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32BJ SEIU celebrates a legislative victory in 2021.
As Republicans, establishment Democrats, and other moneyed interests continue to hyperventilate over New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani’s decisive win in last week’s primary, organized labor has rallied behind him.
32BJ SEIU and the Hotel and Games Trade Council said Friday they were abandoning their earlier endorsement of sex pest and disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in favor of supporting Mamdani. The New York State Nurses Association, which did not support a candidate in the primary, also endorsed Mamdani for the general election. Together, the three unions represent 267,000 workers.
“What Mamdani has that is a great advantage is that he’s bringing an optimistic, positive vision that isn’t tainted,” 32BJ SEIU President Manny Pastreich told the Prospect. Though 300 of the union’s members met with and ranked all nine mayoral candidates for the primary, its executive board ultimately made the call to endorse Cuomo, he said. The board met Friday at noon and announced their new endorsement shortly afterward.
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Mamdani “can build a very, very strong governing coalition by building out the incredible things he’s already done,” Pastreich said. About 3,500 of the union’s members campaigned for Cuomo, he said. “We expect to do that and more,” for Mamdani.
The endorsements came the day after Cuomo reportedly decided to remain on November’s ballot, running on the independent “Fight & Deliver” line that he had already secured. If he had won the primary, he would have been allowed to appear on that line as well as the Democratic Party line. It’s unclear whether he will run an active campaign. Cuomo did not respond to a request for comment.
The scandal-plagued incumbent, Trump lackey Eric Adams, announced his reelection campaign soon after a Democratic Party from which he pulled his name earlier in the year. He’ll also run as an independent, as will corporate defender Jim Walden, who once successfully represented an AIG executive for his role in the 2008 financial crisis. The Republican nominee is Curtis Sliwa, founder of the nonprofit crime prevention group Guardian Angels, who was also the nominee in 2021. He’s running on the GOP and independent “Protect Animals” ballot lines (Sliwa fosters cats).
Mamdani supporters could see Cuomo remaining in the race as a good thing, because he could split the anti-Mamdani vote. There is no ranked-choice voting in the general election for mayor, meaning that Mamdani could win with a simple plurality of votes.
That said, Cuomo is the main threat in this crowded field. The big money could choose him as their best bet and the anti-Mamdani vote could consolidate. Cuomo is an especially vicious opponent, known for intimidating his rivals with investigations, as he demonstrated when he subpoenaed the gynecological records of the women who credibly accused him of sexual harassment.
“He uses this tactic in all these different areas. Investigate to terrify,” antitrust expert and law professor Zephyr Teachout told the Prospect in early June following an event with Mamdani and former FTC chair Lina Khan. That’s something she’s experienced firsthand, when she challenged Cuomo for the New York governor’s seat in 2014 and he sued, claiming she had failed to meet the residency requirement. A judge threw the case out.
There were other signs of his vindictiveness, too, Teachout said, such as senators lowering their voices to tell her they were afraid to be seen speaking together because it could get back to Cuomo, and he would hold it against them.
It’s important to understand that his method of campaigning and governing is based on fear, Teachout said, because it can help explain why he receives endorsements from groups that are otherwise politically aligned with other candidates. “When Andrew has succeeded in elections, he has succeeded through brute force,” she said, “not through actually succeeding on policy.”
Mamdani has already proven that he can overcome that tactic, labor leaders said last week. But they also acknowledged that the next four months will likely see a tsunami of racist, red-baiting, anti-Muslim scaremongering, from Cuomo, from Adams, from Republicans, and even from Mamdani’s own party. It’s already started. Not only have multiple congressional Republicans called for his deportation and implied he had something to do with the 9/11 terrorist attack (he was 9 at the time), but New York Democratic Sen. Kristen Gillibrand joined them last week, spewing so many Islamophobia tropes on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer show that Lehrer repeatedly interrupted to correct her.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) of Manhattan announced on Saturday that he met with Mamdani and “explained why Jewish New Yorkers feel unsafe in the City.” He expressed appreciation for Mamdani’s willingness to engage and said he “look[ed] forward to continuing the dialogue,” but did not endorse the presumptive Democratic nominee, as fellow Manhattan Democrat and Jewish Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) did last week.
“Zohran was never going to have an easy battle, no matter what,” UAW Region 9A Director Brandon Mancilla told the Prospect. UAW was the first labor union to endorse Mamdani. “The billionaires and the political establishment were going to do whatever they could do to damage him. This was always what it was going to be like.”
“Voters sent a resounding message to scandal-ridden Cuomo, and the billionaires backing him: The people said no. No means no!”
But the coalition Mamdani built “has shown that we can out-organize the billionaire class and whoever their chosen candidate is. We defeated them once and we will do it again,” Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of NYC Democratic Socialists of America, told the Prospect. DSA organized 27,292 volunteers to canvas for Mamdani, and the organization counts him as a member.
“Instead of subjecting us to yet another ego-driven campaign, Cuomo should step aside and let New Yorkers focus on defeating the fascist MAGA threat today, in November, and beyond,” Gordillo said.“The polls showed Zohran is the candidate of workers. We are ready to work with labor to win and implement our working class agenda.”
A spokesperson for the New York Working Families Party, which also endorsed Mamdami, gave a similar sentiment. “Voters sent a resounding message to scandal-ridden Cuomo, and the billionaires backing him: The people said no. No means no!” they told the Prospect. “Cuomo and the billionaires believe power belongs to them, no matter what people need or what voters think. In this New York City, power belongs to the people and the people have spoken.”
Mancilla and other labor leaders said they expect Mamdani to peel off more support from unions that had earlier sided with Cuomo or had not thrown support to anyone. After all, he said, Mamdani’s policy positions coincide with gains that unions typically have to fight for across the table. Livable wages, benefits, childcare, and general affordability are all matters unions would not have to fight with bosses to get if they were already available to everyone across the city.
“That’s why, for us, it was a no-brainer,” Mancilla said. “We were disappointed that the labor movement didn’t jump on it from the beginning, but we got there.” He added that mainstream Democrats “have backed themselves into a corner” by putting Mamdani “up against two villains,” Cuomo and Adams. If they want to survive, the Democratic Party will have to acknowledge that voters do not want “repackaged Chuck Schumer in a 32-year-old body.”
“All we talked about after Donald Trump was that the Democratic party needed to embrace new ideas, new energy, younger people, economic populism,” Mancilla said, “and here’s a candidate who checks every one of those boxes and they react with horror.” What we’re witnessing, he added, is a struggle between a positive, progressive future and “old school party establishment politics. It’s hard to let go of power.”
James Baratta provided additional reporting.
