Lefty Gen-Z Brooklyn Councilman Chi Ossé has filed papers to run for Congress in a bid to topple House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Insurgent Osse took the first major step in a primary bid to run for the 8th House District against Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, by registering a “Chi Osse for Congress” campaign committee with the Federal Elections Commission, records show.
Jeffries, a former state assemblyman first elected to the House in 2013 — and who could be the next House Speaker if Democrats regain the majority in next year’s midterms — will garner most if not all of the Democratic Party’s institutional support in a primary challenge from Osse.
And as The Post recently reported, democratic socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani discouraged ally Osse from running at a time when he’s trying to firm up ties with Jeffries and other Democratic establishment leaders in Congress and Albany.
But Osse, who just announced that he joined the Democratic Socialists of America, defied Mamdani saying he wants “to strike when the iron is hot” with the energy among grass-roots lefty activists in the Democratic Party ascendant with Mamdani’s election, a source said.
Some DSA Albany lawmakers who overlap with Jeffries’ congressional district — which runs from Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant in the north to Coney Island in the south and includes parts of bordering Queens neighborhoods — include state Sen. Jabari Brisport and Assemblywoman Phara Souffrant Forrest.
Mamdani — who is seeking to make in-roads with establishment Dems to back his agenda and fight any attempted damaging acts by President Trump and Republicans — brushed off an Osse challenge to Jeffries during an event on Monday.
“I appreciate the great work that Councilmember Osse has done on the Council, especially for tenants. I believe that there are many ways right here in New York City to both deliver on an affordability agenda and take on the authoritarian administration in the White House,” Mamdani said.
One lefty group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, also urged Osse to back off.
“Just after Mamdani’s big victory and House Democrats holding firm during the shutdown fight, it is not the right moment to launch a primary challenge to Hakeem Jeffries,” said Adam Green, the group’s co-founder.
