By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's push to remake the Democratic Party into a democratic socialist powerhouse faces a primary election test on Tuesday. But win or lose, it is unlikely to provide an effective blueprint for Democrats taking control of the U.S. Congress in November or the White House in 2028.
The mayor, who shocked the political world with his 2025 election, is backing a slate of fellow democratic socialist candidates running in Tuesday's
New York primaries as they take on establishment Democrats, including one senior Latino in the U.S. House of Representatives.
This comes on the heels of democratic socialist candidates winning primaries in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles mayor races. Furthermore, a democratic socialist won the Seattle mayor's race last year.
Mamdani's efforts to expand the democratic socialist base in the U.S. comes after a decade-long effort that was spurred on by Senator Bernie Sanders' surprisingly popular 2016 presidential campaign and his efforts to nurture a new generation of democratic socialist leaders.
But it is also in response to progressive Democratic voters' anger at President Donald Trump's agenda and governing style, and at the Biden administration's backing of Israel's war against Gaza following a Hamas attack. Israel's response resulted in more than 73,000 Palestinian deaths.
"Energy on the far right ignites energy on the far left. Politics is reactive," said Steve Israel, a former U.S. House member from New York who late in his congressional career ran an operation to elect more Democrats.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY TENSIONS RUN HIGH
For months after Mamdani won his 2025 primary election, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries was dogged by reporters asking whether he would endorse his fellow New Yorker. Jeffries did so, but kept the everyone guessing until just 11 days before the general election.
Meanwhile, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York remained silent on Mamdani throughout the campaign.
The rub is that Jeffries is positioned to ascend to U.S. House speaker and thus second in line for the presidency if Democrats win November's midterm elections.
The path to victory does not run through "blue," solidly Democratic congressional districts. Instead, it's the "purple" swing districts where Democrats need to beat Republicans.
Nonetheless, if the Mamdani-backed democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier defeats five-term Democratic Representative Adriano Espaillat in New York City's 13th district covering northern Manhattan and the Bronx, it would carry national implications that could complicate Jeffries' task.
"If a DSA member could knock off the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, that could matter," said Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic consultancy.
Even more relevant could be the controversial stances Avila Chevalier has touted in past social media postings, such as calling for abolishing police and border controls and raising questions about Israel's right to exist.
"This is precisely the kind of person that they (Republicans) love to use to weaponize against other Democrats" running for office in competitive races, Bennett said.
Steve Israel agreed and said in an interview: "I do worry that the strength of democratic socialists in places like New York and California will be misread as the center of gravity for Democrats across the country" this November or in the 2028 presidential election.
Avila Chevalier has since deleted her social media posts and apologized for some of the language she used.
But in a Thursday interview with a consortium of editors on June 17, Avila Chevalier said: "I think that we just should not have a system that allows (migrant) deportation to happen at all," saying it "is rooted in deeply racist ideology."
In response to her views, Espaillat said in a June 16 posting on X: "We can't just sweep things under the rug. Darializa has taken very extreme positions as reflected in her comments on social media not too long ago." He added, "She is unfit for office and voters are smart enough to see that."
DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS AGAINST DEMOCRATS
A Democratic socialist is also attempting to defeat incumbent Democratic Representative Dan Goldman in New York City's 10th congressional district, while another is vying for the 7th congressional district House seat where Democratic Representative Nydia Velazquez is retiring.
Alex Jacquez, a progressive strategist who was a senior adviser to Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, said in an interview that focus groups and opinion polls deliver the message that Democratic voters' level of dissatisfaction with their leaders runs deep.
"That is really where you are seeing the fault lines. Are you willing to take on the wealthy and take on corporations and take on the status quo to deliver results. Or are you not," he said of the populist message democratic socialists are trying to win on this fall and through the 2028 elections and beyond.
Meantime, outside of deep-blue districts of New York, California and other Democratic strongholds, the party is running women with strong military backgrounds in places like Florida and Colorado for example.
"Most of the competitive districts for Democrats are red and pink districts that you can only win as a Democrat in ... where more moderate stances resonate in races against incumbent Republicans," Israel said. He added that presidential elections are not won in blue states. "It's won in seven moderate battleground states."
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Michael Learmonth and Alistair Bell)
