In a 30-minute phone call, former President Barack Obama offered to be a “sounding board” for New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani in the future.
The New York Times first reported that Obama called Mamdani on Saturday, which was confirmed later to Reuters through a Mamdani spokesperson, Dora Pekec.
“Zohran Mamdani appreciated President Obama’s words of support and their conversation on the importance of bringing a new kind of politics to our city,” Pekec said.
Obama reportedly complimented Mamdani on his campaign, which has drawn comparisons to the first Black president’s campaign in the 2008 presidential election. According to the New York Times, he said to Mamdani that he was very invested in his success beyond the mayoral election, which is this upcoming Tuesday.
“Your campaign has been impressive to watch,” he told Mamdani, according to the newspaper’s reporting.
The phone call is the second that the former President placed to Mamdani. In June, after Mamdani won the Democratic primary in New York, Obama called “unprompted,” according to The New York Times. Mamdani advisor and former Obama campaign director Patrick Gaspard said the June call was “important to Zohran personally” for the candidate to “begin to think about the kind of infrastructure he would need around him to prepare himself for governance.”
The calls from Obama are not a formal endorsement. The only mayoral candidate he has endorsed since leaving office is Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles. Some top Democrats, specifically the ones in New York state, have been withholding their direct support of the 34-year-old Queens assemblyman. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer refused to say whether he would vote for Mamdani this week.
“The bottom line is very simple. I have a good relationship with him, and we’re continuing to talk,” said Schumer.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Mamdani last week, though he said on CNN today that he does not see the democratic socialist candidate as the “future” of the Democratic Party.
“No, I think the future of the Democratic Party is going to fall, as far as we’re concerned, relative to the House Democratic Caucus and members who are doing great work all across the country,” Jeffries said to CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Though Mamdani’s campaign has drawn Obama comparisons, he was criticized in May after The New York Post reported about a 2013 tweet where he called Obama, who was president at the time, “pretty damn evil.” Mamdani was a college student when he posted the comment, and called the tweet “stupid” when asked this year by reporters.
Mamdani reportedly told Obama on the call that he drew inspiration from a speech the former president made on race for a recent speech he made about Islamophobia. The two also discussed plans to meet in person in Washington, D.C., but haven’t confirmed a date.
Mamdani is currently leading the mayoral race with 40 percent of the vote, according to an Atlas poll that surveyed 1,500 voters from October 25 through October 30. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent candidate after losing to Mamdani in the primary, had 34 percent of the vote, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa had 24 percent.
