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Former Vice President Kamala Harris is courting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and other progressive power players as 2028 speculation builds around another possible White House bid.
The phone call with Mamdani last week, first reported by Axios and confirmed by Fox News Digital, along with other closed-door meetings with progressive groups, suggests Harris is trying to shore up support from factions of the party that didn’t support her during her 2024 run.
Additionally, Harris met with progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., behind the scenes at a Black women empowerment summit in Chicago, Axios first reported, and Fox News Digital confirmed.
Harris reportedly has also been reaching out to pro-Palestinian groups after she faced pushback from those groups during her 2024 presidential run. Harris reached out to at least one group that was part of the “Uncommitted Movement” that developed as a result of President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel and Gaza conflict.
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Reports said former Vice President Kamala Harris reached out to Zohran Mamdani and pro-Palestinian activists ahead of the 2028 election. (Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani and Harris’ office for comment.
News of the Harris and Mamdani call sparked criticism from conservatives online.
“Kamala Harris 2020 was desperate, Kamala Harris 2024 was pathetic, Kamala Harris 2028 will be unhinged,” GOP political strategist Nathan Brand posted on X.
Mamdani’s influence in the party has only grown since he was sworn into office in January, as highlighted by a clean sweep of socialist-aligned candidates he endorsed winning their races in the New York Democratic primary last month.
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US Vice President Kamala Harris, left, watches as President Joe Biden speaks to members of the media at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. Russia freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as well as jailed Kremlin critics in the largest prisoner exchange with the West in decades, in return for a prized assassin sought by President Vladimir Putin. Photographer: Ken Cedeno/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Ken Cedeno/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The fact that she’s courting people like Mamdani, these socialists and communists, it goes back to the radical leftists, because the Democrats are in big trouble as a party,” RNC chair Joe Gruters exclusively told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
“They’re in the death spiral, because now they have these people inside their tent,” he continued. “This is who the Democratic Party is today: these radical leftists that want to fundamentally transform our country. And that’s why we have to fight. That’s why we have to come together, unite, and we have to win. We have to win to save the country. We have to win to move our policies forward. There’s a lot at stake. Certainly, Kamala Harris, the meeting with Mamdani and these radicals shows you where the left continues to go where they want to go, but listen, she has to kowtow to these radicals to try to win.”
Earlier this year, Harris made stops in the crucial primary state of South Carolina less than a week after she dropped a tantalizing comment at the first major cattle call of Democratic presidential contenders.
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Zohran Mamdani is a Ugandan-born Muslim who won the Democratic Party’s primary for New York City mayor in June. (Barry Williams/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“I might. I might. I’m thinking about it… I’ll keep you posted,” Harris said in April at the National Action Network’s 35th Anniversary Convention, when asked by the event founder, the Rev. Al Sharpton, if she would seek the presidency in 2028.
Harris, who replaced then-President Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee but later lost the election to President Donald Trump, was greeted by the crowd with chants of “run again.”
