One of the big stories coming out last night’s primaries are the wins for House candidates endorsed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He endorsed three House primary candidates and each won. Those included Brad Lander, who we might call a left-leaning member of the pre-AOC/DSA New York Democratic Party who allied late with Mamdani during the mayoral primary in which he was also a candidate; Claire Valdez, who won an open primary against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; and Darializa Avila Chevalier who defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a five term Dominican-American rep and longtime NYC pol. So two wins against incumbents (Lander over Rep. Dan Goldman and Chevalier over Espaillat) and another against a quasi-incumbent, since Reynoso is the sitting borough president and had the endorsement of Rep. Nydia Velázquez, whose retirement opened up the seat.
These are big wins for Mamdani and give him real added clout as he tries to assert his power in a general sense, but specifically as he assembles carrots and sticks to build coalitions for things he wants to do within New York City — something every executive needs whether they’re mayor, governor or president. But the actual story is a bit different from the headlines. These three are a range candidates. I would have voted for Lander if I lived in that district. Chevalier has no business in Congress.
Mamdani also made shrewd picks about where to endorse and where not to. There was another highly contested primary in the 12th district, which includes a lot of Midtown and Lower Manhattan. That turned out to be a contest between two fairly conventional Democrats and was won by Micah Lasher. Jack Schlossberg tried to distinguish himself by supporting conditioning military aide to Israel, which Lasher and Alex Bores would not. And he didn’t get anywhere. Meanwhile, Rep. Ritchie Torres, who is probably the most pro-Israel member of the city’s congressional delegation, crushed a primary challenger who was allied with Mamdani but didn’t get his endorsement. So yes, Mamdani won big. But he knew where to compete and where not to compete. And that’s as much a political skill as the coattails he demonstrated with those three wins.
The evolution of Israel politics, as demonstrated by these races, is at least a bit different from how it’s presented in both a lot of the Jewish communal press and the DSA-oriented press. It’s definitely a new day for New York City on this issue. Just a few years ago, you had lots of New York City reps who were fairly down-the-line liberal Democrats and also strong supporters of Israel. Reps. Jerry Nadler and Elliot Engel jump out as prominent examples. But almost every other could have been an exemplar, just less prominently. That generally wasn’t even contested. Now it’s very much contested. But the results in New York 12 (Lasher), New York 15 (Torres) and a bunch of other races shows that more conventional support for Israel is far from dead in New York City. Israel also played a role in the Democratic primary to challenge Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in New York 17. But that was won by Cait Conley, the establishment pick and the one who was seen as having the most pro-Israel politics, won handily.
The key is that what’s “pro-Israel” has changed (a good thing in my book, for what it’s worth). With Conley she generally didn’t want to talk about the topic — or, at least, did not want to talk about it as much as those in the district who want a different orientation toward Israel. Meanwhile, at a candidate forum at an upper West Side synagogue a couple weeks ago, when asked about Israel, Lasher said he was “exhausted” by talking about the topic. “I am not obsessed with Israel. And I worry sometimes that our political dialogue, and the political dialogue in this race, is obsessed with Israel.”
In other words, even at a synagogue candidate forum, he wants to move on from the topic as opposed to leaning into it as some kind of point-making political issue. Of course, a synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan isn’t every synagogue. But still, it makes the general point.
Finally, we should have more of these primaries.
New York City is overwhelmingly Democratic. There’s only one district that is Republican or a swing district, the one centered in various forms over the years on Staten Island. So primaries are the only game in town for creating a vital politics. When you have members who win a primary once and then basically serve for life, that creates a moribund electoral politics which spreads its moribundity far beyond that single office. I used to vote in the Nadler-Lasher district. I would go down and vote a straight Democratic ticket. Then for things like local judges, I’d have a list of four Democrats — none of whom I’d ever heard of — and instructions to pick four of the candidates. As I said, a fairly moribund politics. In swing or swingish districts, primaries can be destructive, though they obviously have a role to play. New York City, on the other hand, provides a space where the different factions within the party should have it out on an on-going basis.