New York City councilman Chi Ossé filed paperwork on Monday to run against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for the eighth congressional seat in Brooklyn.
"The Democratic Party's leadership is not only failing to effectively fight back against Donald Trump, they have also failed to deliver a vision that we can all believe in," Ossé told Axios.
Before Ossé was elected to the City Council in 2021, he worked as a Black Lives Matter organizer.
Ossé is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and an ally of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
In May 2025, Ossé posted on X/Twitter that Israel is a terror state. “Shame on every single person who is continuing to defend the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. You will be remembered poorly in history. Continued prayers for the people of Gaza,” the post said.
This follows a slew of progressive candidates, many of whom identify as socialists or democratic socialists, running against mainstream Democrats across the country. These candidates all have voiced their opposition to Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
Katie Wilson, 43, unseated democratic Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell on November 4. She, like Mamdani, focused her campaign on addressing Seattle’s affordability. Wilson previously worked as a community organizer and never served in public office. Though ideologically similar to Mamdani, she was not endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
In August, Wilson said she is "strongly opposed to the genocide in Gaza. As Mayor of Seattle, my ability to end the violence is limited, but I will do everything I can to end the suffering of Palestinians and guarantee the safety of Muslims, Jews, and people of all faiths and backgrounds in Seattle.”
Pro-Palestinian candidates running for office
In May, Palestinian-American Kat Abughazaleh, 26, launched her campaign for Congress in a bid to oust Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who has held his seat in the ninth district since 1999.
Abughazelah is a former Media Matters staffer. “We deserve representatives who face the same challenges we do (or at least have some time in the last decade). They don't deal with out-of-pocket prescription costs or nightmarish rent hikes or existential fear about their lives in 50 years. You and I do,” she wrote on her campaign website.
While she has been outspoken against what she calls the genocide in Gaza, after the Boulder, Colorado, attack, she wrote on social media that “senseless antisemitic attacks do not help Palestinians, Jews, or Israelis.”
In August, Graham Platner, a retired US Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, launched his primary campaign for Senate in Maine. As of November, he is now in a two-person race against Governor Janet Mills. If he wins the primary, he will run against Republican Senator Susan Collins.
Platner has been dubbed the “Maine Mamdani.” He posted on his social media in August, “There is a genocide happening in Palestine.” In a campaign ad, he rhetorically asks, “Why are we funding endless wars, bombing children?”
In April, Abdul El-Sayed announced his run for Senate in Michigan. His campaign has also focused on affordability, running with the slogan “it shouldn’t be this hard ot get by.”
In October, he posted on social media, “A ceasefire that stops and starts on a war criminal’s terms isn’t ‘peace.’ Real, lasting peace requires accountability for the genocide, dignity and self-determination for Palestinians, and a final end to US funding for this.”
In 2025, the Democratic Socialists of America boasted 12 wins from the election cycle, out of the 23 candidates it had endorsed since the start of the year, according to the organization’s website. The candidates the organization endorsed mainly ran for city council offices and mayoral seats.