At Zohran Mamdani’s October rally at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, two influential New Yorkers were conspicuously absent. In a rally that featured thirteen thousand people, including New York governor Kathy Hochul and numerous other elected officials, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, were not present to support the Democratic nominee of the largest city in the country that they both represent.

Jeffries had at least issued a tepid endorsement for Mamdani (though his statement included a reference to their “areas of principled disagreement”). But his initial reaction to Mamdani’s victory in June’s Democratic primary was more combative. After reports started circulating about potential primary challengers to Jeffries, his spokesperson responded sharply, telling CNN: “if Team Gentrification wants a primary fight, our response will be forceful and unrelenting.”

This cynical characterization of the movement that powered Mamdani to victory is a variation on a consistent, repeated theme of criticism from establishment Democratic politicians and elements of the press since NYC-DSA’s first primary victory in 2018. In this narrative, NYC-DSA’s electoral success is entirely due to a wave of relatively affluent, college-educated, and largely white gentrifiers moving into working-class neighborhoods, and is therefore somehow inauthentic or exploitative. This narrative conveniently erases Zohran’s overwhelming support from working-class Muslim communities, the 55 percent of Black voters who supported him in the general election, and the fact that DSA is one of the most consistent opponents of the landlord lobby.