The biggest winner of June’s primary election wasn’t even on the ballot.
In a trio of hotly contested races, candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the DSA-fueled movement that brought him to Gracie Mansion swept the field Tuesday in a political trifecta that left mainstream Democrats humbled.
Political newcomer Darializa Avila Chevalier unseated incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in a bitter campaign to represent the 13th Congressional District in Upper Manhattan and parts of The Bronx.
“Tonight was not our night,” Espaillat told supporters at a restaurant in Washington Heights. Avila Chevalier led Espaillat, long a Latino political kingmaker, by more than 3 percentage points with more than 90% of the votes counted. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure she is successful in Congress,” he said.
In another race pitting a democratic socialist against a more mainstream Latino progressive, Assemblymember Claire Valdez of Queens beat Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso by 20 points for an open seat representing New York’s 7th Congressional District in the so-called “commie corridor” stretching from Downtown Brooklyn to Sunnyside, Queens.
And former city Comptroller Brad Lander, a Mamdani ally, handily defeated incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman by a two-to-one margin in New York’s 10th district, which spans lower Manhattan and parts of Brownstone Brooklyn.
Mamdani, speaking at Avila Chevalier’s victory party, noted that Tuesday’s vote had taken place just a day shy of the one-year anniversary of his own stunning win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary. “That was not the end,” said Mamdani, who grew up in the district. “It was the beginning.”
The victories of Avila Chevalier and Valdez in particular sent shockwaves through the Democratic political establishment.
Both candidates, Latinas endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, were up against titans of the city’s Latino power base. Espaillat and Reynoso, despite their progressive records and support from labor unions and grassroots groups, could not beat back the democratic socialist headwinds that have come to dominate their pockets of the city.
Retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who endorsed Reynoso, also loomed large in the 7th District.
Polls showed a tight race between Espaillat and Avila Chevalier. The fight was defined from the start by the war in Gaza, immigration, and rising displacement and gentrification. Outside groups spent millions in the race, mostly to boost Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
“The era of taking a check and cashing a check and calling it representation is over,” Avila Chevalier told cheering supporters as she stood alongside Mamdani.
Early voting turnout in the 13th District was low, as in the rest of the city, and skewed older, leading political observers to believe that the race was Espaillat’s to lose.
Avila Chevalier, 32, launched her campaign in November, hitting Espaillat, 71, as an ineffective leader for Manhattan’s poorest congressional district and beholden to donors with ties to the pro-Israel lobby and corporate real estate interests.
In the Mud
The mudslinging got worse in the lead-up to election day.
Espaillat and his supporters seized on old inflammatory social media posts by Avila Chevalier to portray her as an outsider who would be disloyal to Democratic interests.
Old social media posts where Avila Chevalier condemned Dominican nationalism as “violent” and suggested she’s reluctant to display the country’s flag also resonated with some Dominican New Yorkers. On Tuesday morning, Avila Chevalier stormed off a combative interview on La Mega, the Spanish-language talk radio station.
Some political observers, including a former advisor to Espaillat, in recent days amplified a racist conspiracy that Avila Chevalier, who is of Dominican descent, wanted to replace Dominicans in Washington Heights with Haitians. The remarks drew condemnation from the mayor on Monday, and Espaillat later urged his supporters not to question Avila Chevalier’s heritage.
“She’s Dominican, she’s Dominican,” Espaillat told The City Reporter. “I condemn the aggressive — the campaign has been very aggressive. I ask for people to tone it down.”
Mamdani took a risk in alienating both Espaillat and Velázquez with his endorsements of Avila Chevalier and Valdez. The two democratic socialist candidates were opposed by the state and national Democratic establishment and by major labor unions, and their all-but-certain election to Congress may complicate Brooklyn Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries’ bid to be the next Speaker of the House.
“We have agreed to strongly disagree,” Jeffries said of Mamdani on Capitol Hill, according to the Associated Press.
At a June 18 election rally, Mamdani framed Tuesday’s election as the first shot in the next presidential election, saying: “When does the race for 2028 begin? It starts now. It starts on Tuesday.”
Tuesday’s results capped off an unusually crowded midterm cycle in New York City, with four Congressional districts up for grabs — as well as the future of the Democratic Party. Voters also cast their ballots in a number of state legislature primaries across the five boroughs.
The Gaza Factor
But it was four Democratic U.S. House primary races that dominated, with Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America looking to defeat establishment candidates in three of them. Israel and the war in Gaza are potent factors in several contests, and the country’s progressive godfather, independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, also weighed in.
Outside spending groups with ties to Israel, artificial intelligence and tech companies, unions and prominent business groups spent millions, with most of the spending concentrated in the district spanning Manhattan’s Upper West and East sides, the city’s wealthiest.
In that race, Micah Lasher defeated Alex Bores in a crowded primary to succeed Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who announced his retirement last summer after more than thirty years in the House of Representatives. A first-time voter in the district, Mamdani cast his ballot early on Saturday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but refused to say who he voted for.
Lasher and Bores, both Assembly members from Manhattan’s west and east sides respectively, led the pack in polling leading up to the primary ahead of social media influencer Jack Schlossberg, a Kennedy family scion, and George Conway, a former Republican attorney turned Democrat and Never-Trump pundit.
Progressives had long sensed an opening in Espaillat’s 13th Congressional District. Mamdani carried the district by double-digit margins in last year’s June primary — even though Espaillat endorsed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — and the DSA has said membership in its Upper Manhattan and Bronx chapter has grown by 179% since 2024.
BOLD America PAC, a political spending group with ties to the House Hispanic Caucus, spent $2.8 million to support Espaillat, aided by $650,000 that flowed from AIPAC pass-through groups. It flooded mailboxes with mailers slamming Avila Chevalier for her past social media posts.
One recent poster-sized mailer quoted directly from a 2021 tweet where she admonished then-vice president Kamala Harris in profane terms. The tweet was posted on the same day that Harris told migrants “do not come” in a speech she delivered at diplomatic talks in Guatemala; Avila Chevalier has since apologized.
All four House districts are reliably Democratic and the winners of Tuesday’s primaries are expected to cruise to victory in the November general election.
Celebration and Hope
At 99 Scott, a club and event space in Bushwick, supporters of Valdez and a number of state senate and assembly candidates started celebrating minutes after the polls closed at 9 p.m.
Early results had their candidates up — and although it wasn’t finished yet, they felt hopeful.
Emilia Decaudin, 27, took her laptop out in the middle of the dance floor to watch the Board of Elections results roll in.
“I think all of us put everything we had on the field. We were running like we were 10 points behind,” she said.
In Washington Heights, Espaillat volunteer Leeana Lucas, 19, held out hope as Avila Chevalier maintained a slight lead with more than 90% of the votes counted.
“We all knew that we gave it our best,” she said.
State Races
In the sole statewide race, longtime state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli defeated two opponents who ran to his left.
Challengers defeated incumbents in two key races in Queens. In Corona, Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas beat four-term state Sen. Jessica Ramos for the primary in the 19th district.
And in Ozone Park, public defender David Orkin beat Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, a close ally of former Mayor Eric Adams. Both Orkin and González-Rojas were endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
