Senator Bernie Sanders and Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday teamed up for a rally at Kings Theatre to endorse three progressive candidates ahead of the Democratic primary election on June 23.
The rally, titled “Our Team Our Year, Get Out The Vote,” urged voters to canvas, phonebank and vote for Claire Valdez and Brad Lander, both who are running for Congressional seats in Brooklyn districts, and Darializa Avila Chevalier in Manhattan.
“This slate knows the difference between a party that defends the status quo and a party fighting to transform the status quo,” Mamdani exclaimed to the crowd of about several hundred people.
Sanders reminded the crowd why progressive candidates were winning in primaries across the country.
“The answer in my view is uncomplicated,” Sanders said. “The working class of America understands that our current economic system is rigged. That it is designed to benefit the wealthy and powerful.”
Lander, the former city Comptroller, is running against incumbent Dan Goldman for New York's 10th Congressional District.
Valdez, currently representing state Assembly District 37, is running against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, City Council Member Julie Won, and public defender Vichal Kumar for New York’s 7th Congressional District.
Speakers at the event emphasized the need to push back the Democratic Party to move forward with a progressive agenda.
In his speech, Lander expressed a need to fight directly for working class people and take on corporate power.
“We've had it with corporate Democrats who don't know what time it is,” Lander said. “This is not the time for strongly worded letters, or high dollar fundraisers, or elections bought by billionaires, or crypto bros, or AI oligarchs. It's time for a politics of solidarity.”
Valdez, a labor union organizer, also heralded themes of solidarity in her address.
“When working people come together, we can move mountains…. We can rebuild the labor movement into a fighting force for the whole working class,” Valdez said.
Additionally, Valdez drew a connection between the plight of working class people in the U.S. and the plight of those abroad affected by U.S.-funded wars.
“The people who squeeze workers here are the same people who are funding the bombs over there,” Valdez said. “The war machine and the billionaire class are not separate systems, they are the same.”
Dante Conde, a 21-year-old Bushwick resident, said Valdez’s words resonated with him.
“She speaks of a politics that works for not only people who come to Bushwick, but also those who are living there and facing issues of displacement and inequality, that feel unseen," he said.
Mamdani said the Democratic Party has simply been "managing decline, instead of delivering material change for working people."
“It has seen its job as explaining why we cannot instead of showing how we can, and that old way of thinking will lose on Tuesday," he said.
Early voting ends on June 21, after which registered voters will be able to submit their ballots on June 23.
