It was New York State’s turn to hold its respective primaries for the 2026 midterm election in the United States on Tuesday, 23 June.
New York has been a safe Democrat state since the 1990s. This year, there is no election held for either of its Senate seats, so the only major statewide office on the ballot is the governorship currently occupied by the Democratic Party’s Kathy Hochul—her seat is not in any jeopardy.
Thus, most of the media attention was on the contests between candidates of the ‘old guard’ and the new progressive-socialist flank in Democratic primaries. Zohran Mamdani, a Ugandan Muslim immigrant and self-described socialist, surprised the American political establishment by defeating Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination for Mayor of New York City in 2025.
He went on to win the general election—against Governor Cuomo running as an independent and Republican Curtis Sliwa—in November of the same year. Mayor Mamdani’s influence could certainly be felt in the primaries in the Empire State last night.
Two winning candidates who had received Mayor Mamdani’s endorsement, both Muslims, have generated the most headlines.
Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated seven-time incumbent Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th Congressional District. Espaillat himself had some major progressive ‘credentials’, having been the first former illegal alien to be elected to the US Congress. His socialist challenger, Chevalier, defeated him in a narrow race by 4.4 points.
Chevalier co-founded the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) pro-Palestinian activist group at her Alma Mater in 2016. On their official website, CUAD states that ‘our chief goal is to challenge the settler-colonial violence that Israel perpetrates with the support of the United States and its allies. We have previously refused to focus on concerns pertaining to free speech, academic freedom, and student safety on campus, as they distract from Israel’s actively committing genocide and ethnic cleansing.’
She is also a self-proclaimed ‘prison abolitionist’. On the issue of immigration, she told The New York Editorial Board that she believes ‘all deportation is wrong,’ in an interview published four days before the primary election.
Aber Kawas won in the Democratic primary race for New York State Senate in District 12. She, too, got boosted by Mayor Mamdami’s endorsement.
Kawas ran on a heavily anti-Israel platform, starting the ‘Not On Our Dime’ campaign, which seeks to impose special taxes on any New York-based organization that gives money to the Israeli government or Israeli charities.
She has also made questionable comments about the tragedy that still hurts New Yorkers even more than most Americans, the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. X user Greg Price has shared a clip of the Democratic–Socialist politician talking about the terror attack, saying:
‘The system of capitalism and racism and white supremacy…and Islamophobia, have all been used to colonize lands, to take resources from other people, and so this is a long trajectory, and we’re just seeing the manifestations of that continuation with 9/11.’
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