Mamdani Campaign Leans on Sanders and AOC as Critics Warn of Socialist Agenda

New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani drew a crowd in Queens on Sunday with the help of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, two of the country’s most prominent progressives. But while his campaign billed the event as proof of momentum, critics see it as further evidence that Mamdani is tethered to a far-left agenda that will damage the city.

The 34-year-old state assemblymember, running as the Democratic nominee, took the stage at Forest Hills Stadium alongside Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. Branding his campaign as a “movement of the masses,” Mamdani promised sweeping changes to the city’s housing, education, and labor policies.

“When you insist on building a coalition with room for every New Yorker, that is exactly what you create: a tremendous force,” Mamdani told the crowd. “This, my friends, was your movement and it always will be.”

His platform includes hiring thousands of teachers, freezing rent on more than a million rent-regulated apartments, renegotiating city contracts, expanding affordable housing, and establishing universal child care. To opponents, the promises are unrealistic, financially unsustainable, and emblematic of a candidate whose ideological zeal outweighs practical governance.

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary, did not mince words. In a radio interview Sunday, Cuomo argued that Mamdani’s ideas would drive people and businesses out of New York.

“The socialists want to take over the Democratic Party. That’s what Bernie Sanders is all about. That’s what AOC is all about,” Cuomo said. “He wins, book airline tickets for Florida now.”

Cuomo has sought to frame himself as the real Democrat in the race, blasting Mamdani as naive and beholden to a socialist movement rather than to the city’s working taxpayers. Mamdani, meanwhile, used the rally to swipe at Cuomo, calling it time to move beyond the former governor’s “playbook of the past.”

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, who have been behind Mamdani since before the June primary, portrayed him as a counterweight to Trump-era politics.

“It is not a coincidence that the very forces that Zohran is up against in this race mirrors what we are up against nationally. . . an authoritarian, criminal presidency fueled by corruption and bigotry, and an ascendant right-wing extremist movement,” Ocasio-Cortez told the audience.

Sanders argued a Mamdani administration would represent “not the billionaire class” but ordinary families, saying, “In the year 2025, when the people on top have never, ever had so much economic and political power, is it possible for ordinary people, for working class people, to come together and defeat those oligarchs? You’re damn right we can.”

The rally, under the slogan “New York Is Not For Sale,” drew other Democratic leaders including Governor Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.

Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who bowed out of the race, has instead thrown his support behind Cuomo.

With Election Day approaching November 4th, Mamdani continues to lean heavily on the backing of the far left.

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Mamdani Campaign Leans on Sanders and AOC as Critics Warn of Socialist Agenda