Democratic New York City Council member Chi Ossé, a close ally of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, is considering running against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in 2026, according to Axios.
Ossé — an openly gay 27-year-old — has held private discussions with progressive groups about the possibility of challenging Jeffries in the Democratic primary in 2026, Axios first reported on Wednesday, citing three anonymous sources. The report comes as Jeffries has thus far held off on endorsing Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral race.
Ossé endorsed Mamdani, a self-avowed socialist, in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary Apr. 21, stating in an Instagram post that the city needs a mayor with “an inspirational vision of the most our city can be.” He also spoke at a campaign rally in support of Mamdani in May.
Ossé was elected as the youngest-ever member of the New York City Council in 2021 and is currently the only Gen-Z member, according to a biography on the council’s website. He rose to prominence in 2020 for being an active figure in the Black Lives Matter movement, telling Politico in an August 2022 interview that he decided to run for office because of the activist organization.
Neither Jeffries’ office nor Ossé’s office responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
In 2020, Ossé co-founded Warriors in the Garden, a collective of activists that partly describes its mission as aiming to “protect our community from police brutality and all forms of systemic oppression.” He has also previously called for defunding the New York Police Department (NYPD).
“We’re going to defund the NYPD. THE POLICE WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS,” Ossé wrote in a June 11, 2020 post to Instagram. “PSA: THE PICTURE OF PROTESTERS TALKING TO THE POLICE IS NOT @warriorsinthegarden, I DONT SPEAK 
#blacklivesmatter”
Additionally, Ossé has made headlines for posting videos on social media that garner millions of views. Mamdani has cited Ossé and Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as key inspirations for his mayoral campaign, telling Vulture in June that they showed him “the power of communication without an intermediary.”
“They showed me the power of communication without an intermediary, because ultimately our campaign is about having a politics of no translation and a politics that’s direct about centering working people in a city that they built but are being priced out of,” Mamdani told the outlet.
Ossé claimed in a Mar. 2 X post that Republicans “don’t give a shit” about Americans. In December 2022, Ossé posted a photo of himself wearing a Santa Claus costume to X, writing that “Black gay Santa is a Republican’s worst nightmare.”
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