NEW YORK — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will endorse Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor Friday, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.
The nod is coming after months of pressure and just before early voting begins Saturday.
Jeffries will join Gov. Kathy Hochul and other senior New York Democrats who’ve announced their support for the democratic socialist after keeping him at arm’s length since his surprising Democratic primary victory in June. One of the people who spoke to POLITICO, who’s close to one of the two camps, said the announcement will come Friday afternoon in the form of a statement, rather than an event.
The long-awaited nod from Jeffries is certain to prove divisive in the fractured party as it seeks a path out of the political wilderness ahead of next year’s midterms. Jeffries’ decision leaves Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as the last key person in state Democratic leadership to withhold support from Mamdani.
Before the expected endorsement Friday, Jeffries sought to keep the focus on the federal shutdown.
“Stay tuned,” he told reporters in Washington, giving his stock reply on a Mamdani endorsement. “I have not refused to endorse. I have refused to articulate my position, and I will momentarily, at some point, in advance of early voting.”
Today’s endorsement of the front-runner is coming after a process that included two in-person meetings in Brooklyn and pressure from congressional progressives. Jeffries faced relentless questioning from reporters and has offered the coy guidance to “stay tuned” on multiple occasions. The minority leader has said he remains focused on steering Democrats back to a House majority in 2026, and some of his moderate battleground members see the progressive Mamdani as a liability.
Jeffries lauded Mamdani’s focus on affordability after the 34-year-old state lawmaker’s upset primary win, but he has also cited the democratic socialist’s refusal to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada” as a point of concern and has questioned how he’d implement his policies and combat antisemitism as well as gentrification.
“We’ve got to figure out moving forward how we turn proposals into actual plans so that he is successful if he becomes the next mayor, because we need the city to be successful,” the Brooklyn Democrat told CNN last month. He noted that his district, which includes historically Black communities, has “been subjected to gentrification and housing displacement.”
More recently, Jeffries has lauded Mamdani for asking popular NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay at the helm of the country’s biggest police force.
Civil rights leader Al Sharpton has been a conduit in discussions between Jeffries’ and Mamdani’s teams.
Hochul and New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie have thrown in for Mamdani, as has state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Reps. Jerry Nadler, Adriano Espaillat and Yvette Clarke, who joined Jeffries’ second meeting with Mamdani, have also endorsed the state lawmaker after backing other candidates in the primary.
New York Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs has said he would not endorse Mamdani, marking a seismic break with Hochul and the state’s institutional leadership. Rep. Ritchie Torres said he does not plan to endorse in the general election, and Rep. Dan Goldman remains undecided. Torres and Goldman are both fierce defenders of Israel.
Jeffries has sought to keep his statements about Mamdani barebones as the leader of the big-tent party with the speaker’s gavel on the line and with challenges in Washington, like the looming government shutdown. He has been grilled by reporters on Mamdani when it’s apparent he’d rather be criticizing President Donald Trump’s policies.
“I’m trying to understand why you would spend a significant amount of time asking me about the Democratic nominee who’s not even the mayor,” Jeffries told CNBC in August.
With his support official, those questions are unlikely to abate as Mamdani continues to solidify his vision for City Hall as a democratic socialist whose views differ sharply from many Democrats running in contested districts next year.
Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s title.
