AOC to rally with Mamdani on Saturday as early voting begins

Lefty mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani will rally on Saturday evening with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, state Sen. John Liu, New York City Council Member Alexa Avilés and Transport Workers Union President John Samuelsen, among others, as his upstart campaign gives front-runner former Gov. Andrew Cuomo a run for his money. Comedian The Kid Mero will be the featured emcee. 

This will be the second high-profile Mamdani/AOC event since she endorsed him as her first choice on June 5. They appeared together at the Puerto Rican Day Parade last weekend, confirming that the star congressional representative’s support for the 33-year-old democratic socialist state lawmaker would go beyond tweets and press releases. 

The campaign is not disclosing the location of the rally yet, even to the three thousand or so volunteers who have been invited to attend. “We have not just 35,000+ volunteers signed up, obviously we have this exploding social media following,” spokesperson Andrew Epstein said, adding that the event will be streamed. “We don’t want to have lines around the block, people feeling frustrated and disappointed, people hoping to get in and not able to.” There have also been concerns about protesters at campaign events – especially after a bizarre incident when a Mamdani volunteer was bitten by a disruptor at a recent press conference.

The rally will take place on the first day of early voting and one day after Mamdani cross-endorsed fellow candidate Brad Lander, but Lander’s not expected to attend. Ocasio-Cortez ranked Mamdani first and Lander third on her endorsed slate. The primary election day is June 24.