’m confident that they see Zohran’s gifts in ways that makes them want to lean in towards his success. Zohran is about the business of building the widest and deepest coalition that he can for success. As a candidate, with the expectation that the depth of that coalition will accrue to the benefit of everyone in the city when he has to govern. So yes, he wants as much support as he can gather in. It matters now and it will matter in the future.