Lander, Avila Chevalier unseat incumbents on winning congressional primary night for Mamdani
Israel was front and center in defeats of Reps. Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat
Darializa Avila Chevalier, right, joins Claire Valdez and Brad Lander at a campaign rally with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders on June 18. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By Hannah Feuer June 23, 2026
Two congressional candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani defeated sitting members of Congress in New York Democratic primaries Tuesday night, delivering a major victory for Mamdani in his effort to shake up the Democratic establishment and upend its relationship to Israel.
Former City Comptroller Brad Lander handily defeated incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in the New York Democratic primary Tuesday night, while Columbia Gaza war encampment leader Darializa Avila Chevalier dislodged incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat — both after campaigning as sharp critics of Israel and with the endorsement of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Preliminary results showed Lander with about 66% of the vote to Goldman’s 34%. Avila Chevalier won a close race with 49.4% of the vote to Espaillat’s 46%. Both are virtually assured of winning the general election in November in their heavily Democratic districts.
A third candidate whom Mamdani had endorsed, Assemblymember Claire Valdez, secured the nomination for another House seat, with 56% of the vote for the open seat being vacated by Rep. Nydia Velazquez.
Representing a spectrum ranging from liberal Zionist critic (Lander) to longtime activist for the Palestinian cause (Avila Chevalier), the strong results for Mamdani’s chosen candidates is being closely watched nationally in a Democratic Party where many voters say they want the U.S. to distance itself from Israel. All three candidates say they will support cutting off U.S. military aid to Israel, including for the Iron Dome defense system.
At a campaign rally last week, Mamdani compared the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to “monsters” who “move millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal — to preserve their power, so that they can turn us against one another.” The remarks drew widespread condemnation from Jewish leaders, including some Mamdani supporters.
Lander is a high-profile Jewish politician allied with Mamdani, who this election cycle threw his weight behind a slate of progressive candidates who have critiqued hardline pro-Israel money and use the terms “genocide” and “apartheid” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
Setting out to challenge the incumbent, Lander zeroed in on Goldman’s support for U.S. military aid to Israel and his past ties to the campaign fundraising group AIPAC during the campaign.
Lander told the New York Times that criticizing AIPAC makes him “queasy” given “the antisemitic tropes at play,” but that he feels an obligation to call out its funding nonetheless as he promises to curtail U.S. military aid to Israel.
In his election night remarks, Lander spoke of his admiration of Israeli activists working to protect Palestinians in the West Bank — and about his commitment to fight antisemitism.
“In Congress, I will try to carry a fraction of the courage that they carry,” he said. “I will be one of the Jewish members of Congress most willing to stand up for Palestinian human rights. And I will stand firmly against bigotry aimed at Jews. Those are not two different jobs. They are the same job.”
Meanwhile, at the leftmost end of the Mamdani coalition, Avila Chevalier defended her decision to attend a rally held in Times Square on Oct. 8, 2023 widely condemned for condoning Hamas’ violence. She also called Zionism “an ideology that is looking to create a political system where one group of people has more standing before the law than another group of people.”
In NY-7, another candidate backed by Mamdani defeated the incumbent’s handpicked successor. democratic socialist Valdez won against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who had the endorsement of outgoing Rep. Velázquez.
But Mamdani’s brand of Israel politics didn’t succeed everywhere: In the Bronx, Rep. Ritchie Torres — one of the Democratic party’s most staunch supporters of Israel — handily defeated Michael Blake, a former state assemblyman who allied with Mamdani during the mayoral primary last year.
For state comptroller, incumbent Thomas DiNapoli — who made additional purchases of Israel bonds in the aftermath of Oct. 7 — won over Jewish challenger Drew Warshaw, who argued that the state should divest from Israel bonds because they help “finance Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wars.”
State Assemblymember Micah Lasher won the race to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler, who retired after 33 years in the House and served as one of Congress’ leading voices for liberal Jews. In that race, the leading candidates Lasher and Alex Bores had broad agreement in their support of Israel.
The other candidate in the race, Kennedy political scion Jack Schlossberg, had called for conditioning aid to Israel and attempted to draw contrast with Bores and Lasher on the issue. But Schlossberg’s campaign struggled to gain traction amid questions about his lack of political experience.
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