Gothamist78%
Mamdani wave: Lander, Valdez and Avila Chevalier win congressional primaries 46%
By Jon Campbell0% Elizabeth Kim84% Brigid Bergin0%
6/23/2026, 9:23:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Appeal to Emotion, and Representativeness Heuristic, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 24% saturation with 272 hits. Analysis detected 2,198 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,132 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 48.4% and a BS Rank of 46% (11,086 of 20,363 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 54.40% of the article peer group.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s three endorsed candidates for Congress won their primaries on Tuesday, making a major show of political strength that sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party.
State Assemblymember Claire Valdez and former City Comptroller Brad Lander cruised to victories on Primary Day, while community organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier — whom the mayor endorsed in the closing weeks of the campaign — eked out a tight win over incumbent Rep.
Adriano Espaillat.
The Associated Press declared the three candidates winners Tuesday night.
Mamdani touted the trio as his “team,” testing whether his army of thousands of campaign volunteers would be willing to knock on doors for his allies.
Like Mamdani, Avila Chevalier and Valdez are members of the Democratic Socialists of America’s New York City chapter, which has grown in influence alongside Mamdani’s rise in city politics.
Tuesday’s results showed that Mamdani’s seal of approval carried significant weight.
And his allies did their best to ensure establishment Democrats took note.
“Mayor Mamdani is incredibly popular and he has proven that he can harness that popularity,” Joe Calvello, the mayor’s press secretary, wrote on X.
“It’s time for the political class to understand that and be on the right side of it or be bound to the dustbin of history.”
Lander ran to the left of Rep.
Dan Goldman in New York's 10th District, which includes parts of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, including Park Slope.
Unlike the other two races Mamdani weighed in on, Lander — the former city comptroller and City Council member — began the contest well-known throughout the district.
For months, polls showed Lander with a solid lead over the second-term incumbent.
Much of the race revolved around Israel and its war in Gaza.
Lander said Israel is conducting a “genocide” and vowed to oppose military aid — both offensive and defensive — to the country.
Goldman, in contrast, voted in favor of aid for Israel but has been critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government.
In the 7th District, the Associated Press declared Valdez the winner over Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president who also hails from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
City Councilmember Julie Won finished a distant third.
The district, which stretches from Fort Greene to Woodhaven to the southern tip of Astoria, Queens, currently belongs to retiring Rep.
Nydia Velázquez, a Brooklyn Democrat who first took office in 1993 and is a major leader in the city’s Hispanic community.
But Mamdani and Velázquez were split on the race, with Velázquez backing Reynoso and expressing frustration with the mayor’s decision to support Valdez.
The race became increasingly bitter as Primary Day approached, highlighting divisions between progressive groups in the city.
The Working Families Party, the influential third party, backed Reynoso, while the DSA supported Valdez.
Reynoso bristled at criticism from Valdez supporters that he was an “establishment” candidate.
In the 13th District, Avila Chevalier, a political newcomer, won by about 2,000 votes over Espaillat, a Washington Heights Democrat who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, with 94% of scanners reporting, according to unofficial results from the city Board of Elections.
Espaillat conceded the race around 10:30 p.m.
But the crowd at Espaillat’s election night watch party at a Dominican restaurant in Washington Heights was clearly nervous well before that.
After blaring merengue all night, an Espaillat-branded campaign truck turned off the music just before 10 p.m., as reporters and campaign staff outnumbered supporters.
City Councilmember Carmen de la Rosa was among several younger Latino council members who credit Espaillat as a mentor.
At his watch party, she said Espaillat was a fixture in the community who brought a record of lobbying for resources.
"When I look around, the partner that has always been there is the congressman," she said.
"No offense to Darializa, but I have never seen her in any of those fights."
Espaillat and Avila Chevalier sparred over the war in Gaza, with the challenger accusing the incumbent of being beholden to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group.
The race also got nasty down the stretch, with Espaillat and his allies faulting Avila Chevalier for a series of deleted social media posts in which she called President Joe Biden a “rapist” and espoused anti-police and open-border views.
Avila Chevalier, meanwhile, faulted Espaillat for not doing more to free Mahmoud Khalil — an organizer of Columbia University’s anti-Israel demonstrations — when he was apprehended by federal immigration officials.
Khalil and his wife appeared in advertisements from a super PAC supporting Avila Chevalier.
After Espaillat conceded, Avila Chevalier’s supporters erupted in cheers of “D-A-C” at her watch party at a Puerto Rican restaurant on the waterfront in Hamilton Heights.
“I know that each of you are seeing what I’m seeing right now: a new dawn for this district,” she said to cheers.
“Today we make it clear, the politics of the past ends today.”
Mamdani appeared with Avila Chevalier, Lander and Valdez in an advertisement that aired after the first game of the NBA Finals, where the mayor passed a basketball back and forth with the three candidates and referred to them as “our team.”
But Mamdani chose not to endorse in several other key Democratic congressional primaries — most notably in New York’s 12th District, where he resides in Gracie Mansion.
Publicly, Mamdani declined to say who he voted for in the crowded primary race, which state Assemblymember Micah Lasher ultimately won.
The mayor also declined to endorse in the state comptroller’s race, where longtime incumbent Thomas DiNapoli easily fended off a challenge from two candidates running to his left — Drew Warshaw and Raj Goyle.
Mamdani did, however, endorse a handful of democratic socialists running for the state Legislature that defeated more moderate opponents Tuesday, including Brian Romero in the 34th Assembly District and Aber Kawas in the 12th Senate District in Queens.
The mayor declined to weigh in on races where a challenger faced a sitting incumbent, however.
Valdez’s supporters gathered at 99 Scott, an event space and nightclub in Bushwick that’s tucked between construction equipment yards and warehouses.
Among them was Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America.
He said Tuesday’s results show growing support for the principles democratic socialists stand for — not just for the charismatic mayor who has helped bring them to the forefront.
“I think tonight we’re really demonstrating that we’re not the man, we’re the movement,” he said.
Mamdani also seemed to agree as he took a victory lap at Valdez’s event.
“What you all have shown this evening — whether for state Assembly, state Senate or Congress — is that a year ago, it was not the end of a political movement,” the mayor said.
“It was the beginning.”
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