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david axelrod
Mamdani Holds Huge Lead in NYC Mayor's Race, But Top Dems Still Won't Back Him
Voters trust Mamdani more on issues from affordability to crime to Israel-Palestine, but one strategist says party leadership is likely still refusing to back him due to "donor pressure."
Sep 09, 2025
Progressive state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani holds a "commanding" lead in New York's upcoming mayoral election, according to the latest polling. But his continued momentum is still not enough for some top Democrats to get behind him, even as President Donald Trump openly colludes with his rivals.
A New York Times/Siena poll published Monday has Mamdani, a democratic socialist state assemblyman, 22 points north of his nearest challenger, disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom he soundly defeated in the Democratic primary earlier this year.
Last week, several outlets reported that the Trump administration has been working behind the scenes to clear the field for Cuomo by offering administration posts to other mayoral candidates, including Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, and Republican contender Curtis Sliwa in exchange for them dropping out of the race.
Cuomo's identity as Trump's horse has ratcheted up the pressure for top Democratic leaders—namely the Empire state duo of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—to throw their weight behind Mamdani. But with the election now less than two months away, they have still refused to budge, to the increasing frustration of the party's base and its progressive leaders.
Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called out these leaders directly, asking on the steps of the Capitol: "Are we a party who rallies behind our nominee or not?"
"I am very concerned about the example that is being set by anybody in our party," she continued. "If an individual doesn't want to support the party's nominee now, it complicates their ability to ask voters to support any nominee later."
During a stop on his "Fighting Oligarchy" tour, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a Brooklyn native, said New York Democrats should be "jumping up and down" to support a candidate who has galvanized young voters like Mamdani.
Speaking of party leadership, Sanders said: "It's no great secret that they're way out of touch with grassroots America, with the working families of this country, not only in New York City, but all over this country."
That sentiment was shared by the liberal tastemakers on the popular podcast Pod Save America. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau called out leadership by name, saying their hesitancy to endorse Mamdani was "pathetic."
"Donald Trump's going to try to get Eric Adams out of the race so he can help Andrew Cuomo," Favreau said. "Meanwhile, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer have not yet endorsed the candidate who won the Democratic primary in New York City, the choice of the Democratic voters. Because why, because they don't want to get involved in a primary in a city, in the state they represent?"
Favreau questioned what happened to the "rule that when a Democrat wins the primary, we've all got to unite behind the nominee... because we are facing an authoritarian threat."
Cuomo, he said, "is basically participating" in that threat by being "on Donald Trump's side."
According to CNN, this reluctance is widespread across New York Democrats:
Reps. Yvette Clarke, Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres have not said they plan to support Mamdani. Rep. Gregory Meeks, who endorsed Cuomo in the primary, has also remained silent along with Rep. Grace Meng, who represents parts of Queens.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mamdani have had "a number of conversations," Hochul said recently, and the two have met in person. Speaking separately to a Politico reporter, Hochul dismissed the talks between Adams and Trump aides with a profanity. Still, she has not made an endorsement.
Sources told CNN that the reticence stems in some part from the "public threat by Mamdani's democratic socialist allies to primary Jeffries and other congressmen" as well as Mamdani's "ties to democratic socialists and his criticism of Israel."
Sanders countered that Mamdani's were "not radical ideas."
"We're the richest country in the history of the world," he said. "There's no excuse for people not having affordable housing, good quality, affordable, decent transportation, free transportation."
Not only did the Times/Siena poll find Mamdani leading in the coming election, but voters also said they trusted him most on issues across the board, including ones that party grandees fear will be liabilities.
He holds leads over all comers, not only on his bread and butter issues of affordability and housing, but also on crime, taxation, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In an interview on CNN, former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod suggested that the refusal to back Mamdani was probably the result of "donor pressure."
Though Mamdani has surged in recent months with small-dollar donors, big money in the city has been behind Cuomo and other centrist candidates.
The biggest of these is the billionaire-funded Fix the City PAC, which received an $8.3 million donation from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and as of late August had dropped more than $15 million to keep Cuomo afloat.
Another fund, called New Yorkers for a Better Future Mayor '25 has yet to declare a favorite, but has both barrels locked on Mamdani. Under a similar name, this PAC marshalled support for more than a dozen corporate-friendly city council candidates early this year, with support from the pro-Israel hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and several major players in New York's real estate industry. It has announced a goal of raising $25 million to defeat Mamdani in November.
