Mayor-Zohran Mamdani
With his endorsement driving three insurgent challengers to victory in New York’s Democratic congressional primaries on June 23, Mayor Zohran Mamdani proved again that his combination of social media and community organizing wields big power – especially in a primary contest. But conservatives who fantasize that the socialist cohort will now seize control of the Democratic Party are likely to be disappointed by the full primary results.
Two of Mamdani’s victorious choices are indeed members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA): Darializa Avila Chevalier, an activist and graduate student who defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat in northern Manhattan, and Claire Valdez, a state assembly member who won the nomination to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez in Brooklyn.
Former City Comptroller Brad Lander, Mamdani’s third pick, is not affiliated with DSA. but was supported by many of its members in his landslide victory over Rep. Dan Goldman, whose district straddles parts of both Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Neither Mamdani nor DSA endorsed any candidate to succeed retiring Rep. Jerrold Nadler in Manhattan, where state assembly member Micah Lasher, a longtime Nadler aide, triumphed over a crowded field that included Jack Schlossberg, grandson of President John F. Kennedy, and Trump critic George Conway.
All of the Democratic nominees in the city are viewed as certain to win election in November.
Despite gleeful Republican claims that gleefully warned that the DSA’s big night in New York will slap a “socialist” label on the national Democratic Party, results in other districts showed no such leftward lurch. Just north of the city in Westchester County, Cait Conley, a military veteran and former national security official, easily defeated a pair of rivals who ran to her left and sought to portray her as the “establishment” choice. Conley will now face incumbent Republican Mike Lawler, a top Democratic target who attempted to manipulate Democrats into nominating one of the “more progressive” alternatives.
In Maryland, Democrats chose Adrian Boafo, a Prince Georges County legislator, from among nearly two dozen candidates seeking to succeed retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer, a longtime party leader in the House. Boafo benefited from heavy spending by cryptocurrency interests and the American Israel Political Action Committee, whose machinations have drawn criticism from many Democrats in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Popular Maryland Gov. Wes Moore crushed a primary bid by a more liberal challenger, and Rep. April McClain Delaney beat back a comeback bid by former Rep. David Trone, with the support of most of the state’s Democratic officeholders.
And in Utah, former Rep. Ben McAdams had little trouble fending off a challenge from a state senator backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s famed socialist Independent. McAdams won the primary to represent a redrawn Salt Lake City district that looks certain to elect a Democrat in November.
The socialist victories in the New York primary provoked some excited comparisons to the House Freedom Caucus, where once-fringe elements in the Republican Party bedevil thir Congressional leadership. But assuming that all of the socialist Democrats nominated on Primary Night join a Democratic majority next January, their ranks will increase to three or four in a caucus of 218-plus members. (They probably cannot count on the increasingly pragmatic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, despite her DSA branding, to support their more exotic ideological excursions.) The Freedom Caucus currently counts more than 30 members, an order of magnitude larger.
Socialism, whatever that may now mean, isn't yet taking over the Democratic Party. let alone America.
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