Democratic incumbents, even powerful ones, continue to be an endangered species as anti-establishment fervor rips through the party.
In New York, that manifested as a historic night for Zohran Mamdani-backed Democratic socialists. In Maryland, it looked like the picking off of the old guard that broke with party orthodoxy on ICE and redistricting.
Tuesday’s primaries were also dotted with some semi-familiar faces, candidacies born of the Trump administration’s path of destruction.
1) Another Bad Day to be An Incumbent
Lefty challengers racked up major wins Tuesday night on both the state and national level.
In the biggest headline of the night, community organizer and DSA member Darializa Avila Chevalier knocked off Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress. Chevalier, who got a surprise endorsement from Mayor Zohran Mamdani last month, dragged with her a paper trail that once would have been considered insurmountably provocative: social media posts calling former President Joe Biden a “rapist” and proclaiming “fuck Kamala Harris,” as well as attendance at a pro-Palestinian rally soon after the October 7 Hamas attack.
But she positioned herself as an unapologetically anti-establishment fighter, with the youth and temperament to push harder than the 71-year-old Espaillat for working people. That led to the biggest upset by a political newcomer since Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) stunned the political world in 2018.
She’ll be joined in Congress by Brad Lander, the Mamdani ally who unsuccessfully ran against him for mayor, but formed a partnership with him during the campaign, asking their respective voters to also rank each other on the ranked-choice ballot. Lander beat Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), the Levi Strauss heir who focused his tenure and campaign on combatting ICE, using his office to provide immigrants with legal aid. To his chagrin and Lander’s benefit, though, the campaign was increasingly defined by the two Jewish men’s differing stances on Israel: Lander calls Israel’s attacks on Gaza a “genocide,” while Goldman, a Benjamin Netanyahu critic, still supports giving the country military aid. That daylight between the two, both of whom refer to themselves as liberal Zionists, led Lander to a landslide victory.
DSA assemblymember Claire Valdez will round out the trio, beating out a crowded primary — including an establishment-backed favorite — to win the primary to replace the retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY).
The lefty grim reaper came for incumbents on the state level too. Across New York and Maryland, at least four state senators and five house members watched their careers end, per a running list by Bolts Mag. They include Maryland Senate Majority Leader Nancy King, a veteran of the chamber who opposed a push to redistrict the state so that it might send more Democrats to Congress, New York Sen. Jessica Ramos, who endorsed Andrew Cuomo towards the end of the mayoral primary, and Maryland Delegate Frank Conaway, the one Democrat in the state House who opposed a slate of restrictions on ICE. All of them were beaten by either DSA candidates or liberals supported by progressive organs like the Working Families Party.
2) Another Good Day to be Zohran Mamdani
The New York mayor went three of three in his endorsements: Avila Chevalier, Lander and Valdez. And the happy-go-lucky Mamdani proved willing to ruffle some feathers as he threw his newfound political weight around. He had reportedly promised to back Espaillat, the Hispanic caucus chair who lost to neophyte Avila Chevalier, when Espaillat switched his support to Mamdani after initially backing Cuomo in the mayoral primary. Mamdani reneged on that assurance, likely giving Avila Chevalier the juice she needed to narrowly defeat the five-termer.
He also recruited Valdez, a little-known state assemblymember, to run in the district so liberal that it’s nicknamed the “Commie Corridor” against a field that included Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president. Reynoso was backed by Rep. Velázquez, the popular congresswoman giving up the seat and Mamdani’s first supporter in Congress, who is reportedly vexed that the mayor didn’t respect her choice of a successor.
Elsewhere, Mamdani strongly discouraged a political ally from launching a bid to primary Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), even as his other endorsements remake the coalition Jeffries will lead.
3) Trump Creates His Own Enemies
The primary field included people spurred to run after the Trump administration directly worsened their lives.
Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, former chief of the Navy Reserve, won the primary runoff to compete for the seat being vacated by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) in November. Lacore had served in the Navy for 35 years before being fired without cause by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last summer. Her firing was part of Hegseth’s purge of intelligence officials who were giving President Donald Trump reports — including about the true condition of Iran’s nuclear sites — that he didn’t like. The election prognosticator Cook Political Report downgraded the race from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican” last week; Democrats think Lacore gives them their best shot to flip the R+6 seat.
Coming up with a different result, former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn — who was present during the January 6 insurrection and later testified before the House committee investigating the attack — lost in his primary bid to fill the retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) seat.
Bonus: Flipflopping Does Work
Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson (D) had put himself in the dangerous position of becoming the avatar for the state’s failed redistricting push after he killed the House-passed effort. Facing a seemingly stout primary challenger, he changed his tune last month, hinting that the Callais decision effectively demolishing the Voting Rights Act may have changed the “rules,” prompting him to begin talks about a special session and constitutional amendment. Ferguson ultimately dispatched that challenger with ease Tuesday, finishing with about 57 percent of the vote.
Any change to Maryland’s 7-1 Democratic delegation likely wouldn’t happen until the 2028 cycle.
Thumbs down on the “Tea Party” frame in the article title, which does not appear in the body.
The Tea Party was astroturf and its leading figures were ridiculous clowns. this is lazy framing.
mordant_k and johniwaniszek beat me to it: this is terrible framing. There is zero resemblance between the astroturfed, Koch-funded Tea Party and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
So glad others had already pointed out the insulting and inaccurate framing. Tea Party was just another astroturfing sell, pushed heavily on Faux News using the poll-tested language of the time. Same folks who bring us the “gay panic”
strategy, which evolves from decade to decade but never dies.
The NY State Senator who lost after endorsing Cuomo was Ramos. Gonzalez-Rojas was the winner.