Supporters of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are organizing a major Manhattan fundraiser Monday evening for Democratic Senate candidates James Talarico of Texas and Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
The Ohio Texas Victory Fund reception is scheduled for 7 p.m. in downtown Manhattan. Tickets begin at $500, while top-tier “champion” contributions cost as much as $27,000, according to the event’s donation page.
Actor Robert De Niro is expected to introduce the candidates, whose contests could help decide which party controls the US Senate next year.
Talarico is challenging Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, while Brown is seeking to unseat incumbent GOP Sen. John Husted in Ohio.
The host committee includes jeweler Alexis Bittar, a Mamdani fundraiser and transition bundler who also co-hosted a fundraiser last week for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. Bittar previously drew controversy after describing the United States as a “s–thole.”
“I have three kids and they’re little and they’re growing up in this s–thole,” Bittar said in an interview shortly before the nation’s 250th-anniversary celebrations.
Bittar also helped release the documentary “Reclaim the Flag” last year, criticizing what he described as the transformation of the Stars and Stripes into a “symbol of aggression.”
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The event’s co-hosts include several prominent LGBT activists and organizations, among them the Human Rights Campaign PAC, HRC president Kelley Robinson and Shameek Bose, a member of GLAAD’s national board of directors.
Bose, a marketing executive, also co-hosted a December 2025 fundraiser supporting Mamdani’s mayoral transition.
Additional members of the host committee include:
Candidates running outside New York have long traveled to the heavily Democratic state to tap its wealthy donor base, including supporters sympathetic to socialist politics.
Republicans, meanwhile, have spent the election cycle trying to link Democratic candidates to Mamdani, New York City’s socialist mayor.
That strategy has become more difficult, however, following President Trump’s increasingly cordial relationship with Mamdani. The two held a friendly meeting and press conference at Gracie Mansion last week.
Representatives for the Talarico and Brown campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.