Democratic socialists supported by Mamdani overthrew the Democratic incumbents in NYC
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New York City’s Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani has done it again.
A year after he sent shockwaves across the country with his New York City Democratic victory en route to winning the election as mayor of the nation’s most populous city, Mamdani tested the limits of his political power.
And he easily passed this test, lifting the establishment of the Democratic Party as three congressional candidates endorsed by the far left in Mamdani won their primaries over moderate incumbents and rivals.
Mamdani was the winner on Tuesday, but President Donald Trump has also shut down his bases, as New York, Maryland, Utah and South Carolina hold primaries and upcoming elections.
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Congressional candidates Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani raise their hands during a get-out-the-vote rally at King’s Theater in New York City on June 18, 2026. Sen. Bernie Sanders joined Mamdani before primary and early voting to campaign for Democratic primary candidates. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The Democrats are hiding on the left
The shocking victory of the mayor took place in the 13th congressional district of New York, where the candidate supported by Mamdani Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old community organizer and democratic social worker, narrowly passed the incumbent Democrat Adriano Espaillat, the 71-year-old chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus of the US Dominican House that elected the Congressional Hispanic Caucus of the US.
Espaillat, who has been in Congress for ten years, has the support of a number of party leaders, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
RETURNED MAMDANI CENTRAL HISTORY AND AMERICAN RHETORIC WINS DISTRICT IN DEM PRIMARY RACE
In the race to replace retiring Democratic Representative Nydia Velazquez, Mamdani-endorsed state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez, who is also affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso by double digits. Reynoso, who was supported by Velazquez, was reduced by more than 20 points.
“Tonight, we didn’t just win the election. We announced that this movement is strong — that it is growing, and it will not stop until working people are no longer asked to just build the table, they are no longer just given a seat at the table, but they will run the table,” Valdez said when announcing the victory.
And the third congressional candidate supported by Mamdani, progressive Brad Lander, crushed the incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman. Lander, a former New York City administrator, ran against Mamdani last year in a crowded Democratic field but became one of his biggest supporters in the general election.
Chevalier, Valdez, and Lander presented the mayor’s platform to focus on affordability in a city with one of the highest costs of living in the country. And all three were very critical of Israel.
MAMDANI REPRESENTS THE PROSPERITY TYPES EVEN THOUGH HE COMES FROM THE FAR LEFT, AMERICAN POSSIBILITIES.
Lander, who is Jewish, said in his victory speech, “You can criticize Israel and not be an anti-Zionist.
It was a risky bet for Mamdani, just six months into his tenure as mayor of New York City, to start the establishment, but he emerges from the first phase as the bold kingpin of the group.
Mamdani, who campaigned for all three congressional candidates, stressed that the Democratic Party “must change.”
On Tuesday night, at the primary celebration in Valdez, the mayor said, “Let’s hear about a politics…that will never forget the working people. A politics that is ready to write a new chapter in the history of our party, and a politics that recognizes the old politics that got us into this crisis, is not the politics that will get us out of this crisis.”
Progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028, said the results in New York City “show that we have a new party.”
But the results also give Republicans, who have long cast Mamdani as a hardliner, more ammunition to use him as a villain as they work to hold on to their slim House majority in the midterm elections.
REPUBLICANS ARE USING MAMDANI UNLIKELY AS A LEADER TO BEAT DEMOCRATS IN DANGER
“Tonight was not just a bad night for the so-called ‘Leader’ Hakeem Jeffries. It was a night the Democratic Alliance officially committed to Zohran Mamdani and the Socialist wing of their party. Every House Democrat, in safe and competitive districts alike, will now answer to the radicals who call the gun. And the Americans are Congressman Democrats the head of the Democratic Party should be the Congressional Party Mike Democrats. Marinella argued in the statement.
Trump wins again
Trump’s approval ratings in the GOP primaries have been tested again, this time in New York.
And the president won.
First-time Trump supporter Anthony Constantino, a businessman and former boxer, defeated Robert Smullen, a retired Marine Corps colonel and New York governor who was backed by a state party, in the upstate New York race for GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Meanwhile, in the Republican presidential election in South Carolina, Trump did not lose.
That’s because he endorsed both candidates in the race to replace Gov. Henry McMaster of the GOP.
State Attorney General Alan Wilson defeated Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette in style.
TRUMP CAN’T LOSE IN HIGH-PROFILE REPUBLICAN RUNOFF
Trump endorsed Evette late last month, a week and a half before the start of the gubernatorial primary.
Evette finished at the top of a crowded field of first-choice contenders, with Wilson coming in second. The field also included Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, and billionaire businessman Rom Reddy. Since no one won the most votes, as the top two finishers, Evette and Wilson moved on to Tuesday’s runoff.
Mace and Norman endorsed Wilson after failing to advance to the runoff. And Wilson was also supported last week by Sen. Ted Cruz, firecracker from Texas.
Trump, meanwhile, made an 11th-hour confirmation Friday, endorsing Wilson over his earlier endorsement of Evette, in what appears to be a move by the president to hedge his bets.
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Wilson, who defeated Evette by more than two to one as votes continued to be counted, flagged the president in his victory speech.
“I believe he saw what we were doing,” Wilson said of Trump. “I think he saw the fight in our campaign and the power in our campaign. I think he loves the fight. I think that’s what won him over.”
