What happened
Far-left candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept Democratic House primary races in the city last week, a sign that the party’s momentum has lurched sharply left. Two of the three Mamdani-backed primary winners are fellow members of the Democratic Socialists of America, a political organization that favors universal health care and higher taxes on the rich and calls Israel an “apartheid regime.” Darializa Avila Chevalier pulled off the evening’s biggest stunner, unseating Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Another DSA member, Claire Valdez, beat a candidate endorsed by retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, while Brad Lander, a Mamdani ally who’s a former DSA member, trounced incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman. Much like Mamdani’s grassroots mayoral campaign last year, the upstarts relied on thousands of DSA volunteers, who knocked on doors and made phone calls to turn out votes. The DSA has also had success outside of New York, with its candidates advancing in mayoral primaries in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles earlier this month. “The Democratic establishment better wake up,” Usamah Andrabi of the progressive group Justice Democrats told Politico. “Because the Left is winning.”
Moderate Democrats fared better outside of New York City. In Utah, former representative Ben McAdams staved off progressive challengers to win his primary in a redrawn district that now favors Democrats. In Maryland, Adrian Boafo earned a chance to succeed his old boss, Rep. Steny Hoyer, a staunch supporter of Israel. Among Republicans, several candidates endorsed by President Trump pulled off upsets: In upstate New York, Anthony Constantino defeated an assemblyman backed by the N.Y. GOP, while in the race for Republican nominee for South Carolina governor, Alan Wilson, the attorney general Trump endorsed at the last minute, won in a landslide
What the columnists said
Mamdani’s “audacious gamble” paid off, said Nicholas Fandos in The New York Times. He’s now “the unquestioned political kingmaker of the nation’s cultural and financial capital,” and the DSA, after years on the margins, is “a formidable force.” But it’s too early to tell if this movement has expanded beyond the bluest parts of the state. After all, New York held primaries for all 26 of its congressional districts, 13 of which are housed, at least in part, in the city. Mamdani got involved in only three.
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Those were the races in which criticism of Israel played a major role, said Lisa Kashinsky in Politico. Lander, who is Jewish and a self-described “liberal Zionist,” upbraided his opponent for failing to endorse an arms embargo on Israel “and for refusing to call its war in Gaza a genocide.” Avila Chevalier “relentlessly attacked” Espaillat for taking AIPAC money. And the crowd at several of the victory parties chanted “Free, free Palestine.” Criticizing Israel “is now not only politically survivable” for a Democrat but actually “advantageous.”
It’s not mere criticism—some of these people openly side with the terrorists who murdered Israelis on Oct. 7, said Jeffrey Blehar in National Review. Avila Chevalier, a Muslim convert, is adamant “that Hamas Did Nothing Wrong.” But that’s not the only reason she is set to become “the single craziest member of Congress.” She’s also a “prison abolitionist who authentically believes murderers should not be behind bars.” In her now-deleted social media posts, she calls for abolishing national borders and nationalizing private companies and rages against mainstream Democrats. In one post, she calls former president Joe Biden a “rapist.” In another, she declares, “F--- Kamala Harris.”
In endorsing such extreme leftists, Mamdani is trying to “remake the national Democratic Party,” said Perry Bacon in The New Republic. Mayors “don’t usually interject themselves into congressional races.” Unable to run for president since he wasn’t born a U.S. citizen, this is how he can leave his mark nationally.
The charge he has led against the Democratic Party establishment is “reminiscent of the Tea Party that once shook Republicans,” said David Smith in The Guardian. That grassroots movement remade the Republican Party in the 2010s, turning it into a hotbed of anti-incumbent fury and contempt toward elites. Will the DSA surge do the same? Democratic primary voters clearly want their candidates to “stand for something, rather than nothing, because writing strongly worded letters to Trump is not enough.”
