New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is seeking to put his stamp on the city’s congressional delegation with a trio of endorsements against incumbent lawmakers and their picks, a move that could further expand the power of his democratic socialist movement or thwart its progress — and dent his own image in the process.
“This is high-risk, high-reward,” said Rebecca Katz, a prominent Democratic strategist and ally whose firm worked with Mamdani during his 2025 run. “He’s not afraid to take some big swings.”
Politically, the endorsements are Mamdani’s biggest swings yet as mayor. He is backing former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who joined forces with Mamdani in last year’s mayoral election, in a contest to oust Rep. Dan Goldman in a district split between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
In another Brooklyn and Queens seat, Mamdani is backing state Assembly member Claire Valdez in a contest against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso — the choice of the district’s retiring congresswoman, progressive Rep. Nydia Velázquez.
And in a district in the Bronx and Manhattan, Mamdani recently announced his support for activist and organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
The three candidates appeared alongside Mamdani in an ad that ran Wednesday following Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs.
“New York, we know anything is possible with a great team,” Mamdani said before each of his three endorsees was introduced. “Get out and vote. This is the team. This is our year.”
In a statement, Mamdani said his endorsed candidates “will fight for everyday working New Yorkers; they’ll take on corporate greed and protect our immigrant communities” and make sure residents “can afford the city they love.”
A fight to change the party
The races pit progressives versus democratic socialists in contests to define the left ahead of the next presidential election cycle. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the center of each contest, with questions about whether a candidate describes Israel’s conduct in Gaza as a genocide or swears off donations from groups or individuals associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The three contests are not only taking place in districts where Mamdani routed former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in November, but in locations that are among the most rapidly gentrifying in New York City, pitting longtime residents against recent transplants. In two of the races — Velázquez’s open 7th District and Espaillat’s 13th — Mamdani’s preferred candidates are also in their 30s, signaling a push for generational change, too.
“Here’s what the establishment never understood about uptown and the Bronx,” Avila Chevalier said at a news conference in Harlem on Friday. “We don’t wait for permission.”
Mamdani’s supporters say the mayor is looking to strike at a key moment: He’s broadly popular in the city and may never again have as much sway in local politics. He’s also viewed as a face of the left-wing movement that helped launch him into power, and Mamdani feels a certain level of responsibility for growing its ranks in positions of authority.
“When he was getting started, I was like, ‘Dude, this is a lot of capital you’re putting in,’” a Democratic strategist working on an effort to boost his choices told NBC News. “He has put a lot of reputational capital into these races and doesn’t have to, right? I was a little skeptical that that was the move.”
But the moves made more sense the more this person, speaking on the condition of anonymity, thought them through.
“He may as well take his shots as they present themselves, shaping the next generation of leadership here in New York,” this person said. “This cycle, he is at the peak of his political popularity where across the city he is broadly popular. An endorsement from him has the potential to be difference-making.”
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Failures — or even successes — could blow back on the mayor. He went back on a private commitment he made last year to support Espaillat after the congressman dropped his support for Cuomo, as The New York Times and Politico reported, and as one person familiar with the conversation told NBC News. That could make lawmakers leery of making deals with the mayor moving forward. Mamdani’s campaign did not comment on any agreement.
“For Mamdami, the actual governing of New York City and the well-being of the people he represents comes a distant second to his political movement and his status as its leader,” said Bradley Tusk, a top adviser to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “If he loses political capital that hurts his ability to deliver for his constituents, that’s far less important to him than anointing candidates who are sufficiently pure to meet his standards.”
In Valdez and Avila Chevalier in particular, Mamdani is elevating relative political unknowns. Avila Chevalier was an organizer at Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian encampment — and attended a controversial pro-Palestinian rally the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel that Lander condemned and Mamdani did not attend. Her social media history includes a deleted Twitter account on which, between 2018 and 2022, she described former President Joe Biden as “a rapist,” criticized interracial relationships and called for the abolition of police and prisons. She has said she has grown in the years since those posts.
Speaking with reporters on Friday, Avila Chevalier said she does not believe it is OK to celebrate the loss of anyone’s life and said she did not agree with some of the other attendees at the post-Oct. 7 protest. In an interview with NBC News, she said her growth in the years since authoring those posts was based on both “getting older” and “understanding a little more how a lot of these systems function.” She also said she did not delete the old tweets one by one, instead deleting her entire account years ago as she was dismayed by the direction of the website.
“My values have always been my values,” she said. “But my understanding of how to approach the systems has grown.”
The upstart candidate said she is “very proud” to have Mamdani’s endorsement, saying it was evidence that her campaign has “built out a serious challenge, and we have been serious about what we’re fighting for here.”
The incumbents’ view
In interviews with NBC News, it was clear that the New York lawmakers he endorsed against had no interest in picking a fight with the popular mayor.
Espaillat, who won his House seat in 2016 after two near-miss runs as a challenger himself, said he respects the mayor’s decision to back his challenger and declined to elaborate on the reports of a handshake deal.
“That’s his decision. We respect it,” Espaillat said. “I got my decision. … We’re campaigning, and we’re going to win.”
But standing on the Capitol steps, Espaillat added that “it’s important for all executives, from mayors to governors, to have good relationships with the federal government.”
“I mean, their budgets depend very strongly on what we do here,” he said.
Goldman, who downplayed Mamdani’s endorsement, said he and the mayor have worked together on issues, including the Brooklyn Marine Terminal, a waterfront redevelopment project.
“I’ve had a good working relationship with the mayor and his office, and we’ve been working on a number of things together to accomplish our shared goals, which is to make life more affordable for New Yorkers,” Goldman said in an interview. “Our job in different positions, in different seats, is to do everything we can for our shared constituents, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”
Asked if the mayor’s endorsement makes it harder to work with him, Goldman replied: “I am a professional, and I do the work, and the campaign-related stuff is separate.”
Velázquez, who is retiring after more than three decades in Congress, seemed to echo the words of Espaillat, a close friend and ally.
“This is America. Everyone has the right to do whatever they want,” Velázquez said. “I am supporting someone who is the son of part of the district, who grew up and has been rooted in the community.”
An elected official, she said, shouldn’t alienate federal partners. “You need to keep your doors open to work with everyone, especially when the federal government plays such an important role,” she said.
But Katz, the Democratic strategist, said: “There’s going to be these people who say, ‘Well, that’s not the way that we do it, or that’s never been done before.’ But Zohran Mamdani would not be mayor if he did things the way that they’ve been done before.”
A Democratic strategist working on behalf of one of the candidates facing a Mamdani-backed challenger said the mayor’s support “carries a lot of weight.” This person added there will be “personal political implications” for the mayor going back on an agreement with Espaillat.
“That’s all Claire Valdez has,” this person said of the mayor’s endorsement. “If she did not have the mayor’s endorsement, it would not be like a particularly close race.”
Valdez, a 36-year-old Latina and Native American from Texas who moved to the city in 2015, said the mayor’s endorsement has “meant a lot,” pointing to his popularity in her district.
“We’re all very supportive of the mayor in his race last year,” she said in an interview. “I see this as kind of like the continuation of this movement that won his race last year. We’re running other candidates up and down the ballot, and we’re trying to build power that way.”
In describing the differences between her and her rival, Reynoso, Valdez said it was headlined by “a difference in approach.”
“I come from the labor movement and organizing with my co-workers for the things that we deserve on the shop floor and built power that way, and have a really clear and consistent track record on speaking out against the genocide, organizing for a ceasefire, naming the genocide as it was happening, and fighting to end the United States’ complicity in it,” Valdez said.
