The call projecting Brad Lander as the winner of his primary against Rep. Dan Goldman came minutes after the New York polls closed. Shortly after, Claire Valdez, looking to take retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat, was projected as the winner of her primary.
Then, a little after 10:30 p.m. ET came the news that Darializa Avila Chevalier was projected to beat Rep. Adriano Espaillat.
That secured a perfect winning streak for Zohran Mamdani in his first foray into congressional primaries since becoming mayor of New York City.
“Mayor Mamdani is incredibly popular and he has proven that he can harness that popularity,” said Joe Calvello, a spokesperson for Mamdani, in a social media post Tuesday. “It’s time for the political class to understand that and be on the right side of it or be bound to the dustbin of history.”
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“Tonight it became clear that the old guard of New York City politics it’s just that, old.”
Mamdani made a point of appearing beside his endorsed candidates on Tuesday.
“Let’s hear it for a politics that will never forget working people. For a politics that is ready to write a new chapter in our party’s history. And for a politics that realizes the old politics that got us in this crisis is not the politics that’s gonna get us out of this crisis,” he said at a watch party for Valdez. “These are the champions who will do it.”
The mayor risked relationships with his state’s congressional delegation by endorsing against two incumbents — Goldman and Espaillat — and the handpicked successor of a third. But he was clearly attuned to something that was churning within the Democratic base: antiestablishment sentiment looking for different leadership at a time the party is trying to figure out its footing.
“The Mamdani stock is as high as it gets right now, with a primary sweep, big budget wins and the Knicks speech heard round the world,” said a Democratic consultant who works on New York races. “He’s passing every test in the book. His bubble will burst at some point, but it’s not today.”
Democrats were widely coming to grips with the possibility that this could be a sign of a broader realignment within their party.
“It’s real but it’s not left vs center it’s establishment politician vs. outsider,” said one Democratic strategist over text about this sentiment, pointing to other candidates who had prevailed against better-established Democrats in recent primaries. “Outsiders win.”
All Democrats are cognizant of the few months left between now and the general election. Among the Mamdani-backed candidates, there was an immediate pivot to November.
“Our job is to do two things: to take the lessons that the voters taught us, and also to build unity within the Democratic Party to win the majority back this fall,” Lander told supporters at his election-night watch party after he was introduced by the mayor.
But strategists also worried about how the results might reverberate across the country leading up to the midterms. They were on edge about the types of attacks these results could translate to in more competitive areas that Democrats need to win a majority.
“Marginal dems and potential red to blue seats are gonna be that much harder for dems to win. This is gonna be used across America. Narrative that it’s not just AOC. Her squad is growing and growing,” said a Democratic operative based in New York City who worked for super PACs connected to Lander and Alex Bores, a New York state legislator who lost his race on Tuesday to Micah Lasher, also a member of the state Assembly.
Another Democratic strategist was also wringing their hands.
“It’s hard to know whether this is localized to New York or if this is going to spread to other states, but it is a huge problem for democrats,” they told NOTUS. “Every Democrat in a red or purple district will have to answer for these positions and they’d better be ready to push back.”
Almost on cue, the National Republican Congressional Committee seized on the results.
“Tonight wasn’t just a bad night for so-called ‘Leader’ Hakeem Jeffries. It was the night the Democrat establishment officially surrendered to Zohran Mamdani and the socialist wing of their party,” Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for NRCC, said in a statement. “Every House Democrat, in safe and competitive districts alike, will now answer to the radicals calling the shots. And Americans should be terrified by where the Democrat Party is headed.”
In New York’s 13th Congressional District, Avila Chevalier was projected to beat Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and a powerful Democratic incumbent on the House Appropriations Committee.
Avila Chevalier had far less name recognition and fewer resources than Espaillat. She also had a history of social media posts — including some that were critical of other Democrats — that became an issue during the primary.
Espaillat, who had not faced a competitive race in years, has represented New York’s 13th Congressional District for nearly a decade. He raised more than double the money that Avila Chevalier did since he started fundraising in January 2025. And he had backed Mamdani after he won the mayoral primary, and was reportedly set to receive a Mamdani endorsement in this race — but Avila Chevalier ended up getting it.
Avila Chevalier, now on a glide path to a seat in Congress, recently told NOTUS that a win by her would prove that Mamdani’s “wasn’t a fluke.”
Lander, a former New York City comptroller who finished third in last year’s Democratic mayoral primary, easily defeated Goldman in New York’s 10th Congressional District, in a race where Israel emerged as one of the clearest points of contrast between the Democrats, who are both Jewish.
Goldman — who was Democrats’ lead lawyer during President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial — tried to turn the narrative to other issues. But Lander was able to successfully attack Goldman on his pro-Israel record, including his AIPAC endorsement, in a way that resonated among the district’s very progressive and large Jewish population.
Though Goldman outraised Lander by millions of dollars, he fell short of persuading voters to reelect him to Congress, which he first was elected to in 2022. A month before the election, a poll from Emerson College found Lander led Goldman by more than 30 percentage points.
And in New York’s 7th Congressional District, Valdez, a democratic socialist who was competing against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for Velázquez’s seat. Velázquez had endorsed Reynoso.
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