Established politicians within the Democratic Party are grappling with a new wave of elected officials who have taken the state of New York by storm thanks to endorsements from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Registered Democrat candidates Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, and Darializa Avila Chevalier took the stage Tuesday after their underdog victories.
Chevalier defeated incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat for his New York Congressional District 13 seat while Valdez overtook Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso to land outgoing Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat in New York Congressional District 7.
Lander, a former New York City Comptroller and member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), defeated incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman, gaining the New York Congressional District 10 seat.
Chevalier and Valdez are members of the DSA, while Lander is a member of the Working Families Party.
The socialist slate also secured two state Senate and four State Assembly seats.
Some top Democrats, such as Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi, compared the victories to the rise of the MAGA movement within the Republican Party.
“It’s a warning that people have got to do a better job,” Suozzi said. “The bottom line is that the DSA and the far left — as well as the MAGA movement and the far right — are organized, and they’re doing a good job organizing, and they’re tapping into people’s concerns about their economic insecurity.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James took issue with some of their understanding of politics.
Valdez’s platform included universal rent control, public investment into housing, a federal jobs guarantee, a four-day workweek and ending "at-will" employment, while Chevalier promoted a federal universal basic income, universal childcare, Medicare for All and a 5 percent annual cap on rent increases for large landlords.
Lander rejected corporate and pro-Israel Political Action Committee (PAC) money and campaigned instead on human rights concerns in Gaza.
“Some of the candidates that [Mamdani] has supported are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district," James told CNN. "All of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party. But you don’t blow it up. That’s what MAGA has done.”
Awareness of the rift between DSA politicians and traditional Democrats is on the rise ahead of the November midterms, with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) predicting that Republicans will weaponize the DSA agenda in political advertisements.
The midterm elections are just four short months away on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
“The question is, are we going to let them take over the party or are we going to stand up and fight back?" Gottheimer told CNN. "If you’re a socialist, you’re not a Democrat.”
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) views the winning streak as a regional phenomenon and suggested that more ground organizing needs to happen in New York and California, where DSA is more influential.
Republican Donald Trump won Texas with 56.14 percent of the votes compared to 42.46 percent garnered by Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
“I don’t think it should be a concern for people in South Texas, but I think nationally it’s a huge concern, and how they push the policies within the Democratic caucus that we’re going to have to defend,” Gonzalez told CNN. “A lot of these policies that obviously I don’t agree with and would be very difficult for me to sell to people in South Texas, and I don’t intend to sell them, because I don’t believe in most of them myself.
At least one higher-ranking Democrat, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), cited the hold of Mamdani's rapport with President Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump has a working relationship with the mayor of the city of New York, and he’s made that publicly and explicitly clear to America, not once but twice in the Oval Office,” Jeffries told reporters on Wednesday.