Over time, I have noted and argued that the institutional weakness of leadership of American political parties means that they are shaped not by centralized or coherent forces, but instead by the exigencies of nominating primaries. Yesterday’s contests in New York provide more evidence for my position. The NYT reports: Mamdani Emerges as Kingmaker, Pushing His Slate to a Primary Sweep.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his allies swept a series of congressional primaries in New York City on Tuesday in a remarkable show of strength for the insurgent left that sent shock waves through the Democratic Party.
Mr. Mamdani’s candidates toppled a pair of incumbents backed by the city’s political establishment, including major labor unions and the House Democratic leader. Another candidate backed by the mayor won an open House seat, and a handful of democratic socialist challengers he supported were winning down the ballot.
[…]
The results also shook the foundations of the Democratic Party far beyond the five boroughs. When they are certified, Mr. Mamdani, 34, and his movement will be on track to double the number of socialists in Congress from two to four. The outcome will also force a Democratic Party, already searching for its identity, to reckon with its ascendant, unapologetic left.
[…]
Brad Lander, 56, a close ally whom Mr. Mamdani urged to run for Congress, ran up a staggering 30-point margin in the affluent 10th District in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. He defeated Representative Daniel Goldman, a wealthy Levi Strauss heir who had opposed the mayor in last year’s elections and had close ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby.
Claire Valdez, 36, a little-known state assemblywoman also recruited by Mr. Mamdani to run, ran up larger than expected margins for the open seat in the Seventh District in a gentrifying swath of Brooklyn and Queens so far left it has been nicknamed the “Commie Corridor.”
[…]
And Mr. Mamdani’s allies even won in the predominantly Black and Dominican 13th District in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. In perhaps the night’s most surprising victory, Darializa Avila Chevalier, 32, another democratic socialist who entered the race as a political unknown, narrowly knocked off Representative Adriano Espaillat, the influential chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Let me start by pointing out that the Times report is full of what I consider overly dramatic language, not to mention an ongoing penchant in American journalism that I find annoying, i.e., the tendency to overly focus on personalities.
The notion, for example, that a recently elected and still-popular mayor of New York, especially one who demonstrated some clear organizational and political skills in recently winning office, would have some juice to influence congressional primaries within the city is hardly the stuff of, to quote the article, “seismic” shifts in the political landscape (save, of course, to the specific political careers of two incumbents–and I fully acknowledge that ousting incumbents is a big deal in and of itself).
And yes, doubling the number of socialists in Congress sounds big, until you realize the number is two going to four.
I am not saying it’s nothing, but it also is hardly some dramatic deviation from the possible.
After all, Brad Lander’s win could as easily be seen as simply a quality candidate who won a primary. Lander previously won a city-wide contest (City Comptroller) in 2021 with almost 70% of the vote, was quite prominent in the NYC Democratic primary for mayor, was a key supporter of Mamdani in the general election, and was also a bit of a folk hero for being arrested by ICE.
Still, I will note that Mamdani’s more activist role is not the norm in NYC (but, again, to me the notion that a politician might use their political perch to influence political outcomes is a dog-bites-main story, ultimately).
Where previous mayors have taken a wide berth around intraparty primaries, Mr. Mamdani dove in. Before he even clinched his own mayoral win, he began recruiting candidates to run for seats he felt were ripe for leftist wins. He headlined fund-raisers, appeared in ads and dispatched his top political advisers to run two of the campaigns.
[…]
Mr. Mamdani’s aggressive interventions were not without collateral damage. His positions on some of the races put him at odds with the Working Families Party, prominent Black and Latino Democrats, major labor unions and members of the City Council, all of whom had supported his campaign for mayor and are now involved in his governing agenda.
He infuriated Ms. Velázquez, Mr. Mamdani’s first supporter in Congress, who believed the mayor should have deferred to her wishes about a successor. She came to accuse the D.S.A. in particular of trying to erase the contributions she and other progressives had made to pushing the city leftward for decades.
On the one hand, perhaps all of this damages Mamdani’s long-term prospects, whatever they may be (being a naturalized citizen, his highest potential political aspiration would be the US Senate). On the other hand, as I have noted before, the NYC mayor often ends their tenure far less popular than when they started. As such, Mamdani may well be at the zenith of his political influence now, so this could easily be a “use it or lose it” situation. Indeed, on that point, I would hope that whatever future Democratic president and congressional leadership is lurking out there learns that lesson: if they want to fix the damage Trump hath wrought, they need to realize they had better be ready on day one.
Regardless of all of that, I will return to the notion that the way to try and reshape American parties is through the primaries, and this shift in a few seats underscores that fact, just as MAGA wins in a number of other primaries this cycle (e.g., the Louisiana Senate contest), likewise shows the porous and open nature of our parties.
It certainly continues to illustrate the weakness of party “leadership” (the article stresses that Speaker Jeffries endorsed the losers) in terms of control over nominations.
Speaking of Jeffries, I think that the following is also the article being far too dramatic:
The outcome on Tuesday could pose particular problems for Mr. Jeffries, the New Yorker in line to become speaker if Democrats reclaim control of the House this year. Ms. Valdez and Ms. Avila Chevalier have not committed to supporting Mr. Jeffries’s leadership bid and could become persistent thorns in his side.
So, like with all the drama about “The Squad” in 2019, what is it that these new members are going to do when it comes time to decide a leader in 2027? The math says that by themselves, they can only vote for the caucus’s choice. Now, if some wider rift in the Democratic Party emerges over leadership, then sure, a handful of votes could very much matter.
The short, and hopefully clear, version of all of this is as follows.
- Yes, we are seeing Mamdani deftly exercise political influence yet again.
- Incumbents losing re-nomination are always noteworthy.
- Yes, this will make the Democratic caucus slightly more left.
- Yet again, we see that there is no central, coherent leadership of our parties and that the long-term shape of said parties is driven by who wins primaries, not via coordinated strategic planning.
- As usual, the press can’t help but be more dramatic than analytical.
One last note: as much as these data points illustrate my argument, I would state that a handful of DSA-allied Democrats is not, at all, the same scale of party-altering evolution as either the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus faction we saw in the Republican Party 2010-onward, and certainly not what MAGA has meant for the GOP since 2016. Beware those who would both-sides these results.
