New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has thrown his weight behind three congressional candidates who are running to unseat incumbent Democrats in upcoming primaries, a direct challenge to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the party's old guard that has opened a bitter rift inside New York's Democratic delegation.
Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, endorsed Brad Lander in New York's 10th Congressional District, Claire Valdez in the 7th, and Darializa Avila Chevalier in the 13th. All three are challenging sitting or establishment-backed Democrats. If all three win, the move would double DSA representation in Congress, according to Just the News.
The result is a mayor using the machinery of the largest socialist organization in the country to remake his city's congressional delegation, while the Democratic leader responsible for winning a House majority is forced to spend resources defending safe seats against members of his own party.
The most closely watched race is in NY-10, where Lander, a former New York City comptroller, is challenging two-term Rep. Dan Goldman. An Emerson College poll conducted last month showed Lander leading Goldman 57% to 23%, with 20% of the electorate still undecided.
Lander has made opposition to Israel's military campaign in Gaza a centerpiece of his bid. At a campaign event earlier this month, he told supporters:
"As a proud Jewish New Yorker, I will join you in that fight to end occupation and apartheid and genocide."
He has also attacked Goldman for accepting donations from AIPAC and for votes supporting U.S. military aid to Israel. "We can't continue to be complicit in genocide," Lander said, pledging to oppose additional aid packages while the conflict continues.
Goldman, for his part, declined to endorse Mamdani during the mayoral general election and said he did not vote for him, citing what he described as the mayor's "lax attitude towards anti-semitism." Goldman's public response to Mamdani has been measured but pointed.
"I have asked him to consider taking serious and concrete action to demonstrate that he is going to make sure that Jews are protected and are secure in our city, and I hope he does that."
That concern traces back at least to October 2023. The day after the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, Mamdani posted a statement on X that made no mention of the terrorist group and included condemnation of Israel only. For Goldman, a Jewish Democrat representing a district with a significant Jewish population, that silence carried weight, and subsequent Mamdani controversies have only deepened the tension.
In NY-7, Valdez, a New York Assembly member and union organizer, is running with DSA endorsement against Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn Borough President, who has the backing of outgoing Rep. Nydia Velazquez. The race is described as tight.
Valdez's campaign platform, posted on her website, reads like a DSA wish list: abolition of ICE, legalization of "millions of immigrant Americans," Medicare for all, universal rent control, public funding for housing, an end to all weapons sales and military aid to Israel, and what she calls "Queer and Trans Liberation." It is a platform that would have been considered fringe even within the Democratic Party a decade ago. Now it has the active backing of the mayor of America's largest city.
In NY-13, Darializa Avila Chevalier, also DSA-endorsed, is challenging Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who has represented Upper Manhattan for nearly a decade. Espaillat endorsed Mamdani for mayor after initially backing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the primary. The reward for that loyalty, evidently, was a primary challenger with the mayor's seal of approval.
That betrayal drew sharp criticism from Rep. Juan Vargas, a California Democrat:
"I think it's outrageous. Here we have the leader of the Hispanic Caucus, who has worked hard in his position, a very progressive guy, and all of a sudden he's cut off at the knees by the mayor, who told him he was going to support him."
If Vargas's account is accurate, Mamdani privately assured Espaillat of his support and then endorsed his opponent. That kind of maneuver does not build coalitions. It builds enemies, and the political fallout surrounding Mamdani continues to grow.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, faces an unenviable position. He is trying to win a House majority in the upcoming midterms. Every dollar and every hour spent defending incumbents in deep-blue New York City districts is a dollar and an hour not spent flipping competitive seats elsewhere.
Jeffries told Punchbowl News he would "continue to aggressively support Congressman Espaillat and Congressman Dan Goldman," adding: "I trust the voters to make the right decision in all of these different races." The language was diplomatic. The situation is not.
Mamdani is not merely endorsing candidates who happen to disagree with the incumbents on a few issues. He is backing candidates who want to abolish federal immigration enforcement, end the U.S.-Israel alliance, and expand government control over housing markets. These are not incremental policy differences. They represent a fundamentally different vision of the Democratic Party, one that Faiz Shakir, an advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders and a friend of Mamdani's, described in revealing terms:
"He's seeing that opportunity, that we can radically change the Democratic Party. Like Bernie, he's not saying I'm doing this out of spite against you, dear leadership. He's saying, I am supporting these candidates who have a better vision, and I am prepared to lose if it has to be the case."
"Radically change" is the operative phrase. Mamdani is not trying to nudge the party. He is trying to replace its elected officials with ideological allies, and he is willing to weaken the party's national position to do it.
Democratic strategist Rebecca Katz, whose firm worked with Mamdani during his mayoral campaign, told NBC News the approach carries real risk. "This is high-risk, high-reward," she said. "He's not afraid to take some big swings."
It is worth pausing on what Mamdani's preferred candidates actually want. Abolishing ICE is not a reform proposal. It is a demand to eliminate the federal agency responsible for interior immigration enforcement. Legalizing "millions of immigrant Americans", the language on Valdez's campaign site, is a call for mass amnesty by another name. Ending all military aid to Israel, in the middle of an ongoing conflict, would represent the most dramatic shift in U.S. Middle East policy in decades.
These are not positions that reflect the views of most American voters, or even most Democratic voters outside deep-blue urban enclaves. But Mamdani does not need most voters. He needs primary voters in low-turnout city districts, and he has the DSA's organizational infrastructure to turn them out.
The DSA's New York chapter has endorsed both Valdez and Avila Chevalier. Lander, notably, is not a DSA member and has not received the organization's endorsement, but his alignment with Mamdani on Israel and other issues has earned the mayor's backing nonetheless. The common thread is not party membership. It is ideology, and Mamdani has shown he will use every lever available to advance it.
What Mamdani is attempting is not new in concept. The progressive left has tried to primary establishment Democrats before, with mixed results. But the scale and coordination here are different. A sitting mayor of the nation's largest city is actively working to defeat members of his own party's congressional delegation, members who, in Espaillat's case, endorsed him for the job he now holds.
For Jeffries, the challenge is both tactical and ideological. Every primary fight forces incumbents to spend money, take harder-left positions, and risk alienating general-election voters. Even if Goldman, Espaillat, and the establishment candidate in NY-7 survive, they emerge weakened. If they lose, Jeffries gains caucus members whose policy priorities, abolishing ICE, ending the Israel alliance, expanding rent control, will make it harder, not easier, to hold moderate suburban seats that Democrats need for a majority.
Mamdani, for his part, has not made extensive public statements about his endorsement strategy. His allies speak for him. And what they describe is not a man trying to win friends in the Democratic caucus. It is a man trying to build power on his own terms, regardless of who gets displaced.
Several questions remain unanswered. Did Mamdani explicitly promise Espaillat his support before endorsing Avila Chevalier, as Vargas's comments suggest? When exactly are these primaries scheduled? And how will Jeffries respond if one or more of these challengers wins, will the party apparatus fall in line behind candidates who want to abolish ICE and cut off Israel?
The Democratic Party has spent years insisting that its progressive wing and its establishment center can coexist. Mamdani is testing that claim, and he is not being subtle about it. He is running socialist candidates against Democratic incumbents who supported him, with the explicit goal of remaking the party in his image.
When a mayor repays loyalty with primary challenges and calls it a "better vision," the rest of the party might want to ask: better for whom?
