House Dem leader rails that Mamdani isn’t future of party days after endorsing him

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries smacked down the notion that socialist mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani is the future of the Democratic Party, but gave a jumbled rationale for why.

“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 (D-NY) told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Jeffries had begrudgingly endorsed Mamdani late last month, after dragging his feet since June on whom he would back in New York City’s mayoral race.

The Brooklyn Democrat commended Mamdani for being “relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis” while acknowledging “there will be areas of agreement and areas of principled disagreement.”

Other bigwig Democrats have refrained from endorsing Mamdani, such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and former President Barack Obama — who reportedly praised him in a recent phone call.

Several New York Democratic Reps, such as Tom Suozzi, Dan Goldman, and Laura Gillen, have also not given Mamdani their official stamp of approval.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) endorsed Mamdani, but he has so far refrained from returning the favor ahead of her 2026 re-election bid.

Republicans have already begun taking Democrats to task over Mamdani, tying them to his far-left agenda.

But Jeffries downplayed concerns that a Mamdani victory could pose a significant liability for his party.

“No, the lightning rod in terms of what’s going to impact the ability of either side to win control of the House or hold control of the House in 2026 is going to be the failure of Republicans to actually deliver on the promises that they have made and to actively make life worse for everyday Americans,” he said..

Mamdani is the clear front-runner heading into the Tuesday election, with a lead in every credible poll and a 14.5-percentage point edge in the latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate.

The self-described democratic socialist has previously trashed Jeffries.

Jeffries also skirted responsibility for the government shutdown, despite Democrats blocking a GOP-backed “clean” spending patch to reopen the government from passing the Senate.

“Well, we’re continuing to make life better for the American people,” he argued. “We want to reopen the government. We want to enact the bipartisan spending agreement that actually makes life better for everyday Americans.”

Democrats have demanded that Republicans extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year and reverse their reforms to Medicaid in order to reopen the government.

When pressed about whether Democrats were making a deliberate choice to shut down the government in an effort to extract concessions from Republicans, Jeffries rejected the premise.

“No, what I acknowledge is that we’re asking Republicans to sit down,” he said, “in order to find a bipartisan path toward enacting a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people.”