Jumaane Williams: Relationships
Jumaane Williams has built his career inside New York's progressive ecosystem, anchored by a long relationship with the Working Families Party and a network of tenant organizers, democratic-socialist officials, and movement groups. His career has also been defined by repeated electoral rivalries, most notably with Kathy Hochul, and by an adversarial relationship with former Mayor Eric Adams. The map below covers his key allies, rivals, mentors, and the network he works within, with citations to primary or strong secondary sources.
The Working Families Party
The single most important institutional relationship of Williams's career is with the Working Families Party (WFP). The relationship dates to his first City Council run in 2009, when WFP support helped elect him 1,2. He has described himself as "a Working Families Democrat" 3.
The WFP endorsed Williams in his 2022 gubernatorial primary against Hochul, just as it had backed Cynthia Nixon's insurgent 2018 gubernatorial bid, part of the party's strategy of running progressive primary challengers to pull the Democratic field leftward 2,4. The party's New York director, Sochie Nnaemeka, framed him as a "working people's" candidate at his endorsement rally 5.
Key allies
Williams's closest political allies cluster on the progressive left of New York Democratic politics:
Brad Lander, the New York City Comptroller, who appeared at Williams's 2022 WFP endorsement rally and has partnered with him on housing causes, including Good Cause eviction 5,6.
Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn Borough President, who endorsed his 2022 gubernatorial campaign 6.
Ana Maria Archila, the immigrant-rights and economic-justice activist who ran as his lieutenant governor running mate in 2022 6.
Movement organizations, including Make the Road New York Action, Sunrise Movement NYC, Our Revolution (the Bernie Sanders-aligned group), and Housing Justice for All 6,7.
A notable partial endorsement: AOC
One revealing relationship is with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In the 2022 gubernatorial race, Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Williams's running mate Ana Maria Archila for lieutenant governor but notably did not endorse Williams himself for governor 6. The split endorsement illustrated that even within the progressive coalition, Williams's statewide candidacy did not command universal support, and that endorsements in New York's fragmented left are often candidate-specific rather than slate-wide.
Zohran Mamdani
Williams's relationship with Zohran Mamdani reflects the generational evolution of New York's democratic-socialist movement. Both are DSA-aligned officials, and the alignment became literal in January 2026 when Williams took his oath for a third term as Public Advocate at Mamdani's mayoral inauguration 8.
With Mamdani as mayor, Williams found himself, for the first time, serving alongside a chief executive who shared his ideological framework, after years of clashing with Cuomo, Hochul, and Adams. The dynamic between an activist Public Advocate and an activist mayor is one of the open questions of the Mamdani era.
Kathy Hochul
Hochul is Williams's most consequential electoral rival. She defeated him twice: in the 2018 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, by roughly 6.8 percentage points, and in the 2022 Democratic primary for governor, by a wide margin (roughly 66 percent to 19 percent) 9,10. Williams was a persistent critic of Hochul from the left, accusing her during the 2022 race of using "a Republican playbook" by pledging not to raise taxes on the wealthy 11. Despite the rivalry, the two are both Democrats and have not been personal antagonists in the way Williams and Adams became.
Eric Adams
Williams's relationship with former Mayor Eric Adams was openly adversarial. Williams repeatedly used the Public Advocate's platform to criticize Adams, most prominently over the solitary confinement ban, which Adams vetoed and then sought to suspend, and over Adams's handling of ICE enforcement and his federal corruption indictment 12,13. When Adams was indicted in 2024, Williams, as the official first in line for mayoral succession, drew attention as a possible acting mayor, though the scenario did not materialize 13.
Andrew Cuomo
Williams was a frequent critic and protest opponent of former Governor Andrew Cuomo, particularly on housing and the MTA. His 2018 lieutenant governor campaign was explicitly framed around being an independent check on Cuomo rather than a loyal deputy, running in parallel with Cynthia Nixon's insurgent gubernatorial challenge to Cuomo 14. He was arrested multiple times at protests outside Cuomo's offices over rent regulations 15.
Mentors and movement roots
Williams's political formation came through the tenant-organizing world rather than through a traditional political mentor. His time as Executive Director of New York State Tenants & Neighbors and his early community organizing at the Greater Flatbush Beacon School shaped his housing-first politics 16. The 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement was a formative touchstone he has repeatedly invoked, including at his 2022 campaign launch events held at the symbolic former Occupy encampment 5.
Family in politics
Williams is a first-generation Brooklynite; his parents, Greg and Patricia Williams, emigrated from Grenada and were not political figures 17. His mother co-owned the Canarsie property at the center of the 2025 foreclosure controversy, but the family is not a political dynasty, and Williams's rise came through activism rather than family connections 18.
Donors and fundraising relationships
Williams has positioned himself as independent of real estate money, having declined real estate donations during his Public Advocate run, a stance consistent with his tenant-advocacy brand 3. His campaigns have relied more on progressive small-dollar donors, labor, and movement organizations than on the traditional New York real estate and finance donor base. His 2022 gubernatorial campaign raised more than $3 million, far less than Hochul's war chest, reflecting his outsider positioning 19.
The shape of his network
Williams's relationships map cleanly onto New York's progressive-versus-establishment divide. His allies are the WFP, DSA-aligned officials, tenant and immigrant-rights movements, and a younger generation of progressives now ascendant under Mamdani. His rivals have been the establishment Democrats who repeatedly beat or blocked him, Hochul, Cuomo, and Adams. The throughline is consistency: Williams has occupied the same position in the same coalition for more than 15 years, a stability that supporters cite as principled and that critics sometimes characterize as ideological rigidity.