Mamdani’s hat trick in New York, Trump’s hedged bet in South Carolina, and other takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries
By Eric Bradner, Aaron Blake, CNN
(CNN) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani saw a clean sweep Tuesday, with House candidates backed by the democratic socialist mayor winning three congressional primaries — ousting two incumbent Democrats in the process.
Mamdani’s show of force were the latest preview of the ideological battles to come, as Democrats vying to win control on Capitol Hill in November’s midterm elections also look ahead to the 2028 presidential race.
In the 13th District, democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in a race that – like the other New York contests – focused largely on the United States’ relationship with Israel.
Another democratic socialist, Assemblywoman Claire Valdez, defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in the race to replace outgoing Rep. Nydia Velázquez in the 7th District.
And in the 10th District, Mamdani ally and former city comptroller Brad Lander defeated Rep. Dan Goldman.
Mamdani celebrated Tuesday night with all three candidates, telling the crowd at Lander’s party that his one-time rival in last year’s mayoral race “brings a vision of politics that is more than what we’ve seen for so long.”
It comes on a busy day of primaries in which President Donald Trump’s influence with South Carolina Republican voters proved limited, and Maryland and Utah voters cast their ballots.
Here are key takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries:
A moment of change for the Democratic Party
The victories by Mamdani-backed New York City progressives come in a moment of upheaval in the Democratic Party that stretches far beyond the five boroughs.
The year after voters elected Mamdani and another democratic socialist, Seattle’s Katie Wilson, two more of the country’s largest cities could choose similar leaders. Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic mayoral primary in Washington, DC, earlier this month, all but assuring she will win November’s general election in the overwhelmingly blue city. In Los Angeles, another democratic socialist city councilwoman, Nithya Raman, advanced to a head-to-head race against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass — a longtime figure of California’s Democratic establishment.
Those outcomes and more reflect a Democratic electorate that remains deeply opposed to Trump — but that is dissatisfied with its own party’s leadership, as well, and looking for change.
In Washington and beyond, it’s left Democratic officials scrambling to figure out what’s happening and what it means for the party’s future. Meanwhile, Republicans look to parlay the most controversial positions taken by progressives in blue strongholds into campaign fodder against more moderate Democrats in battleground states and districts.
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman told CNN on Tuesday that “the dirtbag left is surging.” New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker was more diplomatic, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that “our party’s not homogenous.”
“One of the things that make the Democratic Party great is it’s a big tent party. We need to stay that way,” Booker said.
If Democrats win majorities in the House, the Senate or both in November’s midterm elections, this year’s upheaval could have ramifications for leadership races over the winter in caucuses shifting to the left.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who supported the Democratic incumbents in New York, said Tuesday that he and Mamdani had “agreed to strongly disagree” on those races. The crowd at Avila Chevalier’s party Tuesday night booed Jeffries when he appeared on television.
But the outcomes of competitive Democratic primaries don’t all reflect an ideological shift to the left.
In New York’s 12th District – a Manhattan seat covering one of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest electorates – voters opted for Micah Lasher, a state assemblyman with broad establishment backing, over another state assemblyman, progressive favorite Alex Bores, who has pushed to regulate artificial intelligence. Jack Schlossberg, who tried to position himself as a force for change in the party, finished a distant third — with voters rejecting the resurrection of his grandfather’s Camelot in their search for new leadership.
And in Democrats’ best shot at flipping a seat in Utah, voters backed moderate former Rep. Ben McAdams on Tuesday over several rivals running to his left in the newly redrawn 1st District.
At the statewide level, Democratic voters in a US Senate primary in Iowa earlier this month chose the more moderate candidate who made electability a centerpiece of his campaign, state Rep. Josh Turek, over progressive state Sen. Zach Wahls.
It all sets the stage for a 2028 Democratic presidential primary that will accelerate rapidly after the midterm elections. Candidates seeking to become the party’s next standard-bearer will have to navigate a Democratic electorate that isn’t just hungry for victory against Republicans, but has shown an eagerness to remake its own party.
Israel continues to be a major Democratic fault line
The New York races underscored the rapid shift in how Democratic voters feel about the United States’ support for Israel – an issue Lander, who is Jewish himself, gave voice to Tuesday night.