Axelrod said that the party leadership's fealty to these donors over the groundswell of support for Mamdani was "a mistake."
"He ran on the issue of affordability and on a kind of positive politics that got—as Bernie said—many, many young people in that city to involve themselves in the process," he said.
Axelrod also added that, despite Jeffries' claim that Mamdani has yet to win over voters in the House leader's district, the insurgent candidate, in fact, "carried Hakeem Jeffries' district" by a 12-point margin.
Former Sanders foreign policy adviser Matt Duss said that Axelrod's diagnosis of "donor pressure" was "correct."
"But," he said, "we should also be completely clear that 'donor pressure' is just a polite way of saying 'political corruption.'"
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'Sick Joke': Progressives Roundly Reject Idea of Rahm Emanuel as DNC Chair
"No amount of rebranding can change the fact that Rahm Emanuel's political career has been an abject failure—neoliberal centrism is exactly the wrong direction for the Democratic Party," said one critic.
Nov 15, 2024
Progressives were left fuming and flummoxed over reporting Friday that Rahm Emanuel is considering running for chair of the Democratic National Committee, with many leftists wondering whether the party has learned anything from its loss of the White House, Senate, and, arguably, the country's working-class voters.
Axios first reported that Emanuel—President Joe Biden's ambassador to Japan and a former congressman, Chicago mayor, and chief of staff to former President Barack Obama—is mulling whether to seek the top DNC post. Current DNC chair Jamie Harrison, who was elected to the post in 2021, is unlikely to seek a new term, which would begin in March.
Emanuel has some powerful backers among the war-and-Wall Street wing that has dominated the Democratic party for decades.
"If they said, 'Well, what should we do? Who should lead the party?' I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and I would bring him back from Japan, and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee," prominent political consultant David Axelrod, who ran both of Obama's successful presidential campaigns, said Wednesday on his podcast.
Axelrod followed up the next day with a post on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, in which he wrote of Emanuel, "Dude knows how to fight and win."
Reaction came fast and furious, with Jonathan Cohn, policy director at the group Progressive Massachusetts, asking on the social network Bluesky, "How is this not a sick joke?"
Center for International Policy executive vice president Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) writing on X that "if you assembled a team of top scientists and told them to come up with a plan to ensure that the Democratic Party continues to lose working-class voters, I doubt they could do better than 'Make Rahm Emanuel head of the DNC.'"
Comedian, author, and podcaster Kate Willett
said on X: "If I had to pick one individual who set the stage for what seems like it may be decades of Trumpism, it's Rahm Emanuel. Imagine if Obama had saved peoples' homes in 2008 and put the bankers in jail? Truly fixed healthcare? Rahm worked diligently to make sure that didn't happen."
Miles Kampf-Lassin, the senior editor at the progressive website
In These Times, wrote, "I've said it before and can't believe I have to say it again: No amount of rebranding can change the fact that Rahm Emanuel's political career has been an abject failure—neoliberal centrism is exactly the wrong direction for the Democratic Party."
Hafiz Rashid argued Friday in a
New Republic article that, if he wins the post, Emanuel could be "the worst possible DNC chair."
"The fact that Emanuel has been disconnected from local and state politics for years... seems unlikely to help," Rashid asserted. "Democrats are currently expected to tap someone with expertise at the grassroots level and an understanding of how Democrats are winning elections now—two things Emanuel sorely lacks."
Apparently questioning the strategic wisdom of Vice President Kamala Harris' failed Democratic presidential run, Warren Gunnels, a staff director for Sanders,
said on X, "Ruling Elite: Let's get Dick Cheney's endorsement and anoint Rahm Emanuel as DNC Chair."
"One word," he added. "No."
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Who Has the Courage to Tell Joe Biden Not to Run?
Biden should bow out gracefully, and soon. It’s time to trust the Democratic rank and file to select the next presidential candidate.
Nov 16, 2023
In 1971, I worked as a paid staff member for Vinnie Sirabella, a charismatic labor leader who was running for mayor of New Haven, Connecticut. After personally conducting a voter-registration canvas in an area that Vinnie assured me was his stronghold, I found that he was universally disliked by his would-be supporters because he led a strike against the city’s most respected institution —Yale University. His lack of support turned out to be the case in neighborhood after neighborhood. When I reported this troubling situation to Vinnie and suggested he consider bowing out of the race gracefully, the staff became furious and ran me out of town. I learned it’s nearly impossible to bring bad news to a geared-up campaign -- the momentum to continue is just too great. Vinnie stayed in the race and received three percent of the vote.
