Obama offers Mamdani support before New York City mayoral election: “Your campaign has been impressive to watch”

The New York City mayoral race will be decided on Tuesday 4 November when residents head to the polls to choose between the three candidates still running. The Democratic candidate, 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani, got some last-minute support from one of the most prominent members of the party.

Barack Obama called the mayoral hopeful to praise his campaign calling it “impressive to watch.” The former US president also offered to be a “sounding board” going forward according to people with knowledge of the private conversation on Saturday as first reported by The New York Times.

Obama keeps with policy of not endorsing local candidates

This is the second phone call that Obama has made to Mamdani, the first one was after Democrat won the party’s primary in June. A political director of Obama’s 2008 campaign and who served in his White House, Patrick Gaspard, now an advisor to Mamdani, said of the first “unsolicited, unprompted” call that it “helped credential Zohran Mamdani” among party members, the business community and voters.

“It’s something President Obama didn’t need to do,” he added.

While Obama is making it known that he will throw his political clout behind the up-and-coming politician, he hasn’t endorsed him. This is in keeping with his general policy of not making full-fledged endorsements of candidates in municipal races since leaving the White House.

What is the state of the NYC mayoral race?

Mamdani leads the three-man field going into Election Day, with some seeing it as “no question” that he will win. While some polls had former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo closing the gap in the final days, others show Mamdani pulling away by significant margins across the board.

Second-place Cuomo, who is running as an independent after being handily beat in the Democratic primary by Mamdani, has been trying to paint his opponent as an antisemite to garner support among the important Jewish vote in the Big Apple. However, Mamdani has built a strong following among the Jewish community.

Trailing by a country mile is the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, who fellow party members called on to drop out to stop Mamdani from being elected mayor of New York City. The Guardian Angels founder declined, saying: “One person, one vote. That’s how we determine elections. I never heard a caveat that said one person, one vote, and of course others need to drop out along the way.”

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