Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said that former Vice President Harris would be president if she had used the same campaign playbook as Zohran Mamdani in his apparent win in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor.
“Look, he ran a brilliant campaign. And it wasn’t just him. What he understood and understands — campaign’s not over — is that to run a brilliant campaign, you have to run a grassroots campaign,” Sanders told Politico Magazine in a piece published Wednesday.
“So instead of taking money from billionaires and putting stupid ads on television, which the people increasingly do not pay attention to, you mobilize thousands and thousands of people around the progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working-class people and you go out and you knock on doors,” he added. “And if somebody like a Kamala Harris had not listened to her consultants and done that, she would be president of the United States today.”
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, shocked American political observers Tuesday as he seemed to be on the path to winning the Democratic nomination for the Big Apple’s mayor over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He immigrated to the U.S. from Uganda as a child and has spent most of his life in the nation’s biggest city.
If Mamdani clinches New York City’s top job, he would be its first Muslim and Asian mayor. The results will be final by July 1.
“In the words of Nelson Mandela: it always seems impossible until it’s done. My friends, it is done. And you are the ones who did it. I am honored to be your Democratic nominee for the Mayor of New York City,” Mamdani said in a post on the social media platform X early Wednesday.
For his part, Sanders late last year accused the Democratic Party of mostly ignoring the priorities of the working class, noting it as the largest reason behind the party not holding onto the White House and Senate in the November elections.
The Hill has reached out to Harris’s office for comment.
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