A stunning trio of congressional victories proved that the political earthquake wrought by the mayor and his allies was no accident.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrates with Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier during an election night event Tuesday, June 23, 2026 in New York.
(Seth Wenig/AP) A new mayor trying to wield his political power across New York City could hardly imagine such a glorious evening.
Zohran Mamdani backed three insurgent congressional candidates in high-profile primaries that angered the Democratic establishment. All three – Brad Lander, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier – had resounding victories. For Mamdani, it’s proof that the political revolution he launched last year is still alive and well. For the Democratic Socialists of America, who put their organizational strength behind most of these races, the results were proof of their ever-increasing ascendancy over New York City politics. And for the city’s traditional political firmament, the night showed just how fragile its grip on power is becoming.
Lander’s victory over incumbent Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th Congressional District is the least surprising. Even without Mamdani, the former city comptroller and mayoral candidate could have unseated Goldman, who was too much of an Israel hawk to represent the district, which stretches from Lower Manhattan to brownstone Brooklyn. Lander was a well-known and already well-liked person in the district, and he was in a good position from the moment he announced his offer.
Valdez and Avila Chevalier were another matter entirely. The former had not even served a single term in the State Assembly, and the latter is a doctoral student at CUNY who has never run for office. Without Mamdani and the DSA machine, they likely would have been wiped out by their respective opponents, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat.
Both men held seemingly formidable positions heading into the primary. Reynoso had the support of the district’s legendary incumbent congresswoman, Nydia Velázquez, as well as the support of most major unions and the Working Families Party. He grew up in the district, represented part of it for eight years on the city council, and in a pre-Mamdani world he would have easily won.
While Reynoso was the de facto incumbent, Espaillat was the actual congressman, having represented the 13th Congressional District, covering upper Manhattan and the Bronx, for a decade. Before that, he spent many years as a state legislator and had methodically built a Dominican-American political machine that seemed, for a time, unassailable. In a potentially fateful decision, Espaillat supported Andrew Cuomo in last year’s mayoral primary, but flipped to Mamdani in the general, hoping that would be enough to save himself. (Disclosure: In 2018, when I ran for State Senate, Mamdani was my campaign manager.)
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This was not the case. Mamdani did not initially support Avila Chevalier, but he kept a close eye on her campaign as it gained momentum and more of the DSA’s rank and file lined up behind her. A young, charismatic leftist with a checkered social background – she had denigrated Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and made comments she regretted on interracial relations – Avila Chevalier was nevertheless able to put pressure against Espaillat because, in foreign policy, he was deeply disconnected from the left-wing currents running through the neighborhood.
Espaillat, like Goldman, is a proud Zionist who has taken several thousand dollars from AIPAC, including in this latest campaign. When Columbia pro-Palestinian activist and Espaillat resident Mahmoud Khalil was kidnapped by the Trump administration, Espaillat said and did little. It was indeed useless. Young voters in the district took notice and flocked to Avila Chevalier. Unlike Espaillat, she was an unapologetic leftist, a proud supporter of Palestinian rights who sometimes seemed like the version of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that some in the DSA wished to see more of. She could also electrify crowds and shine on debate stages. In the final days of the race, Espaillat’s allies attempted to portray Avila Chevalier as an outsider and usurper, launching horrific racist attacks against her. (They claimed, without evidence, that Dominican-American Avila Chevalier was Haitian, hoping to capitalize on anti-Haitian sentiment among older Dominican voters.) But Mamdani stuck by him and was handsomely rewarded for his choice.
Valdez was less of a lightning rod, but she faced her own uphill struggle to the finish line. Reynoso, like Espaillat, hoped to fire her as a newly elected lawmaker who grew up in Texas — someone who was not worthy of the Seventh District. Valdez argued that Reynoso was not pro-Palestinian enough and too beholden to the real estate sector. What mattered most, in the end, was the merger of the DSA and Mamdani, which together made Valdez an electoral heavyweight. The district lies in the heart of DSA territory — a mix of wealthy, gentrified and working-class neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens — and the test for Mamdani was whether he could muster enough voters for Valdez, who supported him last June.
The answer, unequivocally, was yes.
During the voting, DSA candidates also dominated state legislative primaries, in some cases ousting incumbents. In an effort to appease Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Mamdani did not support any challengers to the Assembly incumbents. Mamdani needs a strong working relationship with Heastie to implement his ambitious policy agenda, including universal child care and free buses. But attracting more DSA members to the Assembly is undoubtedly good news for him, especially as he faces Gov. Kathy Hochul, who isn’t keen on raising taxes on the wealthy.
All of this amounts to an upheaval in local politics as we have understood it over the past half-century, from Mamdani’s arrival as mayor a year ago to these victories last night. For many decades, real estate and finance elites, labor unions, and establishment-aligned political clubs determined the course of events in New York. Becoming a politician meant appeasing one or more of these factions, forging alliances, compromising yourself, and hoping that enough of those in power would find you acceptable. This state of affairs had both obvious advantages and disadvantages. The insurgents rarely managed to break through. The socialists, of course, had no hope of sniffing at power.
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Now the DSA has arrived. The Town Hall, through Mamdani, is in his hands. The city’s congressional delegation will add two unapologetic Mamdani allies in Valdez and Avila Chevalier. Ocasio-Cortez, who has not endorsed either woman and is increasingly caught between maintaining her Democratic Socialist bona fides while winning favor with Democrats in Washington, may have to turn to the left again.
Of course, Mamdani and DSA are not popular everywhere. There are working-class and poor neighborhoods that the democratic socialists have not organized. There are moderate and wealthier districts that will resist DSA indefinitely. Regardless, the city’s Democratic incumbents should be on alert going forward. They will need to talk about DSA issues; they cannot ignore what pulses beneath. Israel hawks will be driven out of the Democratic Party. It’s inevitable.
Nights like these don’t come around very often. Mamdani’s election was one realignment, and this is another. Mamdani, already a force to be reckoned with, will now have even greater influence. He can become more ambitious, more free. He can fight back, stronger than ever. This is the power of victory.
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Ross Barkan Ross Barkan is a Nation contributing writer. He also writes a column on national politics for The Guardian and is a contributing writer to new York review.
