- If Ocasio-Cortez stays out of the race in 2028, it would upend the Democratic primary — and potentially leave the party’s insurgent left without a candidate.
Zoom: Mamdani — who is not eligible to run for president because he was born in Uganda — wants to coordinate with progressive leaders, in part to prepare to unite against any centrist presidential candidate they don’t like, according to one of the sources who spoke with the mayor.
- Mamdani “wants the progressive ecosystem to mobilize quickly, strategically and effectively if a moderate candidate is clearly on the rise,” the person said, pointing to how former President Barack Obama appeared to help Joe Biden solidify his support against Bernie Sanders in 2020.
Last month, Mamdani summoned International Union of Painters and Allied Trades President Jimmy Williams Jr. at Gracie Mansion to talk about 2028.
- Mamdani asked Williams which potential presidential candidates he liked and how his union’s endorsement process would work.
- He also asked Williams if he had ever considered running for office, according to the sources.
The source who spoke with Mamdani noted that the mayor recruited – and helped elect – several left-wing candidates to Congress in New York this year.
- Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, also met with Mamdani recently to discuss 2028 and other issues.
- The mayor plans to meet soon with another union leader: Shawn Fain, president of the United Automobile Workers union.
Zoom out: Mamdani’s efforts to influence the 2028 vote come as many progressives grow increasingly concerned about the prospect of a presidential race without a left-wing candidate.
- Many believe Ocasio-Cortez is leaning toward a run for the Senate in 2028 rather than a run for the White House. She said she was considering both options.
- Some allies hope progressives’ success in battleground states in the midterms will encourage him to run for the White House.
- But Democrats of all political stripes won elections in last week’s national rebuke of the Trump administration, so the post-election case for leftists in 2028 is not necessarily stronger than for centrist Democrats.
What they say: Williams, the IUPAT president, told Axios he is “absolutely supportive” of people in the labor movement running for office.
- “We put a damn ironworker in Congress. We put an IUPAT member in the Senate,” he said, referring to Democrats who won in the midterms.
- But Williams said he was not interested in running for office.
- Spokespeople for Mamdani, Fain and Nelson had no comment.
- Asked by WNYC last month if he wanted to see Ocasio-Cortez run for president, Mamdani responded, “I want to see AOC do everything AOC wants to do” and called her “an inspiration.”
Between the lines: With Ocasio-Cortez’s future a question mark, some progressives are starting to look elsewhere for a presidential candidate.
- Some on the left hope that Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s new senator, will look to 2028. Others are lining up behind California Rep. Ro Khanna, who is widely expected to run.
- Bhaskar Sunkara, Sanders’ 2020 surrogate and president of the liberal publication The Nation, wrote an op-ed last summer calling for Ocasio-Cortez to run for president.
More recentlyhe raised the idea of a Labor candidate.
- “Progressive ideas only win when working-class voters see themselves in the struggle,” he told Axios. “There is no better way to achieve this than to present for president a real worker, not a professional politician.”
Williams, Nelson and Fain are widely considered among the most progressive labor leaders in the country.
- Fain is known for going after 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 that he had “no plans” to run.
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