Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s three endorsed candidates won their congressional primaries in New York on Tuesday, and two of them knocked out sitting congressmen. Adriano Espaillat, 71, lost the 13th District to Darializa Avila Chevalier, 32. Dan Goldman lost the 10th to former city comptroller Brad Lander. In the 7th, an open seat, Claire Valdez beat Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, the handpicked successor of retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez.
Espaillat leads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and was in his fifth term. He was the first Dominican American elected to Congress. Goldman was finishing his second.
The Chevalier race
Avila Chevalier was the mayor’s most polarizing pick. She has never held office, casts herself as an outsider, and once helped organize pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. An hour before polls closed she was on a Harlem street corner with streamer Hasan Piker, talking to voters. A truck parked on the next corner ran an ad attacking her over a social media remark about Kamala Harris, for which she had apologized. Espaillat’s allies called her unfit for office and pointed to inflammatory, profane posts from her twenties.
She told her victory party: “Today we make it clear, the politics of the past ends today.” She added that “the era of taking a check and cashing a check and calling it representation is over.”
Espaillat conceded. “Tonight wasn’t our night but I love you anyway,” he told supporters.
Sara Hyler, a 47-year-old voter in East Harlem, said she went back and forth before choosing Avila Chevalier. What decided it was learning that the lobbying group AIPAC strongly backed the incumbent. “It was the breaking point, my last straw,” she said. Yvette Sanchez, 30, a preschool teacher, voted for Espaillat. “Do you just think you can insert anyone you want or do you actually want to listen to us?” she said of the mayor.
Goldman, Lander and Israel
The war in Gaza split Goldman and Lander, both Jewish. Lander said Goldman had not been tough enough on Israel. Goldman has criticized Israel’s government and condemned settler violence but stopped short of calling the conflict a genocide. Lander does call it that. At his victory speech Lander also pledged to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and all three Mamdani candidates have promised to “abolish ICE” and to “tax the rich.”
President Donald Trump, whom Goldman served as lead counsel against in the first impeachment, posted that the congressman “just lost, BIG!”
Jeffries and Mamdani
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries had campaigned against Mamdani’s slate. Before polls closed he said, “We have agreed to strongly disagree,” adding that a handful of primaries “aren’t going to reshape who we are as House Democrats.”
Mamdani, 34, called the night a start. “A year ago, it was not the end of a political movement. It was the beginning,” he said at Valdez’s party in Brooklyn, as the crowd chanted “DSA! DSA!”
Elsewhere in New York, Anthony Constantino, head of Sticker Mule, won the Republican nod in the 21st District to replace Rep. Elise Stefanik. Trump had endorsed him. He beat Assembly member Robert Smullen.
Sources
- Mamdani slate sweeps Democratic primaries in New York, ousts two incumbents from Congress
- Mamdani's picks sweep New York City's congressional primaries, ousting two incumbents | Fortune