“Democrats are painfully divided by our differences over the US relationship to Israel and Palestine, and we have to face up to it squarely,” Lander said, calling former President Joe Biden’s policy toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a catastrophic failure.”
Israel was central to all of the New York races. Avila Chevalier won despite drawing scrutiny over her attendance at a pro-Palestinian rally the day after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attacks. Goldman said it was a “sad state of affairs” that a Brooklyn coffee shop apparently banned him with a viral social media post in which the shop bragged its coffee “doesn’t taste like genocide juice.”
Lander’s comments highlighted a fault line that’s likely to play a significant role in the 2028 presidential primary. He condemned Israel’s military conduct in Gaza and its treatment of Palestinians, while reflecting on the need for tolerance and understanding. He also called for a distinction between antisemitism and the criticism of Israel’s government, as debates over the subject continue to roil Democratic politics.
“You can criticize Israel and not be antisemitic. You can be an anti-Zionist and not be antisemitic. Many Jews are, and many non-Jews also,” he said.
His win Tuesday came in a primary season in which a deluge of spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its allies have featured prominently in many House contests. Lander urged the Democratic Party to “walk away from PACs funded by crypto, Wall Street, AI and AIPAC.”
But Lander also warned his party to stay vigilant against rising antisemitism.
“Too often, though, people have started using Zionist as a slur for Jews,” he said. “And antisemitism, it rises with fascism and with war — and we’re amidst both right now. Progressives need to be the people who are standing against this, not looking away from it.”
Another setback for Trump in South Carolina
Trump technically picked a winner in the GOP primary runoff for South Carolina governor. But state Attorney General Alan Wilson’s victory is clearly another setback for Trump.
What are we talking about?
Well, Trump initially endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette ahead of the first round of the primary earlier this month. Evette finished first but not resoundingly so, and she faced a runoff with Wilson. Trump ultimately issued a dual endorsement of both candidates on Friday.
Tuesday’s landslide win for Wilson makes pretty clear what this was about: Wilson was about to win, and Trump wanted to avoid backing a loser. (That said, the dual endorsement in a two- person runoff guaranteed that he would back both a winner and a loser in the race).
And it doesn’t change the fact that Trump’s endorsement clearly didn’t do Evette much good. The president picked a candidate, and she was about to become the third Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate to lose her party’s nomination in just the last three weeks.
(The previous two were Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra and Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.)
The three losses tie the record for primary defeats by Trump-backed candidates for governor, set in 2022. And there are still a few months to go.
Republican voters are clearly taking their cues from Trump in high-profile primaries like those involving Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie. But with his popularity hitting new lows, they’re snubbing his endorsement like they rarely have before in other races.
And Trump’s effort to cover his backside shouldn’t obscure that fact.
(Though Trump did notch a significant win in a congressional primary, with Trump-backed businessman Anthony Constantino’s win over Robert Smullen, the state GOP’s pick, in upstate New York.)
Trump resistance figures come up well short
Democrats might be more anti-Trump than ever. But they don’t seem especially keen on electing prominent figures from the Trump resistance.
George Conway, the anti-Trump former husband of Trump 2016 campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, finished far down in the crowded primary in New York’s 12th.
Former US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who led the charge to hold January 6, 2021, rioters accountable, lost the Democratic primary for retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer’s seat in Maryland, trailing Tuesday night in a distant third.
And Goldman also fit the pattern somewhat. While he is an incumbent congressman, he played up his role as lead counsel during Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, vowing to hold Trump accountable again if Democrats take the House.
There was one success story that kind of fits in this category on Tuesday, though. That would be Nancy Lacore, the former three-star admiral who was among those purged by Defense Secretary Pete Hegsth last year. She won a congressional primary runoff in South Carolina.
But Lacore isn’t a widely known national figure. And mostly these kinds of candidates are losing.
Former Republican Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan finished in the single digits last month after running for governor as a Democrat. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did little better on the Republican side. And former Justice Department attorney Ryan Crosswell, who resigned in protest of the department’s politicized handling of former New York Mayor Eric Adams’ indictment last year, finished second in a Democratic congressional primary in Pennsylvania.
Ukraine whistleblower Alexander Vindman is still running in the Democratic primary for US Senate in Florida.
His brother, Eugene, is the rare resistance success story, elected to Congress in Virginia in 2024.
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