\n<\/p>\n
\n\tSenate 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.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI 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,\u201d Schumer said Sunday on CNN\u2019s State of the Union<\/em>. \u201cAll I can tell you is, I\u2019m going to continue talking to him.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s the holdup?\u201d anchor Dana Bash asked the senator.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI got to continue talking to him, and that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do,\u201d Schumer said, declining to say anything more. That has been Schumer\u2019s running line in recent weeks when it comes to Mamdani.<\/p>\n \n\tWith the election a little over a month away, the two highest ranking Democrats in Congress \u2014 Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries \u2014 have not yet declared public support for their party\u2019s nominee for mayor of the largest city in America. Jeffries, however, is reportedly in talks to make a public endorsement. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBoth Hakeem and I have been in conversations with Mamdani and [adviser] Patrick Gaspard about a possible endorsement,\u201d Rev. Al Sharpton told The New York Post<\/em> on Sunday.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019ll have more to say about the Mayor\u2019s race sometime soon,\u201d Jeffries said Saturday on Sharpton\u2019s MSNBC show.<\/p>\n \n\tLast 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. <\/p>\n \n\tIf elected, Mamdani would be the city\u2019s first Muslim mayor, and it may be his criticism of Israel that accounts for at least some of Schumer\u2019s 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\u2019s decision. A New York Times<\/em>\/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.<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tOther prominent Democrats have called on Schumer and their party brethren to make an endorsement. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez encouraged her fellow Democrats to \u201cput our differences aside\u201d and support Mamdani \u201cfor the good of the party.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSchumer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \n\tMamdani\u2019s campaign is based in simple everyday issues many New Yorkers face. He wants to freeze rents and provide free bus transit and child care.<\/p>\n \n\tSen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and who endorsed Mamdani in June, said on CNN that it was \u201cabsurd\u201d and \u201cpretty crazy stuff\u201d that neither Schumer nor Jeffries had endorsed the mayoral candidate yet.<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tWhen asked if he believed their lack of endorsement was due to fear, Sanders said it was likely the influence of their donor base that\u2019s stopping them. The city\u2019s wealthiest residents are apparently having a \u201cfreakout,\u201d The New York Times<\/em> reported, about a potential Mamdani win. Mamdani has pledged to raise taxes on millionaires and said in June, \u201cI don\u2019t think we should have billionaires.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI think that money speaks,\u201d Sanders said, according to the Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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. \u201cI know him. We have had a good relationship in the past. And we had a good meeting two weeks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[14043,14042,6193,9126,14041],"class_list":{"0":"post-22934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-endorsed","9":"tag-hasnt","10":"tag-mamdani","11":"tag-refuses","12":"tag-schumer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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