{"id":48827,"date":"2026-06-24T13:25:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=48827"},"modified":"2026-06-24T13:25:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:25:44","slug":"the-machine-breaks-down-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/the-machine-breaks-down-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"The Machine Breaks Down in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DSA\u2019s and Mayor Mamdani\u2019s candidates rocked establishment incumbents backed by unions and political bigwigs. In most cases it wasn\u2019t even close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Whitney\"Davidby\u00a0Whitney Curry Wimbish<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0David Dayen<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 24, 2026 (Prospect.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani, and Darializa Avila Chevalier. Credit: Anthony Behar\/Sipa USA via AP Images; Nikada\/iStock. Photo illustration by Lauren Pfeil.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Progressivism threw a wrench in New York\u2019s machine politics Tuesday night, as a trio of leftist congressional candidates beat establishment and corporate-backed foes who came with far more money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former NYC Comptroller Brad Lander\u2019s<\/a> race in the Tenth Congressional District was the first of the group called shortly after polls closed. He took the vote with nearly 66 percent of the vote against incumbent Dan Sachs Goldman, the Levi Strauss heir who poured millions of his own money into keeping his job. This race had become an afterthought for weeks, with Goldman fated to lose after prevailing over a split left wing in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In District Seven, New York Assemblymember Claire Valdez<\/a>, a former UAW organizer, beat Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso with 56.1 percent of the vote. Reynoso had been longtime Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s choice to succeed her after she did not seek reelection this year, and he had backing from the state Working Families Party, a progressive force in New York. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read: In New York\u2019s \u2018Commie Corridor,\u2019 a Race Over How to Build Power<\/a><\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
And in the 13th Congressional District, Darializa Avila Chevalier<\/a> beat Adriano Espaillat with 49.4 percent of votes, the closest of the three races. Her campaign faced nearly $7 million in super PAC spending and ongoing racist smears from Espaillat, whose senior advisor said in Spanish language media<\/a> that Chevalier wanted to replace Dominican New Yorkers with Muslims and Haitians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToday we make it clear that the politics of the past ends today,\u201d Chevalier told supporters Monday night after her election was called, adding that she stood with Haitians, a rejection of the racism and bigotry she faced.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her win represented a new dawn for the district, she said, which covers the upper Manhattan neighborhoods of Harlem, Washington Heights, and Morningside Heights and parts of the West Bronx. It includes Columbia University, where Chevalier organized for Palestinian rights and helped lead the student encampment in 2023 and 2024, which Columbia\u2019s administration violently crushed with help from the New York City Police Department. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo longer will uptown and the Bronx be neglected, forgotten, or overlooked. No longer will we accept the politics that throws scraps at us and acts as if we should be grateful for them,\u201d she said. \u201cNo longer will we accept anything less than respect and a seat at the table that our labor built.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Political analysts viewed the primary as a test<\/strong> of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s power. He endorsed the three candidates and called them his slate; a memorable campaign ad<\/a> during the New York Knicks playoff showed the four on a basketball court. \u201cThis is the team,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cThis is our year.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But city organizations that rallied behind the candidates and sent hundreds of volunteers to knock doors, as they did for Mamdani\u2019s campaign, said that while it fits in with old narratives to imagine Mamdani as a \u201ckingmaker,\u201d he did not decide the election alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The local ground campaign was assisted by outside spending that kept the candidates competitive. That included Justice Democrats and American Priorities, the new PAC designed to counter AIPAC\u2019s influence<\/a> in Democratic primaries. American Priorities spent $2.1 million in the Valdez and Chevalier primaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cValdez and Avila Chevalier\u2014along with Lander\u2014will immediately change the face of the New York congressional delegation, but their victories will echo much further, from districts in all five boroughs and New York State to across the country,\u201d said American Priorities in a statement. \u201cElected officials who have avoided taking clear positions will face increasing pressure from their own voters, and there is no going back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Local and national unions, meanwhile, largely threw in with the establishment, funding super PAC ads for Reynoso and Espaillat down the stretch. The split between labor leaders and rank-and-file New Yorkers reflects a disconnect that will have to be managed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Volunteers for Eli Northrup. Credit: Jews for Racial & Economic Justice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) was among the groups who sent 200 volunteers across 500 shifts to knock doors for Lander and Eli Northrup, who won his race to represent New York\u2019s 69th Assembly District. On Tuesday, the group had about 75 people canvassing down to the last minute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both races were a struggle for power between out-of-step establishment candidates who marched in the Israel Day Parade and \u201ca grassroots Jewish left that has a vision for our community,\u201d said Sophie Ellman-Golan, communications director for JFREJ. She said that while Mamdani likely had a strong influence in some races, so too did the volunteers that were knocking on doors to get the word out about candidates and their policy positions. Building that political power will help defeat fascism, she said, a belief candidates told the Prospect<\/em> they also shared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that something that\u2019s amazing about this organizing is how people develop their own leadership. Anyone can show up to a canvas,\u201d Ellman-Golan told the Prospect<\/em>. \u201cPeople who get the experience of talking to a voter and hearing their concerns and persuading them one way or another is a feeling of power and knowing you made a difference.