Kamala Harris Reinforces Support for Zohran Mamdani in Phone Call

The conversation came two days after Ms. Harris, the former vice president, gave a muted endorsement to Mr. Mamdani’s bid for mayor of New York City.

By Emma G. Fitzsimmons

Sept. 24, 2025

Two days after Kamala Harris, the former vice president and presidential candidate, gave a somewhat muted endorsement of Zohran Mamdani’s bid to become mayor of New York City, she reached out to him in a private call on Wednesday.

Mr. Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, said in an interview that Ms. Harris had initiated the roughly 10-minute conversation, and that she had taken care to emphasize her support.

“I was excited the vice president reached out for a conversation where she reiterated her support for my candidacy, and I shared my appreciation,” he said. “We discussed the affordability agenda that I ran on and the importance of joy amidst the struggle of our politics.”

On Monday, when Ms. Harris was asked by Rachel Maddow in an interview on MSNBC about Mr. Mamdani, her response was far from effusive.

“I support the Democrat in the race, sure,” Ms. Harris said, without uttering the candidate’s name.

Ms. Harris still made clear in the interview that Democrats should support him, and in doing so became the most prominent member of the party’s establishment to back Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has faced resistance from some Democrats in New York. Gov. Kathy Hochul recently endorsed Mr. Mamdani; Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leaders in the U.S. Senate and House, have not.

Mr. Mamdani has said that he voted for Ms. Harris for president last November on the Working Families Party ballot line. But he also expressed support earlier in 2024 for the “Uncommitted” movement, in which Democrats withheld votes during the primary to protest the Biden administration’s support for Israel.

At an event in Manhattan on Wednesday night to promote her book, “107 Days,” Ms. Harris said she told Mr. Mamdani during the call that she was excited that his candidacy was uniting people.

“You are bringing people in and you are showing that there are voices that want to be heard, have felt left out and are now a part of what you are doing,” she said she had told him.

While Mr. Mamdani, 33, is certainly to the left of Ms. Harris, 60, they have some things in common and have both found support from younger voters at a moment when some in the party are calling for generational change. Ms. Harris’s stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, supported Mr. Mamdani during the primary and appeared at a campaign event with him in May.

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Ms. Harris is the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who were immigrants. Mr. Mamdani was born in Uganda to parents of Indian descent and moved to New York City as a child.

“She mentioned the way in which our candidacy has brought more New Yorkers to see themselves in our politics,” Mr. Mamdani said. “I think hers offered the same to so many across the country.”

His main rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, has argued that endorsements are not important in the race. After losing to Mr. Mamdani in the Democratic primary in June, he is running as an independent in the general election in November and is trying to court moderate and conservative voters and wealthy donors.

Mr. Cuomo has continued to attack Mr. Mamdani this week, calling him a “weathervane spinning with the wind” and a “hypocritical chameleon” for changing his views on some issues, including by saying that he would apologize to the police for past critical comments.

Mr. Mamdani said Ms. Harris had offered her support during the final weeks of the campaign, and in the years ahead if he becomes mayor.

“I appreciated the manner in which we have a shared understanding that the success of this campaign will be in the governance of the city and the delivery of this agenda,” he said.

Shortly after the call, Mr. Mamdani held a news conference outside St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx with health care workers to criticize Mr. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which he said could force more than two million New Yorkers to lose their health coverage. Mr. Mamdani said the cuts would decimate hospital budgets and called again for tax increases on the city’s wealthy residents to help offset the losses.

“These are not incremental,” he said of the cuts. “These are ones that throw the very existence of many of these institutions into jeopardy.”

Samantha Latson contributed reporting.

Emma G. Fitzsimmons is the City Hall bureau chief for The Times, covering Mayor Eric Adams and his administration.

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