Socialist Sweep

Today’s notice: NYC hearts DSA. A Republican firm whose bark is stronger than its bite? An awkward lunch in the Senate. The White House wants to use federal funds to influence state election rules. And: A deep dive into rural emergency services amid the immigration crackdown.

THE LATEST

A tale of one city: Mayor Zohran Mamdani was not a blip — New York City is ready to embrace the Democratic Socialists of America. Across the city’s boroughs and up and down the primary ballot last night, DSA-backed candidates picked off incumbents and won open seats. Former city Comptroller Brad Lander took down Rep. Dan Goldman; state legislator Claire Valdez won the race to succeed longtime Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who had endorsed her challenger; and Darializa Avila Chevalier was projected to topple Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Mamdani backed all three.

The question now is, how much does this platform resonate outside the Big Apple? You will not find many national Democratic strategists who think last night changed their plans for swing districts in the midterms. They want to talk about prices and about Donald Trump, and nothing and no one else. Republicans, on the other hand, want to talk about everything and everyone else, and you can expect them to go hard on the message that all Democrats are New York City socialists.

Progressives write that off. We won! They say. We’re literally, actively winning. What more is there to say? But other Democrats who were pumped about the midterms last week are now a little more circumspect. They expect Republicans to make a star out of Avila Chevalier.

Just the other day, she doubled down on an old social media post about how “all deportations are wrong,” one of the few old posts she did not disavow over the course of the campaign. For Democrats who felt like they shook off an intraparty immigration debate that Trump used against them to great effect in 2024, Avila Chevalier’s win is nerve-racking.

“Is she going to be a problem? Time will tell,” a Democratic House member texted NOTUS’ Kadia Goba last night, adding, “It’s not helpful.”

“They will be emboldened with these wins,” another Democratic member said of progressive primary challengers across the country. “Republicans will use it against us in the general election.”

Is this paranoia? It could be. Try and think of a time when New York didn’t have at least one Democrat who Republicans call kooky and dangerous. (We’ll wait.)

Bonus takeaway: These House primaries were in Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ backyard, and he was not a player in them. “He doesn’t have any in-state muscle,” one Democratic state lawmaker told Kadia.

Open tabs: Protesters Accused of Antifa Ties Sentenced to Up to 100 Years in ICE Attack (NYT); D.C. Officials Are Investigating Dead Ducklings in the Reflecting Pool (NOTUS); ODNI under Pulte fires 6 staff, sends 45 back to home agencies (CBS); Another Top General Is Out at the Pentagon (Atlantic)

From the campaign trail

Other places that are not New York had primaries as well. Democrats in Utah went for the moderate pick over more progressive candidates with former Rep. Ben McAdams, who’s now likely to return to Congress in a safe blue seat, NOTUS’ Christa Dutton reports.

And in South Carolina, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette lost the Republican gubernatorial runoff to state Attorney General Alan Wilson.

From the Hill

Say it to his face: Republican senators are promising to tell Trump like it is when he visits their conference lunch meeting on the Hill today, NOTUS’ Avani Kalra reports. What that sounds like: “The question is, do we want to win the midterms?” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. He’s a guy who probably wouldn’t put the president at the top of his dining-companion list in the best of circumstances — and today’s bread-breaking ain’t that.

The conference is having collective indigestion over the SAVE America Act, which anyone who can count votes will tell you cannot pass under any circumstances with the filibuster still intact. But Trump wants it. And so do a handful of senators, including Rick Scott (R-Florida) who invited the president without telling conference leader John Thune first.

“I hope everyone will be vocal as to what they think is the best path forward,” Scott wrote Republican senators in his lead-in letter to today’s lunch, which sets out his plan for the next few months: a clean CR and the SAVE Act (or “portions of it,” he wrote).

All this drama is just the first course of this lunch. The really tough-to-swallow part is that the midterms are getting closer and closer and Republicans are still fighting with each other this much.

From the White House

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again: After a series of courtroom losses and the apparent death of the SAVE America Act, the Trump administration is cooking up Plan C to compel states to change their election rules: threatening to withhold homeland security grants typically meant for infrastructure projects, terrorism prevention and disaster preparation. In exchange for these funds, the administration wants states to stop using electronic voting machines and run their voter rolls through a newly overhauled database meant to verify citizenship, among other initiatives.

A spokesperson for DHS told NOTUS’ Adora Brown that while no funding changes have officially been made yet, “DHS and FEMA are committed to ensuring homeland security grant funding advances core national security priorities, to include the security and integrity of our nation’s election infrastructure.”

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Local news: D.C. Council Passes Budget, but Fight With CFO Continues, by NOTUS’ Martin Austermuhle

NEW ON NOTUS

Detention centers are ramping up emergencies for rural hospitals: NOTUS’ Jackie Llanos pored over 911 call records and visited an emergency services crew in Pennsylvania’s Moshannon Valley to report a detailed picture of how the ongoing immigration crackdown has stretched already thinly spread rural emergency services to the breaking point.

The influx of detainees housed by federal contractors has increased the populations these crews serve — when a detention center calls for help, these EMS crews are the ones who respond. Many are still waiting for promised federal reimbursements to cover the costs, and the increased call volumes are exacerbating an ongoing struggle with response times in rural America.

More: DHS Loosens Travel Rules for Iranian World Cup Team, by Torrie Herrington

NOT US

• A Look Inside the Welcome Bags Planned for White South African Refugees, by Hamed Aleaziz and Zolan Kanno-Youngs for The New York Times
• As Republican Party looks to future without Trump in office, Utah could be a road map, by Saige Miller for NPR
• First the Kennedy Center, Now the Smithsonian: How long can the museum system’s leader, Lonnie Bunch, survive? By Clint Smith for The Atlantic

BE SOCIAL

So true.

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The newsletter was produced by Kelly Poe, Thomas Burr, Brett Bachman and Andrew Burton. Photo by Ryan Murphy/AP.