There are political movements that arrive slowly, building in districts nobody is watching, picking off the occasional incumbent, waiting for their moment. Zohran Mamdani arrived last night by winning three congressional primaries at once, ousting a Pelosi-backed incumbent by 32 points, and making Sean Hannity’s voice audibly crack on national television, which is how you know you have done something the other side was not prepared for.
Brad Lander beat Rep. Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th Congressional District, 66 to 34 percent. That is not a close race that broke the wrong way. That is a 32-point demolition of a sitting congressman who had Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement, in a district that is 24.4 percent Jewish, which Goldman’s campaign had positioned as his protection, and which voted for his opponent anyway by a margin that suggests the protection was less sturdy than advertised. Darializa Avila Chevalier beat five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat in the 13th, the seat Mamdani had reportedly promised Espaillat his endorsement to protect, before deciding Avila Chevalier was more interesting and that promises are suggestions. Claire Valdez won the 18th.
According to Raw Story, Hannity said on air, his voice cracking: “Incumbent congressman Dan Goldman, who was just banned from a New York City coffee shop because of his support for Israel, has now lost his primary to a radical socialist backed by Mamdani. It appears that a pretty scary transformation is now fully underway in the Democratic Party.” He was not wrong. The voice crack was the most honest thing on Fox News on Tuesday night.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, which has been running ads boosting the most progressive Democratic primary candidates in swing districts all cycle on the theory that socialists are unelectable in November, watched Mamdani’s socialists win three safe Democratic seats last night. The seats were always going to stay Democratic. What the NRCC accomplished was making them stay Democratic with socialists in them, which is not what the NRCC thought it was doing but is very clearly what it was doing.
According to Raw Story, progressive commentator Zachary Donnini wrote: “The Democratic Tea Party is here.” The Tea Party called itself unelectable until it was the party. This comparison is now less a prediction than a timeline.
When the Republicans who funded the progressive primary surge are the same Republicans describing it as a scary transformation, who exactly is scared of what they built?
Sources
Raw Story: ‘New day in the Dem party’ as progressive sweep stuns
Raw Story: Hannity ‘literally crying’ as right-wing ‘freakout’ erupts over progressive election sweep
Fox News: Polls close in South Carolina with two Trump-backed candidates facing off
