Mamdani-backed candidates sweep New York City Democratic primaries
Key takeaways
- Democratic socialist candidates backed by New York City mayor win key primaries, ousting two sitting congressmen.
- Dan Goldman, a two-term incumbent, was beaten by the Mamdani-backed former city comptroller Brad Lander, a fixture among New York progressives who has often shown sympathy to the democratic socialist movement.
- New York’s primary will determine which challengers the party nominates to run in the midterm elections in November.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Democratic socialist candidates backed by New York City mayor win key primaries, ousting two sitting congressmen.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist who once helped organise pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, defeated US Representative Adriano Espaillat [File: Michael M Santiago/Getty Images via AFP]By Al Jazeera Staff and The Associated Press Published On 24 Jun 202624 Jun 2026New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s slate of progressives has swept establishment-backed Democrats in New York’s closely watched congressional primaries, ousting two sitting congressmen in a show of force for the democratic socialist leader of the United States’s largest city.
On Tuesday, Adriano Espaillat, who leads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and is in his fifth term, was defeated by Mamdani’s most polarising pick, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist who once helped organise pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.