Three Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates won U.S. House primaries in New York City last week, and the party's own chairman says the driving force was not housing costs or grocery prices. It was Israel. New York State Democratic Party chairman Jay Jacobs told the New York Post that anti-Israel sentiment among activist voters propelled the victories of candidates aligned with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, upending two incumbents and capturing an open seat in the city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel.
The admission is striking because the winning candidates and their allies spent months pitching themselves as champions of working-class affordability. But Jacobs, a pro-Israel Democrat, did not mince words.
"Yes. I do think the Israel-Palestinian issue had an impact in the election. It hurt establishment Democrats."
He added that anti-Israel passion was "more important issue for those who came out and voted" in low-turnout primaries where roughly 17 percent of registered Democrats cast ballots citywide. That gap between the activist base and the broader electorate explains how a small, organized faction rewrote the party's congressional map in a single night.
The results were not close calls in two of the three contests. In the 13th House District, covering Harlem, Washington Heights, and parts of the Bronx, Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat. Chevalier centered her platform on halting U.S. military aid to Israel and pushing for full divestment from the Jewish state. She attended an anti-Israel rally in Times Square one day after Hamas carried out its October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks, a rally where demonstrators torched the Israeli flag and flashed swastikas.
Espaillat, who backed Israel, chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and was an ally of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. His defeat removed one of the Democratic establishment's most reliable New York anchors. Newsmax reported that Chevalier is a DSA member who ran explicitly on the organization's platform.
In the race to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez in Brooklyn-Queens House District 7, DSA candidate Claire Valdez, a state Assembly member, defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, the retiring congresswoman's handpicked successor. The district has been dubbed the "Commie Corridor" because of the DSA's electoral dominance there.
And former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who has claimed Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, routed two-term incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman by a margin of 66.5 percent to 33.5 percent. Goldman had the backing of Gov. Kathy Hochul and House Democratic leadership. It did not matter. Lander, a former DSA member who is Jewish, buried him.
The congressional wins were only part of the picture. The DSA also handpicked state legislature candidates who won their primaries the same night. The Washington Free Beacon documented a slate of DSA-endorsed state legislature winners across Brooklyn and Queens, several of whom hold positions that would have been disqualifying in any prior Democratic primary cycle.
Among them: Aber Kawas, who won a state senate seat with Mamdani's endorsement. Kawas had made excuses for the September 11 attacks and praised convicted al-Qaeda supporter Syed Fahad Hashmi as an "imprisoned hero." Another winner, David Orkin, a self-described "anti-Zionist Jew" backed by Jewish Voice for Peace, ousted an incumbent assemblywoman. JVP celebrated by declaring, "Palestine was on the ballot, and won."
That quote tells you everything about what animated these races. The affordability pitch was the wrapper. The product inside was anti-Israel activism, packaged for a low-turnout primary electorate that rewarded it.
If the two DSA-backed House candidates win their general elections, the number of DSA members in Congress would double, joining Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, as National Review noted. Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of DSA's New York City chapter, said before the vote: "The stakes couldn't be higher for us."
Jacobs did not stop at acknowledging the Israel factor. He pushed back on the rhetoric that powered the insurgent campaigns, challenging the genocide and apartheid labels that candidates like Lander have embraced.
"Saying Israel is committing genocide is wrong. It's war."
He also stated that Israel is not an "apartheid" country, noting that minority Arab residents have rights like other citizens. But Jacobs is a chairman, not a king. His candor stood in sharp contrast to the evasion from the party's top elected leaders.
Fox News reported that both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries deflected questions about the socialist sweep rather than addressing it directly. Schumer offered only: "We have a great unified party, and we're going to stop Trump." Jeffries, for his part, has welcomed the Mamdani-backed socialists into the caucus, drawing criticism from multiple directions.
California Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive leader and potential 2028 presidential contender, was more direct about what the results mean: "We have a new party."
He may be right. And the old party's leaders seem content to let it happen.
The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement on X the night of the primaries that framed the results in blunt terms.
"On Tuesday night in New York City, a movement built on antisemitic rhetoric won three congressional primaries. We're witnessing candidates succeed not in spite of their demonizing rhetoric against the Jewish community and the Jewish state, but because of it."
The ADL went further, warning that the rhetoric would not stay confined to campaign rallies and victory parties.
"When leaders cheer slogans that dehumanize Jews, it does not stay at a victory party. It bleeds into schools, neighborhoods and daily life, putting Jewish families, children and communities at risk."
The specific slogans the ADL referenced were on full display. At the DSA victory party, Mayor Mamdani moved through the crowd as attendees chanted "From the river to the sea", a phrase widely understood as a call for the elimination of Israel as a state. That this happened in New York City, home to roughly 1.6 million Jewish residents, makes it more than a political footnote.
The primary results did not emerge from nowhere. A Gallup poll released in February found that 60 percent of Democrats nationwide hold an unfavorable view of Israel, the first time a majority of any major American political party has viewed the Jewish state negatively since Gallup began asking the question in 1989. Only 33 percent of Democrats surveyed held a favorable view. Four percent had no opinion.
Those numbers help explain why anti-Israel candidates found such a receptive audience in a low-turnout Democratic primary. The activist base that shows up for these races is more hostile to Israel than the broader party, and far more hostile than the general electorate. Sen. John Fetterman has warned that his party is "drifting firmly into communism" in the wake of the socialist sweep.
Pollster Bradley Honan of the Honan Strategy Group put the dynamic plainly:
"The voters who turned out were anti-Israel. The people who were fired up were anti-Israel and there was no counter to that."
That last phrase, "no counter to that", is the real indictment. The Democratic establishment had resources, incumbency, and institutional backing. It did not have an answer for the energy on the other side.
The comparisons to AOC's 2018 primary upset are inevitable, but the scale is different. Ocasio-Cortez was one candidate in one district. This was a coordinated sweep across three congressional races and multiple state legislature seats, backed by a sitting mayor and an organized national political organization.
The results have already begun to fracture the party's old coalition. New York City union leaders have publicly broken with the socialist wing, warning that blue-collar workers are leaving the party. Meanwhile, veteran Democratic strategist James Carville has rejected one of the Mamdani-backed winners outright, saying she should leave the Democratic Party entirely.
Jacobs acknowledged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conduct during the Gaza war has galvanized the anti-Israel movement. But he drew a hard line at the rhetoric that movement has embraced, the genocide charges, the apartheid labels, the chants that call for wiping out the Jewish state.
Whether the rest of the Democratic leadership will draw that same line remains an open question. Schumer won't answer it. Jeffries won't answer it. And with every primary cycle that rewards anti-Israel activism, the incentive to answer it honestly shrinks.
When 17 percent of a party's voters can reshape its congressional delegation, the problem is not just who showed up. It is who didn't, and who refused to give them a reason to.
