Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declined to explain why he has so far refused to endorse Zohran Mamdani, who resoundingly beat former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to become the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor.
“I know him. We have had a good relationship in the past. And we had a good meeting two weeks ago, a very long meeting with a lot of serious questions,” Schumer said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “All I can tell you is, I’m going to continue talking to him.”
“What’s the holdup?” anchor Dana Bash asked the senator.
“I got to continue talking to him, and that’s what I’m going to do,” Schumer said, declining to say anything more. That has been Schumer’s running line in recent weeks when it comes to Mamdani.
With the election a little over a month away, the two highest ranking Democrats in Congress — Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — have not yet declared public support for their party’s nominee for mayor of the largest city in America. Jeffries, however, is reportedly in talks to make a public endorsement.
“Both Hakeem and I have been in conversations with Mamdani and [adviser] Patrick Gaspard about a possible endorsement,” Rev. Al Sharpton told The New York Post on Sunday.
“I’ll have more to say about the Mayor’s race sometime soon,” Jeffries said Saturday on Sharpton’s MSNBC show.
Last week, Mamdani earned key endorsements from New York Democrats Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. But Schumer appears to be holding out, despite his private meeting with Mamdani earlier this month.
If elected, Mamdani would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, and it may be his criticism of Israel that accounts for at least some of Schumer’s hesitancy. But his refusal to endorse a charismatic candidate who has earned broad support from the New York City electorate at a time when the party desperately needs popular support has many questioning and criticizing Schumer’s decision. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Tuesday put Mamdani solidly in the lead over his opponents, Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who are splitting the remainder of the votes.
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Other prominent Democrats have called on Schumer and their party brethren to make an endorsement. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez encouraged her fellow Democrats to “put our differences aside” and support Mamdani “for the good of the party.”
Schumer’s political calculus may be trying to balance his home state politics with his role as Democratic leader of the Senate, which his party is trying to recapture in 2026 with races in states where Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, may be perceived as too far left.
Mamdani’s campaign is based in simple everyday issues many New Yorkers face. He wants to freeze rents and provide free bus transit and child care.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and who endorsed Mamdani in June, said on CNN that it was “absurd” and “pretty crazy stuff” that neither Schumer nor Jeffries had endorsed the mayoral candidate yet.
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When asked if he believed their lack of endorsement was due to fear, Sanders said it was likely the influence of their donor base that’s stopping them. The city’s wealthiest residents are apparently having a “freakout,” The New York Times reported, about a potential Mamdani win. Mamdani has pledged to raise taxes on millionaires and said in June, “I don’t think we should have billionaires.”
“I think that money speaks,” Sanders said, according to the Times.
