New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said he does not want New York City Councilman Chi Ossé, a fellow progressive, to run for Congress — yet.
In an interview on Wednesday, Mamdani said it is “not the time” for Ossé to primary House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), but it was reported that Mamdani privately does not want Ossé to run.
“I think that right now is not the time to be engaging in that kind of a primary, I think the focus should be on delivering on this affordability agenda,” Mamdani said.
Ossé filed to run for Congress on Monday, saying afterward that he is “exploring” a run against Jeffries. He added that the Democratic Party has failed to fight back against President Donald Trump and to deliver a vision that “we can all believe in.”
The councilman also announced that he joined the city’s Democratic Socialists of America chapter earlier this year and suggested that a “dire situation” spurred him to run.
Jeffries’s camp welcomed the prospect of a primary opponent.
“Leader Jeffries is fighting hard to lower the high cost of living, address the Republican healthcare crisis, combat corruption and win back control of the House for the good of the country,” Jeffries spokesman Justin Chermol said in a statement. “We welcome this primary challenge and look forward to a rigorous debate about the type of serious leadership required to deliver for the people of Brooklyn and the nation.”
Ossé has received resistance outside of Mamdani, who will be the de facto leader of the city’s Democrats when he enters Gracie Mansion on Jan. 1. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who ran and won office as a DSA member, also said it wasn’t the time for a challenge to Jeffries.
“I certainly don’t think a primary challenge to the leader is a good idea right now,” she told Axios.
Ossé will go before the city’s DSA chapter on Wednesday in a congressional endorsement forum to sell why he should challenge Jeffries. He will then need to pass a series of votes to obtain the NYC DSA’s endorsement.
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Running without the DSA’s endorsement would be perilous for Ossé, who is toying with running against a powerful member of the Democratic Party. One NYC DSA member wrote in an op-ed posted on the website of the Socialist Majority Caucus, which is within the DSA, that Ossé’s decision to run is a distraction.
“We should be using Zohran’s victory to secure a state-level presence that will fortify a socialist bloc,” the member wrote, “not just a symbolic effort against a horrible Democrat.”