Progressive Allies of Zohran Mamdani Win Key New York Primaries

Zohran Mamdani’s growing influence over the Democratic party was on show in New York City on Tuesday as three congressional candidates endorsed by New York’s democratic socialist mayor won closely watched primaries.

Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller who also ran for mayor last year before endorsing Mamdani, won his race comfortably, defeating the Democratic representative Dan Goldman.

Claire Valdez, a state lawmaker and former union organizer, defeated Antonio Reynoso in New York’s seventh district, which encompasses parts of Brooklyn and Queens and is currently held by the retiring 17-term Democrat Nydia Velázquez. Reynoso had been endorsed by Velázquez and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader who has sought to push back against the party’s left wing.

And in a stunning upset, the public defense investigator Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated the five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat in the state’s 13th congressional district.

Mamdani had waded into the primaries earlier this year, spending his political capital to boost three leftwing allies – a gamble that would test his popularity and his influence. With his slate of candidates all but certain to be elected to Congress in November, Mamdani has left his stamp on the state’s congressional delegation and expanded his ascendant progressive movement.

Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F Kennedy, failed in his bid for the House of Representatives on Tuesday night, proving that there are limits to the influence of the US’s most vaunted political family.

In a contest that was closely watched nationwide, Schlossberg, 33, had hoped to benefit from his huge social media and his charismatic campaigning, but he came up short in a crowded field of Democrats hoping to succeed the long-serving representative Jerry Nadler in one of the country’s bluest districts. Micah Lasher, a longtime New York politician and self-described “nerd”, won the primary in New York’s 12th district and will be the heavy favorite to win the safely Democratic district in the November midterm election.

On Long Island, the Democratic freshmen representatives Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen easily fended off primary challenges as they prepare to defend their swing-district seats in November.

Cait Conley, the former White House counter-terrorism official and army combat veteran, won a competitive Democratic primary to take on the Republican representative Mike Lawler in New York’s 17th district, one of just three across the US that voted in 2024 for Kamala Harris for president but elected a Republican member of Congress.

Elsewhere, further evidence was provided of Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican party, as Anthony Constantino won the Republican primary in the upstate New York 21st congressional district. Constantino, who was endorsed by the president, faced Robert Smullen, a state assemblyman who was backed by local party officials.

Constantino will be the favorite to win the November election in a heavily Republican seat vacated by the Maga enthusiast Elise Stefanik. Stefanik, who the president nominated for UN ambassador before withdrawing that nomination, ended her subsequent campaign for New York governor last year.

Adrian Boafo won the extremely crowded primary race to succeed Steny Hoyer, the longest-serving House Democrat and a longtime member of leadership who is retiring at the end of his 23rd term. Boafo, a state delegate, defeated the former US Capitol police officer Harry Dunn, who defended the building on January 6, and businesswoman Quincy Bareebe.

The Republican ​R​epresentative Burgess Owens​, opted not to seek re-election​ after the newly created map scrambled the state’s all-GOP delegation. Trump has endorsed the incumbents running in the three Republican-strong districts, while former congressman Brad McAdams won the primary to compete in a ​n​ewly drawn Democratic-friendly district in Salt Lake City​.

And in South Carolina, the state attorney general, Alan Wilson, won the runoff for the Republican nomination for governor. Trump initially endorsed the lieutenant governor, Pamela Evette, in the race, but at the last minute decided to endorse both candidates, saying voters “can’t go wrong”.