NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani appeared at a Democratic Socialists of America meeting Wednesday night to urge the group to not endorse his onetime campaign surrogate Chi Osse’s 2026 challenge against Brooklyn Congressman Hakeem Jeffries — a sticky situation that spotlights a power struggle unfolding inside the leftist organization.

Mamdani’s appearance at the closed-door evening meeting at Manhattan’s Church of the Village was unusual for several reasons.

Mamdani, a dues-paying DSA member, is in the thick of assembling his administration ahead of his Jan. 1 inauguration and his appearance could be a sign he intends to continue exerting influence over the leftist group’s operations even as mayor.

In addition, his decision to come out against Osse — a prominent ally and City Council member — could anger fellow democratic socialists, who have long been deeply critical of Jeffries, a centrist Democrat, over his support for Israel and other issues.

After telling assembled DSA members “it is good to be home,” Mamdani made a pragmatic case for why the group should not endorse Osse, saying it could complicate the enactment of the affordability agenda he centered his mayoral campaign on, according to sources in the room.

“The choice is not whether to vote for Chi or Hakeem at the ballot box, the choice is how to spend the next year. Do we want to spend it defending caricatures of our movement, or do we want to spend it fulfilling the agenda at the heart of that very same movement?” Mamdani said, per the sources, who spoke with the Daily News on condition of anonymity.

“I believe that endorsing (Osse) makes it more difficult to do the latter, more difficult to deliver on the life-changing policies that more than 1 million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago,” Mamdani continued, the sources said. “I know how I want to spend the next year, and I urge you all to join me in voting no on this endorsement, not because our dreams are too small, but because they are as big as the entire city.”

The meeting was held before the DSA’s Electoral Working Group, whose members have until Saturday to vote on whether to endorse Osse’s run.

Mamdani doesn’t have more direct sway than other DSA members over whether the group should back Osse. But as the incoming mayor, Mamdani is the highest-ranking elected official in the DSA’s New York City chapter and his influence is thereby significant.

Tascha van Auken, the field director of Mamdani’s campaign who’s influential in the DSA, also argued against endorsing Osse during the Wednesday night confab. She focused her remarks on questioning whether Osse is loyal to the principles of the socialist group, which he only became a dues-paying member of this past summer after Mamdani’s mayoral primary victory.

Other DSA members at the meeting argued for backing Osse’s run, including Brooklyn Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher and Gustavo Gordillo, the DSA New York City chapter’s co-chair, according to the sources.

The rift building over the Osse endorsement comes as Mamdani has signaled he’s willing to potentially back a progressive candidate to run in 2026 against New York Rep. Dan Goldman, also a centrist Democrat.

Goldman is seen as more vulnerable to a primary challenge than Jeffries, who is the Democratic House leader and New York’s second highest-ranking member in Congress.

Sources say Mamdani believes challenging Jeffries at this time could stand to hurt the DSA’s momentum, as the House leader is widely popular in his Brooklyn district and has access to a major fundraising advantage that could make defeating him very difficult.

In his own remarks earlier in the evening, Osse said he has $150,000 pledged in donations for his campaign already and fired up the crowd by vowing to fight for “true socialism,” including pushing for Medicare for All, abolishing ICE and enacting a U.S. arms embargo on Israel. He acknowledged there was “skepticism” in the room, but said fighting Jeffries is a matter of principle.

“He cynically uses race as a shield, while he fails to fight fascism, sells out our communities, empowers conservative principles and funds mass slaughter,” Osse said of Jeffries, per sources.

Osse, who has suggested he won’t ultimately run against Jeffries without the DSA’s endorsement, helped Mamdani make inroads with Black voters in his central Brooklyn district during the mayoral race.

But their relationship appears to have frayed since Osse earlier this month officially registered to challenge Jeffries in next summer’s congressional primary even though Mamdani was urging him publicly and privately to not do so.

After refraining from doing so for months, Jeffries endorsed Mamdani for mayor shortly before the Nov. 4 election.

Mamdani’s push for Osse to not challenge Jeffries signals Mamdani, 34, appears focused on keeping the disparate wings of the Democratic Party out of each other’s crosshairs as he prepares to take office as the youngest New York City mayor in over a century.

Supporters of Osse, 27, have argued Mamdani’s election should be a launching pad for DSA candidates to kick off primary challenges against centrist Democrats en masse.

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