{"id":391528,"date":"2025-11-20T05:20:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T05:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/391528\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T05:20:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T05:20:16","slug":"mamdani-pleads-directly-with-nyc-dsa-to-not-back-chi-osses-run-against-hakeem-jeffries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/391528\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani pleads directly with NYC-DSA to not back Chi Osse’s run against Hakeem Jeffries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani appeared at a Democratic Socialists of America<\/a> meeting Wednesday night to urge the group to not endorse his onetime campaign surrogate Chi Osse\u2019s 2026 challenge against Brooklyn Congressman Hakeem Jeffries \u2014 a sticky situation that spotlights a power struggle unfolding inside the leftist organization.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s appearance at the closed-door evening meeting at Manhattan\u2019s Church of the Village<\/a> was unusual for several reasons.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, a dues-paying DSA member, is in the thick of assembling his administration ahead of his Jan. 1 inauguration and his appearance could be a sign he intends to continue exerting influence over the leftist group\u2019s operations even as mayor.<\/p>\n

In addition, his decision to come out against Osse \u2014 a prominent ally and City Council member \u2014 could anger fellow democratic socialists, who have long been deeply critical of Jeffries, a centrist Democrat, over his support for Israel and other issues.<\/p>\n

After telling assembled DSA members \u201cit is good to be home,\u201d Mamdani made a pragmatic case for why the group should not endorse Osse, saying it could complicate the enactment of the affordability agenda he centered his mayoral campaign on<\/a>, according to sources in the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe choice is not whether to vote for Chi or Hakeem at the ballot box, the choice is how to spend the next year. Do we want to spend it defending caricatures of our movement, or do we want to spend it fulfilling the agenda at the heart of that very same movement?\u201d Mamdani said, per the sources, who spoke with the Daily News on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that endorsing [Osse] makes it more difficult to do the latter, more difficult to deliver on the life-changing policies that more than 1 million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago,\u201d Mamdani continued, the sources said. \u201cI know how I want to spend the next year, and I urge you all to join me in voting no on this endorsement, not because our dreams are too small, but because they are as big as the entire city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meeting was held before the DSA\u2019s Electoral Working Group, whose members have until Saturday to vote on whether to endorse Osse\u2019s run.<\/p>\n

Mamdani doesn\u2019t have more direct sway than other DSA members over whether the group should back Osse. But as the incoming mayor, Mamdani is the highest-ranking elected official in the DSA\u2019s New York City chapter and his influence is thereby significant.<\/p>\n

Tascha van Auken, the field director<\/a> of Mamdani\u2019s campaign who\u2019s influential in the DSA, also argued against endorsing Osse during the Wednesday night confab. She focused her remarks on questioning whether Osse is loyal to the principles of the socialist group, which he only became a dues-paying member of this past summer after Mamdani\u2019s mayoral primary victory.<\/p>\n

Other DSA members at the meeting argued for backing Osse\u2019s run, including Brooklyn Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher and Gustavo Gordillo, the DSA New York City chapter\u2019s co-chair, according to the sources.<\/p>\n

The rift building over the Osse endorsement comes as Mamdani has signaled he\u2019s willing to potentially back a progressive candidate to run in 2026<\/a> against New York Rep. Dan Goldman, also a centrist Democrat.<\/p>\n

Goldman is seen as more vulnerable to a primary challenge than Jeffries, who is the Democratic House leader and New York\u2019s second highest-ranking member in Congress.<\/p>\n

Sources say Mamdani believes challenging Jeffries at this time could stand to hurt the DSA\u2019s momentum, as the House leader is widely popular in his Brooklyn district and has access to a major fundraising advantage that could make defeating him very difficult.<\/p>\n

In his own remarks earlier in the evening, Osse said he has $150,000 pledged in donations for his campaign already and fired up the crowd by vowing to fight for \u201ctrue socialism,\u201d including pushing for Medicare for All, abolishing ICE and enacting a U.S. arms embargo on Israel. He acknowledged there was \u201cskepticism\u201d in the room, but said fighting Jeffries is a matter of principle.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe cynically uses race as a shield, while he fails to fight fascism, sells out our communities, empowers conservative principles and funds mass slaughter,\u201d Osse said of Jeffries, per sources.<\/p>\n

Osse, who has suggested<\/a> he won\u2019t ultimately run against Jeffries without the DSA\u2019s endorsement, helped Mamdani make inroads with Black voters in his central Brooklyn district during the mayoral race.<\/p>\n

But their relationship appears to have frayed since Osse earlier this month officially registered to challenge Jeffries in next summer\u2019s congressional primary even though Mamdani was urging him publicly and privately to not do so.<\/p>\n

After refraining from doing so for months, Jeffries endorsed Mamdani for mayor shortly before the Nov. 4 election.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s push for Osse to not challenge Jeffries signals Mamdani, 34, appears focused on keeping the disparate wings of the Democratic Party out of each other\u2019s crosshairs as he prepares to take office as the youngest New York City mayor in over a century.<\/p>\n

Supporters of Osse, 27, have argued Mamdani\u2019s election should be a launching pad for DSA candidates to kick off primary challenges against centrist Democrats en masse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani appeared at a Democratic Socialists of America meeting Wednesday night to urge the group to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":391529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,15848,327,40896,154640,8123,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-391528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-chi-osse","10":"tag-congress","11":"tag-democratic-socialists-of-america","12":"tag-dsa","13":"tag-hakeem-jeffries","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115580346350034277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}