Scoop: Mamdani's bid for 2028 kingmaker
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani can't be president, so he's trying to be the next best thing: a progressive kingmaker for 2028.
- Mamdani has been meeting privately with union leaders, urgently talking up the need for a labor-aligned or leftist candidate to run for the White House, four people familiar with the talks told Axios.
- He's arguing that progressives can't afford to squander their midterm momentum.
Why it matters: Behind closed doors, Mamdani has made a striking admission that helps explain why he's so eager to huddle with allies about 2028: He's uncertain whether New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, his close political partner, will launch a White House run, the sources said.
- If Ocasio-Cortez stays out of the 2028 race, it would upend the Democratic primary — and potentially leave the party's insurgent left without a candidate.
Zoom in: Mamdani — who's ineligible to be president because he was born in Uganda — wants to coordinate with progressive leaders partly to prepare to unite against any leading centrist presidential contender they aren't happy with, according to one of the sources who has spoken with the mayor.
- Mamdani "wants the progressive ecosystem to mobilize quickly, strategically and efficiently if a moderate candidate is clearly on the rise," the person said, pointing to how former President Barack Obama appeared to help Joe Biden consolidate support against Bernie Sanders in 2020.
Last month, Mamdani summoned the president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Jimmy Williams Jr., to Gracie Mansion to talk about 2028.
- Mamdani asked Williams which potential presidential candidates he liked and how his union's endorsement process would unfold.
- He also asked Williams whether he'd ever considered running for office, the sources said.
The source who has spoken with Mamdani noted that the mayor recruited — and helped elect — several left-wing congressional candidates in New York this year.
- Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-C.W.A, also met with Mamdani recently to discuss 2028 and other issues.
- The mayor plans to get together soon with yet another labor leader — Shawn Fain, president of the United Automobile Workers.
Zoom out: Mamdani's efforts to influence the 2028 contest come as many progressives are growing anxious about the prospect of a presidential race without a left-wing contender.
- Many think Ocasio-Cortez is leaning toward a Senate bid in 2028 instead of a White House run. She's said she's considering both options.
- Some allies hope that progressives' success in battleground states in the midterms will encourage her to go for the White House.
- But Democrats of all political stripes won races in last week's nationwide rebuke of the Trump administration, so the postelection case for left-wingers in 2028 isn't necessarily stronger than it is for centrist Democrats.
What they're saying: Williams, the IUPAT president, told Axios he's "absolutely supportive" of people from the labor movement running for office up and down the ballot.
- "We put a freaking ironworker in Congress. We put a IUPAT member in the Senate," he said, referring to Democrats who won in the midterms.
- But Williams said he's not interested in running for elected office.
- Spokespeople for Mamdani, Fain and Nelson did not comment.
- Asked by WNYC last month if he wants to see Ocasio-Cortez run for president, Mamdani said, "I want to see AOC do whatever it is that AOC wants to do" and called her "an inspiration."
Between the lines: With Ocasio-Cortez's future a question mark, some progressives are beginning to look elsewhere for a presidential candidate.
- Some on the left hope Abdul El-Sayed, the incoming senator in Michigan, will take a look at 2028. Others are lining up behind California Rep. Ro Khanna, who's widely expected to run.
- Bhaskar Sunkara, a 2020 Sanders surrogate and president of the liberal publication The Nation, wrote an op-ed last summer calling for Ocasio-Cortez to run for president.
More recently, he's been talking up the idea of a labor candidate.
- "Progressive ideas only win when working-class voters see themselves in the fight," he told Axios. "There's no better way to do that than to run an actual worker for president, not a professional politician."
Williams, Nelson and Fain are widely seen as some of the most progressive labor leaders in the country.
- Fain is known for railing against billionaires, and Nelson joined Sanders' "Fighting Oligarchy" tour.
- Williams wrote in 2025 that he "was proud that my union was among the first to call for a ceasefire in Gaza."
- Some left-wing activists have encouraged Fain, whose union helped elect El-Sayed, to consider a presidential bid. But he told the Detroit News last month he has "no plans" to run.
