Chill of Collectivism Spreads: Mamdani-Backed Candidates Sweep in Contested New York City House Primaries
New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani stunned the Democratic political establishment with a clean sweep Tuesday evening after all three of the far-left insurgent candidates he endorsed in the city’s congressional primaries defeated opponents—including two incumbents—championed by party leaders.
Within minutes of the polls closing, Mamdani acolyte Brad Lander was declared the winner in his challenge to Rep. Dan Goldman in the city’s 10th district. In Brooklyn, Assemblywoman Claire Valdez—like Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist—triumphed over Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso to claim the seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez.
And in a stunning upset in northern Manhattan, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Democratic Socialist with unusually controversial leftist views, even for New York City, defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a longtime establishment warhorse.
The three primary elections were being closely watched nationwide as a test of the young mayor’s strength, but many seasoned New York political hands were shocked by the clean sweep. Mamdani had bucked the Democratic establishment, backed candidates who—in the case of Valdez and Chevalier—had views well to the left of Upper Manhattan and outer borough voters, and made his opposition to Israel a key litmus test. Goldman and Espaillat were both largely supportive of Israel.
As the campaign crescendoed, Mamdani doubled down on his anti-Israel rhetoric, saying "Now is the time of monsters," a quote by a Marxist philosopher, to describe the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. On Tuesday, he demurred when asked to condemn an Uzbek coffee shop owner who smeared Goldman as a "fascist" who sipped "genocide juice" after Goldman, who his Jewish, visited the coffee shop with his young daughter.
As the votes continued to trickle in Tuesday evening, an increasingly dour mood washed over supporters of Espaillat at the longtime pol’s election party at La Casa del Mofongo in Washington Heights.
"I am crushed," one Espaillat fan told the Washington Free Beacon.
Chevalier in particular had been dogged by a series of controversies and gaffes regarding her extreme left-wing views, including statements in which she expressed support for abolishing schools, criticized interracial relationships, and said she used the American flag as a wash rag.
Establishment candidates across the board underperformed. Many political prognosticators had predicted Espaillat to defeat the untested newcomer with views so far left of the mainstream.
The night had a few bright spots for more moderate Democrats. In New York’s 12th district, Assemblyman Micah Lasher beat back more liberal opponents, including Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg. And in the Bronx, Rep. Ritchie Torres, a staunch supporter of Israel, handily defeated a challenge from Michael Blake.