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THree key primaries<\/span> in New York City delivered whopping victories for an emboldened left led by Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday, as democratic socialists sought to define the future of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n All three candidates Mamdani backed \u2014 democratic socialists Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, and his onetime mayoral competitor Brad Lander \u2014 won their races in the heat of a midterm cycle that could see Democrats take back the House of Representatives. One message from the results was clear: The left isn\u2019t just having a moment \u2014 it\u2019s dictating how Democrats play the game of electoral politics.<\/p>\n \u201cA year ago, it was not the end of a political movement. It was the beginning,\u201d Mamdani said<\/a> at a victory party for Valdez and several down-ballot socialists who also won Tuesday. \u201cLet\u2019s hear it for a politics that will never forget working people. For a politics that is ready to write a new chapter in our party\u2019s history. And for a politics that realizes the old politics that got us into this crisis is not gonna get out of this crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Several races played out as proxy wars between the Democratic Party establishment and progressive insurgents, or even between progressives and socialists, to prove who would do more to disrupt the status quo. In hotly contested primaries spanning four out of five NYC boroughs, candidates touted endorsements from Mamdani<\/a> and Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/a>, I-Vt., as well as their proximity to the most unconventional wings of the Democratic Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEven when we are outspent, our agenda and operation bring out voters in a way the Democratic Party establishment no longer aspires to,\u201d Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, told The Intercept. \u201cIt is democratic socialists who are defining much of the political terrain in New York.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re an establishment Democrat, that\u2019s spent,\u201d streamer Hasan Piker<\/a> told local outlet Hell Gate<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re not giving another dime to Israel, hopefully an arms embargo, or at least pushing for one. We\u2019re gonna make sure that we change the American trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n Avila Chevalier, a former organizer in the Columbia University encampments for Palestine, was considered a long-shot candidate when she launched her campaign against the powerful incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat<\/a> in the 13th Congressional District. She won the tightest race of the three Tuesday night, saying in a statement: \u201cWe deserve leadership in Washington that will fight tooth and nail for every single one of us, and I can\u2019t wait to get to work with our community to deliver on that promise.\u201d<\/p>\n Lander, who is not a DSA member but represents the clearest bridge between socialists and progressives out of the three Mamdani-endorsed congressional candidates, was the first to sail to victory, defeating Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., less than 10 minutes after polls closed with roughly a third of votes counted in the 10th Congressional District. Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and a staunch supporter of Israel<\/a>, had lagged in public polling for months, suggesting the energy on the ground was firmly against the incumbent.<\/p>\n \u201cThis campaign was born out of solidarity. Solidarity is not the same as unity. Unity means we already agree. Solidarity is a practice of building bridges, even when we don\u2019t,\u201d Lander said Tuesday. \u201cWhen I launched this race, I said it wasn\u2019t progressives versus moderates. It\u2019s fighters versus folders.\u201d<\/p>\n The momentum<\/a> among progressives and the left in New York forced Democrats close to the party\u2019s establishment to change the way they campaign. And the rise of the DSA chapter in New York following<\/a> Mamdani\u2019s upset win<\/a> last year has also raised questions about how the progressive and socialist wings of the party will share power as they seek to expand their coalition beyond New York and across the country<\/a>. Some critics condemned socialist darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who rose to fame eight years ago with her own insurgent campaign<\/a> against an influential incumbent<\/a>, for staying out of New York\u2019s congressional primaries \u2014 while others theorized<\/a> that the congresswoman and the mayor were dividing their political clout across competitive federal and state-level races.\u00a0<\/p>\n The primaries also created an unusual lane for the progressive New York Working Families Party, which found itself siding with the establishment<\/a> it has long fought by backing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, outgoing<\/a> Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s handpicked successor<\/a>, against DSA candidate<\/a> Valdez.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jasmine Gripper, co-state director for the New York Working Families Party, said the efforts to sow division with DSA or to separate WFP from the left\u2019s rise erased its legacy \u2014 helping to defeat efforts to gut the party<\/a> and fight<\/a> conservative Democrats<\/a> like former Gov. Andrew Cuomo<\/a>; winning a $15 minimum wage; and expanding investments in pre-K and paid sick and family leave \u2014 and ignored that WFP was part of a much broader coalition that helped Mamdani beat Cuomo last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Working Families Party has been at the forefront of literally every major victory that has actually tangibly helped working families, and so to call us establishment is to not know our history and to not know the history of New York,\u201d Gripper said.\u00a0<\/p>\n She said WFP\u2019s role moving forward was to work in tandem with DSA, not to compete with it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a point where there was no one to the left of the [Working Families] party, and if you were to the left of the party, you were crazy,\u201d she said. \u201cNow we\u2019re in a moment where there\u2019s a whole entity that\u2019s to the left of the WFP, and that is OK.\u201d<\/p>\n