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From Bernie to Mamdani to the White House? Democratic socialists imagine what’s next.
By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jun 24, 2026
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By
Brigid Bergin
Published Jun 24, 2026
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In the weeks after Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor, a leader of the Democratic Socialists of America made a seemingly audacious boast.
“ The biggest lesson for me from the Mamdani campaign is that we need to be putting forward our politics at the largest scale that we can and we need to contest races like the mayoralty and eventually the presidency,” Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, said in an interview.
That statement now looks less fanciful. After congressional candidates who received Mamdani’s endorsement made a clean sweep on Tuesday night, democratic socialism has become a more powerful force in local and national politics.
“ What you all have shown this evening, whether for state Assembly, state Senate or Congress, is that a year ago, it was not the end of a political movement. It was the beginning,” Mamdani told a crowd of supporters.
He spoke at a raucous victory party for Claire Valdez, an assemblymember and DSA member who defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. Mamdani’s next stop was a Hamilton Heights party for Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old DSA member and doctoral student who had bested Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the five-term incumbent and chair of the House Democrats’ Hispanic Caucus.
Jubilant DSA supporters said their hard work over a decade was paying off. They drew a connection between Tuesday night’s results and Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. Their first big wins came in 2018 when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Rep. Joe Crowley and Julia Salazar defeated state Sen. Martin Dilan.
Eleanor Babaev, who helps lead the field operation for the NYC-DSA’s electoral working group, said they had been building the infrastructure to pull off wins like this for years, speaking directly to voters about core issues like affordability and inequality.
"It was about the fact that when you have people who are committed to these very principled stances, committed to freeing Palestine, abolishing ICE, you can really move people. And that's what we were talking about at the doors," Babaev said.
“Tonight we proved it wasn’t a fluke, it wasn’t just that people were excited about the mayor.”
Mamdani acknowledged that expectations were sky high for what the party could accomplish.
At a get-out-the-vote rally in Brooklyn with Sanders last week, Mamdani said he is often asked who he wants to see run in 2028 and when the race begins.
“It starts now. It starts Tuesday,” Mamdani said of Primary Day.
Bonnie Jin, the former co-chair of Boston's DSA chapter, was in Brooklyn on Tuesday night to celebrate her friends’ hard work. She said these DSA victories are more than a sign of shifting politics. They are also a product of ongoing organizing among tenants, unions and voters.
“We believe very strongly in what we do, but we also believe strongly in putting the work in to make things a reality,” Jin said.
That work includes door-to-door canvassing. Valdez’s campaign said it knocked on more than 300,000 doors during her six-month campaign, evoking memories of Mamdani’s mammoth ground game.
The DSA scored resounding wins up and down the ballot. Valdez beat Reynoso by 20 points, and Avila Chevalier, a newcomer, beat Espaillat by 4 points. Assembly candidate Eon Huntley defeated three-term Assemblymember Stefani L. Zinerman by 22 points on Tuesday in their Bed-Stuy and northern Crown Heights district. Huntley is one of the seven DSA-backed candidates who won their state legislative primaries. He lost to Zinerman two years ago.
Huntley describes himself as a third-generation Brooklynite, three-term PTA president and former union organizer “who is sick of the political establishment seemingly unaware or unable to address the material conditions that we face under this radical inequality in our city and our state.”
Huntley said he put in the political work since his loss. He said he focused on deepening his relationships across the community while remaining committed to a socialist platform focused on the rising cost of housing and the exodus of Black residents and homeowners from the community.
He traced his connection to the DSA back a decade.
“ It really is a continuum from 2016 to where we are right now,” Huntley said. “Bernie was someone who directly inspired me and made me aware of DSA and AOC was the woman that made me join DSA.”
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Brigid Bergin
Brigid Bergin is an award-winning senior reporter on the People and Power desk. She is fiercely committed to telling stories that help people engage and support democracy. In 2022, she hosted a live, ten-week call-in politics show ahead of the midterm elections called The People's Guide to Power. Brigid's reporting in 2017 included some of the first coverage of a political newcomer now known as AOC. In 2016, she broke the news of a voter purge in Brooklyn just days before New York’s presidential primary, triggering city, state and federal investigations. Brigid also guest hosts The Brian Lehrer Show and All Of It. She graduated from the University at Albany and the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-723-4719.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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