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You don\u2019t always win, but when you do? \u201cPeople carry that with them for the rest of their lives.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The organization was also part of the core battalion of volunteers responsible for Mamdani\u2019s win, knocking on 10,000 doors, making 80,000 phone calls, and bringing grassroots organizing to the streets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The victories did not only play out at the congressional level. Candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America defeated two state senators and five state assemblymembers in New York last night, in an anti-incumbent fervor that even crossed over to Maryland, where two state senators and one member of the state House of Delegates went down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) did not endorse the congressional slate, and some leaped to criticize her for shrinking from creating tensions in Washington. But Mamdani, who needs support and funding from Albany for his legislative agenda, did not endorse<\/a> any of the DSA-backed Assembly candidates going up against incumbents. AOC did, and they won last night too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That suggests that the movement on the ground, not candidates from on high, was the deciding factor in the sea change in New York politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The losing incumbents included state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a mayoral candidate who dropped out and endorsed Andrew Cuomo over Mamdani last year. Ramos, who was one of the original Democrats who deposed an incumbent that was caucusing with Republicans in Albany as part of Cuomo\u2019s \u201cIndependent Democratic Conference\u201d slate, lost to state assemblywoman Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The one open-seat congressional race in the city where Mamdani did not endorse was the 12th District, to replace the decades-long run of Jerrold Nadler. The AI industry made an enormous investment in this race to take out state Assemblymember Alex Bores. Ultimately, Bores did lose to fellow Assemblymember Micah Lasher, a former Nadler aide, by a 39-35 count. (Political royalty failson Jack Kennedy Schlossberg was well back in third.) But in his victory speech, Lasher, who co-sponsored the AI safety bill that turned the industry against Bores, directly confronted<\/a> the oligarchs: \u201cI have some news for the two big AI companies who\u2019ve taken such an unusual interest in who won this congressional seat: I won\u2019t be taking my cues from either of you when it comes to protecting our kids, our jobs, our environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before you go.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
I hope that you found this article interesting and thought-provoking. The reason we\u2019re able to publish stories like this \u2014 free of programmatic ads and never behind a paywall \u2014 is because readers like you step up to support our work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"David<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
David Dayen<\/strong>
Executive Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Related<\/em><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
America, We Have a Super PAC Problem<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
March 25, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brad Lander Is Building a United Progressive Front<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
February 27, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
In New York\u2019s \u2018Commie Corridor,\u2019 a Race Over How to Build Power<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
June 17, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whitney Curry Wimbish<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
writers@prospect.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whitney Curry Wimbish is a staff writer at The American Prospect. She previously worked in the Financial Times newsletters division, The Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh, and the Herald News in New Jersey. Her work has been published in multiple outlets, including The New York Times, The Baffler, Los Angeles Review of Books, Music & Literature, North American Review, Sentient, Semafor, and elsewhere. She is a coauthor of The Majority Report\u2019s daily newsletter and publishes short fiction in a range of literary magazines. She can be reached on Signal at wwimbish.07.\u00a0More by Whitney Curry Wimbish<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
David Dayen<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
ddayen@prospect.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect. He is the author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power and Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street\u2019s Great Foreclosure Fraud. He co-hosts the podcast Organized Money with Matt Stoller. He can be reached on Signal at ddayen.90. More by David Dayen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DSA\u2019s and Mayor Mamdani\u2019s candidates rocked establishment incumbents backed by unions and political bigwigs. In most cases it wasn\u2019t even close. by\u00a0Whitney Curry Wimbish\u00a0and\u00a0David Dayen June 24, 2026 (Prospect.org) Progressivism threw a wrench in New York\u2019s machine politics Tuesday night, as a trio of leftist congressional candidates beat establishment and…  Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1879],"tags":[2085,2084],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48828,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48827\/revisions\/48828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}