It appears these days that the Democratic Party establishment is refusing to face up to bad news. Many, if not most, Democratic staff and operatives realize that Biden, at this point is his career, is a weak candidate. They understand that the risk of losing to Trump is very real, putting all of democracy in danger. But very few are willing to say that to Biden. And those who do, like former Obama advisor David Axelrod, are quickly denigrated.
The failure of Democratic operatives to act may be connected to Upton Sinclair’s astute observation made in 1935 made when running for Governor of California: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
In a real sense democracy is at risk in two ways.
Nevertheless, multiple polls show that somewhere between 50 to 70% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters don’t want Biden to run. Their only choices so far, however, in the opening primary in South Carolina on February 3, 2024, are little-known Representative Dean Phillips, of Minnesota, and self-help guru Marianne Williamson.
Why are the Democratic leaders not listening to their base? Isn’t this what democracy is supposed to be about? And where are all the other more established contenders? Why haven’t popular Democratic governors like Gavin Newsom (CA), Gretchen Whitmer (MI), J.B Pritzker (IL) or Phil Murphy (NJ) thrown their hats in the ring? And what about Ohio’s Senator Sharrod Brown?
No one is jumping in because that’s not how this game is played. As sitting president, Biden, and Biden alone, gets to make the decision, and he has chosen to run. The rest of the Democratic establishment is obliged to follow. Anyone who doesn’t will see their access to presidential power greatly reduced or eliminated, which raises serious questions about the role of grass-roots democracy within the Democratic Party.
The Democratic establishment, like the rank-and-file, certainly knows that Biden is too old, not just in years but in the way he moves and acts. His staff keeps him away from unscripted press events for fear he will struggle with his language. Instead, we hear rationalizations galore about how this really doesn’t matter. Here are more than a few:
- Polling data now is irrelevant. Election Day 2024, is the only poll that matters. Recent elections show that the Democrats are strong.
- Trump is almost as old and is even more unpopular than Biden.
- Criticizing Biden in any way would be helping Trump.
- As the recent 2023 election results prove, abortion will make people come around to Biden at election time.
- Any serious primary challenges will only weaken the Democrats and help Trump get re-elected. (See Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.)
- Even if Biden were challenged in the primaries, he would be the best candidate and would win anyway. So why waste resources on primary fights?
- The Biden economy really is doing well – inflation is coming down and unemployment is miniscule. All that really is needed is more messaging to help the public realize that.
- It’s really too late for new candidates to enter the race, so it does no good to talk about Biden not running again.
- Biden may not be popular in polls, but when there is a real choice on the ballot, Biden or Trump, the base will rally around Biden.
- Biden is the most liberal, pro-labor candidate since Roosevelt. Progressives must support him.
- Biden has done more than any politician to combat climate change. Environmentalists must support him.
- He won the popular vote last time by more than 7 million votes. He has plenty of room for error in 2024.
- Another Democratic candidate might do even worse.
Or as John Nichols put it in The Nation, “The current obsession with polls revolves around two basic premises: Biden is old and a lot of voters would prefer a younger alternative. Fair enough, but that doesn’t have much meaning if Biden is committed to running—and he is—along with the almost equally old and more bedraggled Trump.”
Multiple polls show that somewhere between 50 to 70% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters don’t want Biden to run.
In a real sense democracy is at risk in two ways. First, Trump is a clear and present danger if re-elected. But also, Democratic Party democracy, to restate Nichols, “doesn’t have much meaning if Biden is committed to running…”
Biden should bow out gracefully, and soon. It’s time to trust the Democratic rank and file to select the next presidential candidate. By refusing to do so, the Democratic establishment and its many progressive allies are playing with fire. They are not listening to their voters, and they are running the very real risk that a substantial portion of those who voted for Biden last time around will either sit home or cast their votes for a third-, fourth- or fifth-party candidate. The willful disregard of grass roots democracy within the Democratic Party could very well lead to the demolishment of democratic norms under a vengeful President Trump.
This is no time for collective cowardice. It is time for Democratic Party leaders to say out loud what they are saying to themselves: “Joe, for the sake of democracy, please don’t run!”
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