In primary challenges, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is trying to install allies in Congress
Illustration: João Fazenda
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A driano Espaillat is the only formerly undocumented immigrant representing New York in Congress. He is so respected as a leader on matters concerning Hispanic Americans that he chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He called for dismantling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as far back as 2018. And yet, as New York’s Democratic primary nears on June 23rd, he is in a fight for political survival against a first-time candidate, a graduate student in sociology less than half his age who is attacking him for not standing up to ICE, among other matters.
So it is going across New York City, in the most intense manifestation of what Democratic officeholders are experiencing across the country as congressional primaries unleash the party’s id. Candidates in New York who are not quite far enough left, or who bear a whiff of the establishment by virtue of their experience in public office, are struggling against insurgent challengers. For them the lesson for the Democrats of past defeats is not to moderate, but to charge the barricades.
In New York’s tenth congressional district, which jumps from lower Manhattan into Brooklyn, the incumbent congressman, Dan Goldman, is a former federal prosecutor who served as the lead counsel in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. His opponent, Brad Lander, is attacking him as a “corporate Democrat” who is helping enrich the president. When the candidates were asked in a recent debate if they would support a third impeachment of Mr Trump, Mr Lander’s hand shot up. After a moment Mr Goldman followed suit, but then exposed himself as a squish: “But after investigations,” he said. Polls have him trailing.
In these primaries Israel—or, rather, sufficiently strident opposition to Israel—is a dominant concern. That is true in Mr Espaillat’s race, though his district, the 13th, which stretches through Harlem and into the western Bronx, might seem beset by more immediate challenges than Middle East strife. The Palestinians’ plight has been the animating political cause of his challenger, Darializa Avila Chevalier, since she was an undergraduate at Columbia University, where she co-founded the campaign to press the university to divest from Israel. As an alumna, she helped organise campus protests during the war in Gaza that followed the Hamas attacks of October 7th 2023. She has hammered Mr Espaillat for accepting money from donors to the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel group.
Anger at Donald Trump and Israel, frustration with the status quo, impatience for generational change—these sentiments have been boiling over in Democratic primaries from Durham, North Carolina to Los Angeles, California. In New York they are given greater heat by the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, along with two left-wing groups, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the Justice Democrats. As Mr Mamdani works to install loyalists in the congressional delegation, he has surprised the city’s politicos with his ruthlessness. “Regular Democrats are petrified because they know that the Justice Democrats and DSA are running modern, complex, very interesting and exciting campaigns,” says Juan Carlos Polanco, a former president of the board of elections who is now a professor of law at the University of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx. “If they have enough members of Congress that are all in the Mamdani camp, they will be juggernauts.”
Mr Mamdani broke a reported commitment to support Mr Espaillat and instead endorsed Ms Avila Chevalier. The mayor is also supporting Mr Lander against Mr Goldman. In the seventh district, known as the “Commie Corridor” for its density of Brooklyn and Queens hipsters, Mr Mamdani refused to endorse the anointed successor of the retiring congresswoman, Nydia Velázquez, an early supporter of his own run. “Your actions are raising serious concerns about taking you at your word—and that is very, very, very problematic in this business,” Ms Velázquez sniped about the mayor to Politico. She favours Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president. Mr Mamdani supports Claire Valdez, a first-term member of the state assembly who also came to politics via Columbia University, which, seemingly by accident, has done more than any other institution lately to radicalise New York’s politics. Ms Valdez became a union activist while working in Columbia’s visual-arts department.
Tweet nothings
The template for these races, including Mr Mamdani’s, was set in 2018 by the congressional campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Justice Democrats, which recruited her to run, had discovered a clever hack: because few Democrats vote in city primaries, and because no Republican stands a chance in most general elections in the city, an insurgent could win office by energising a relatively small number of voters. In her first primary Ms Ocasio-Cortez won fewer than 17,000 votes; that was more than enough to dispatch a ten-term incumbent and rattle American politics. This was also Mr Mamdani’s path. Though much was made about his success in turning out voters, less than 30% of Democrats participated in the primary that, in effect, delivered him the office.
In that primary Mr Mamdani carried Mr Espaillat’s district by 13 points, and the DSA is growing fastest in that area. Ms Avila Chevalier has their typical candidate profile. What she lacks in experience she makes up for with sunniness and self-certainty. She also has the usual barbaric history on social media. Just a few years back she called Joe Biden “a rapist”, wrote “fuck Kamala Harris”, described wiping her hand on the American flag, suggested white people should not be in interracial relationships and declared “no more police at all ever”. She has waved away her tweets as “the politics of the past”. Mr Mamdani said her views “have evolved”. The Democrats may be in for some serious evolving, too. ■
논증 분석
유형: diagnosis
핵심 주장
Zohran Mamdani 뉴욕 시장이 주도하는 급진 좌파 세력이 민주당 현역 의원들을 겨냥한 경선 도전을 통해 당의 무게중심을 급격히 좌편향시키고 있다.
논리구조
- 진단: Adriano Espaillat 같이 진보적 이력을 가진 현역 의원조차 ‘충분히 좌파답지 않다’는 이유로 초선 도전자들에게 정치적 생존을 위협받고 있다.
- 진단: Dan Goldman 대 Brad Lander 경선처럼, ‘기업형 민주당원’이라는 프레이밍과 Donald Trump 탄핵 강도 경쟁이 뉴욕 경선의 전형적인 구도로 자리잡았다.
- 논거: 이스라엘에 대한 강경 반대 입장이 경선의 지배적 의제로 부상했으며, Darializa Avila Chevalier는 AIPAC 기부금 수수를 빌미로 Espaillat를 공격하고 있다.
- 논거: Mamdani는 Espaillat 지지 약속을 파기하고 Avila Chevalier를 지지하는 등 보인 정치적 냉혹함으로 뉴욕 정치권을 놀라게 했으며, Democratic Socialists of America와 Justice Democrats가 그 조직적 기반을 제공하고 있다.
- 논거: 2018년 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez의 경선 승리가 확립한 ‘소수 열성 유권자 동원’ 전략이 이 경선들의 원형이며, Mamdani 자신도 30% 미만의 민주당 경선 참여율로 당선된 사례다.
- 반론: Avila Chevalier는 Joe Biden을 ‘강간범’으로 지칭하고 경찰 전면 폐지를 주장하는 등 극단적 소셜미디어 발언 이력이 있으나, 이를 ‘과거의 정치’로 일축하고 Mamdani도 ‘견해가 진화했다’고 옹호한다.
- 결론: Mamdani 진영의 의원들이 다수를 이룰 경우 의회 내 막강한 세력이 될 수 있으며, 민주당 전체가 이 좌편향 흐름을 따라 ‘상당한 진화’를 겪을 수 있다.
결론
극소수 열성 유권자를 동원하는 좌파 경선 전략이 민주당 주류를 조직적으로 대체하고 있으며, 당의 이념적 방향이 검증되지 않은 급진 후보들 쪽으로 빠르게 이동하고 있다.
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