New York City’s powerful teachers union announced Friday it won’t endorse in the Democratic mayoral primary, citing no clear consensus among United Federation of Teachers members this election cycle.
The UFT’s seal of approval had been one of the last-remaining endorsements with the potential to shake up the mayoral primary. But signs the union was struggling to coalesce around a candidate became apparent earlier this week when no resolution was brought at the final delegate assembly before early voting begins on Saturday.
“We couldn’t even get near consensus,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the Daily News in an interview, despite what he described as an extensive process of polling and surveying the union’s members.
Mulgrew said it was “frustrating” and “troubling” not to endorse, but he considered it better than dividing or alienating members. The last time the union did not endorse was in 2009.
The UFT previously backed the former comptroller Scott Stringer in his last bid for mayor in 2021. Mulgrew told The News that this year, while the union liked Stringer best again for education, other concerns took precedence.
“Traditionally, UFT ends up endorsing the candidate who’s best for education, and that’s not what our members are looking for at this point,” Mulgrew said. “The affordability of the city [and] pushing back against the Trump administration, those came ahead of education. And on those issues, our membership was basically divided.”
Andrew Cuomo, the current front-runner in the race, had seemingly been angling for the UFT’s endorsement, despite a rocky past with the teachers union over pension plans and charter schools. At the UFT’s mayoral forum last month, he promised to rollback the plan known as Tier 6 that he implemented as governor. During mayoral debates, he called for hiring more paraprofessionals, which has been a top priority of the UFT.
But the ex-governor’s history with the union proved to be a sticking point, as did Zohran Mamdani’s support of Palestine. Mamdani has consistently been polling in second place. Mulgrew said he did not consider endorsing a slate of candidates.
The non-endorsement capped off a tumultuous approval process for the UFT, who had to drop a prerequisite for their backing that candidates spend a day teaching at the Adams administration’s behest.
