Three Democratic candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won US House primaries on Tuesday, defeating two sitting members of Congress, according to projections by US news organizations. The results were widely framed as a test of Mamdani's standing within the Democratic Party and of the strength of the party's left flank.
Who won, and who lost
In New York's 10th Congressional District, covering parts of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander defeated incumbent Representative Dan Goldman. The outlet Forward reported Lander leading by roughly 66 percent to 34 percent.
In the 13th District, covering upper Manhattan and part of the Bronx, Darializa Avila Chevalier unseated Representative Adriano Espaillat in a closer contest, reported by Forward at about 49 percent to 46 percent. In the 7th District, spanning parts of Brooklyn and Queens, Claire Valdez won the Democratic nomination for an open seat being vacated by Representative Nydia Velázquez, who is not seeking re-election, according to CNBC.
All three winners had been endorsed by Mamdani; Avila Chevalier and Valdez were also backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, per CNBC. The seats are in heavily Democratic districts, where primary winners are generally favored in November. Tuesday's contests were primaries, not the general election, and official results were still being certified.
A separate race shaped by AI money
In the 12th District, which takes in Midtown Manhattan and the Upper East and Upper West sides, Assemblymember Micah Lasher won a crowded Democratic primary to succeed retiring Representative Jerrold Nadler, according to projections cited by Gothamist. His leading rivals included Assemblymember Alex Bores and Jack Schlossberg, a member of the Kennedy family. Mamdani, who lives in the district, said he voted but did not publicly endorse a candidate there.
The NY-12 contest drew outsized national attention because of spending by super PACs tied to the artificial-intelligence industry — a race newsparlor reported on earlier this week. A group funded by AI companies spent heavily against Bores, the lead sponsor of an AI-safety bill in the New York State Assembly, while groups aligned with AI-safety advocates spent in his support; a super PAC backed by Michael Bloomberg spent for Lasher. With Lasher's victory, the most expensive AI-aligned spending of the cycle ended with the industry's chief legislative target falling short of the nomination.
How the sides framed it
Supporters of the progressive winners cast the results as evidence of momentum for the party's left and for Mamdani's coalition. Establishment-aligned Democrats and some commentators cautioned that the contests were concentrated in deep-blue New York City districts and warned against extrapolating to competitive seats elsewhere. The defeated incumbents, Goldman and Espaillat, had not issued detailed statements at the time of the projections. newsparlor reports the outcomes and the competing characterizations without endorsing either side.
