Editor's Note
Editor’s note: In a rarity for NYC, Mamdani doesn’t bid for DNC
It’s been more than 50 years since a mayor passed on bringing a national political convention to the city.
Most New York City mayors strive to host a national convention. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
There are five finalists to host the Democratic National Convention in 2028, and New York City isn’t on the list. In fact, the city didn’t even make a bid.
That means Mayor Zohran Mamdani has ended a funny political tradition: Every new mayor of New York City for the past 50 years has tried to bring their party’s national convention to the Big Apple.
Eric Adams tried. Bill de Blasio pitched Brooklyn for the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Mike Bloomberg brought the Republican convention to a post-9/11 New York. Rudy Giuliani had wanted to host too, but the Republican National Convention crossed New York City off the list after Giuliani endorsed Democrat Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994. David Dinkins won the DNC for New York City, and so did Ed Koch and Abe Beame before him.
Before Mamdani, the last mayor who didn’t make a bid was John Lindsay. He was elected in 1965 as a Republican, but he stood well to the left of his national party and proactively declined to campaign for the GOP nominee in 1968. Remind you of anyone?
The simplest answer for why Mamdani didn’t try for the Democratic National Convention is timing – the convention has gotten bigger and bigger and they plan it earlier and earlier, and the brand new mayor would’ve had to collaborate with Adams, which neither would’ve wanted.
Also, unlike so many of his predecessors with White House dreams, Mamdani legally can’t run for president – sparing the New York City press corps another trip to the Iowa State Fair.
But it’s hard not to see the politics here. Democratic socialist Mamdani is no fan of the Democratic Party as an institution. And even as @TheDemocrats account on X is hyping up the charismatic and popular mayor for social media clout, party leaders have kept their distance. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer never endorsed. Neither did state Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs.
Lindsay shied from the GOP, but the party called on him to give a rousing speech seconding the vice presidential nomination of Spiro Agnew in 1968. Don’t be surprised if Mamdani ends up on stage in 2028, even if that stage is in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Boston or Philadelphia.