Zohran Mamdani Expands Campaign Team, Hiring Veteran Democrat

Zohran Mamdani powered his way to an upset in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City with the help of a small clutch of loyalists. Now, as he turns to the general election, he is taking the first steps to expand his orbit.

Mr. Mamdani will announce on Wednesday that he has hired Jeffrey Lerner, a former political director of the Democratic National Committee and senior Senate aide, to serve as his new communications director. Mr. Lerner, 47, also once worked for Mr. Mamdani’s primary rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

Andrew Epstein, who had been overseeing both news and social media for the campaign, will shift into a new role as its creative director, overseeing a team producing the kind of viral narrative videos that helped catapult Mr. Mamdani past his opponents in the primary.

Deandra Khan, a top operative at Local 32BJ SEIU, also recently joined the campaign’s political operation.

“We are growing, we are maturing as a campaign,” Mr. Epstein, 38, said, indicating that more hires were expected in the coming weeks.

The selections could be especially consequential for Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state lawmaker who is still trying to assure segments of his own party that he is prepared to lead the nation’s largest city. He also has to win an unusually volatile general election against Mayor Eric Adams, an independent, and others including Mr. Cuomo, who is considering a third-party challenge.

Mr. Lerner, a Democratic campaign veteran, was most recently a managing director at Actum, a political consulting and lobbying firm. In the Obama White House and at the D.N.C., he worked closely with Patrick Gaspard, a senior party official who has played a growing role advising Mr. Mamdani.

Mr. Lerner, who lives in Washington, said he had reached out to the campaign to offer his services after Mr. Mamdani’s primary victory. He said that the candidate had “reshaped the political conversation in New York City, and indeed, the nation,” and called him “New York City’s most savvy socialist.”

He served as Mr. Cuomo’s communications director in 2007 during Mr. Cuomo’s first year as New York’s attorney general. In an interview, he said accounts of his former boss’s abrasive style were accurate in his experience and suggested he would talk more about that in the future.

“I learned a lot about him as a prosecutor, a politician and person,” he said. “At this time, I have nothing to add to the wealth of reporting that accurately captures what it’s like to work for Andrew Cuomo.”

In a statement, Mr. Mamdani said the new aide “shares our values and our commitment to make our city a place that is affordable and livable.”