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New York City’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani did it again.
One year after sending political shock waves across the country with his New York City Democratic primary victory on his way to winning election as mayor of the nation’s most populous city, Mamdani tested the limits of his political powers.
And he easily passed the test, upending the Democratic Party establishment as a trio of Mamdani-endorsed far-left congressional candidates won their primaries over more moderate incumbents and rivals.
Mamdani was the biggest winner on Tuesday, but President Donald Trump also covered his bases, as New York, Maryland, Utah and South Carolina held primaries and runoff elections.
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Congressional candidates Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani raise their hands during a Get Out the Vote rally at King’s Theater in New York City on June 18, 2026. Sen. Bernie Sanders joined Mamdani ahead of the primary and early voting to campaign for the candidates challenging incumbents in Democratic primary contests. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Democrats lurching left
The mayor’s most shocking victory came in New York’s 13th Congressional District, where Mamdani-backed candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old community organizer and democratic socialist, narrowly topped incumbent Democrat Adriano Espaillat, the 71-year-old Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair and the first Dominican American elected to the U.S. House.
Espaillat, who has been in Congress for a decade, was supported by a slew of party leaders, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
MAMDANI-BACKED SOCIALIST WITH HISTORY OF ANTI-AMERICAN RHETORIC WINS VICIOUS DEM PRIMARY RACE
In the race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Nydia Velazquez, Mamdani-endorsed state Assembly Member Claire Valdez, who is also aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, downed Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso by double digits. Reynoso, who was supported by Velazquez, was downed by more than 20 points.
“Tonight, we haven’t just won an election. We have declared that this movement is durable — that it is growing, and that it will not stop until working people are no longer asked to just build the table, no longer just offered a seat at the table, but will run the table,” Valdez said in declaring victory.
And a third Mamdani-backed congressional candidate, progressive Brad Lander, crushed incumbent Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman. Lander, the former New York City comptroller, ran against Mamdani last year in the crowded Democratic primary field but became one of his biggest backers in the general election.
Chevalier, Valdez, and Lander showcased the mayor’s platform of focusing on affordability in a city with one of the nation’s highest costs of living. And all three were very critical of Israel.
MAMDANI STANDS BY FELLOW SOCIALIST CANDIDATE DESPITE RESURFACED FAR-LEFT, ANTI-AMERICAN POSTS
Lander, who is Jewish, said in his victory speech, “You can criticize Israel and not be antisemitic. You can be an anti-Zionist and not be antisemitic
It was a risky bet for Mamdani, just six months into his tenure as New York City mayor, to take on the establishment, but he comes out of the primary as an emboldened kingmaker in the party.
Mamdani, who campaigned relentlessly for all three congressional candidates, had emphasized that the Democratic Party “must change.”
And on Tuesday night, at the Valdez primary celebration, the mayor said, “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 to this crisis, is not the politics that’s going to get us out of this crisis.”
Progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, said that the results in New York City “shows we have a new party.”
But the results also give Republicans, who have long cast Mamdani as a radical, more ammunition to use him as a cudgel as they work to hold their razor-thin House majority in this year’s midterm elections.
REPUBLICANS RELENTLESSLY USE MAMDANI AS SOCIALIST CUDGEL TO BASH VULNERABLE DEMOCRATS
“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. 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,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinella argued in a statement.
Trump wins again
The power of the Trump endorsement in GOP primaries was tested again, this time in New York.
And the president prevailed.
Trump-backed first-time candidate Anthony Constantino, a businessman and former boxer, defeated Robert Smullen, a retired Marine Corps colonel and New York assemblyman who had the backing of the state party, in the upstate New York race to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Meanwhile, in South Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial runoff, Trump couldn’t lose.
That’s because he endorsed both candidates in the race to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Henry McMaster.
State Attorney General Alan Wilson defeated Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette in a landslide.
TRUMP CAN’T LOSE IN HIGH PROFILE REPUBLICAN RUNOFF
Trump endorsed Evette late last month, a week and a half before the gubernatorial primary.
Evette finished on top of a crowded field of contenders in the primary election, with Wilson second. The field also included Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, and multimillionaire businessman Rom Reddy. Since no candidate won a majority of the vote, as the top two finishers, Evette and Wilson advanced to Tuesday’s runoff.
Mace and Norman endorsed Wilson after failing to advance to the runoff. And Wilson was also backed a week ago by Sen. Ted Cruz, the conservative firebrand from Texas.
Trump, meanwhile, made an 11th-hour endorsement on Friday, backing Wilson in addition to his earlier endorsement of Evette, in what appeared to be a move by the president to hedge his bet.
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Wilson, who topped Evette by a more than two-to-one margin as the votes continued to be counted, gave a shout-out to the president in his victory speech.
“I believe he recognized what we’ve been doing,” Wilson said of Trump. “I think he saw the fight in our campaign and the energy in our campaign. I think he likes a fight. I think that’s what won him over.”
