NEW YORK — Days after his November win, mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani made a quiet attempt to slow the internal race for New York City Council speaker. It set into motion one of the first tests of his political muscle — and it did not end well.
Mamdani and his team, fresh off his landslide victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, asked unions, county party organizations and several Council members to hold off on backing a candidate for the chamber’s top leadership role while he assessed the field, according to half a dozen people familiar with the conversations.
The mayor-elect’s team then doubled down on that message weeks later as they began to explore options for potentially influencing the race. Those efforts — muddled and late — were ultimately unsuccessful…