What the campaign has shown is that the energy behind Mamdani's movement can win primaries in safe seats; whether it can convert that energy into legislation is the test that begins after Tuesday.
Three congressional candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won their Democratic primaries in June and are widely expected to win their heavily Democratic districts in Tuesday's midterm elections, Al Jazeera reports. Claire Valdez, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier campaigned on overlapping platforms: abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ending US military aid to Israel and establishing a public healthcare system known as Medicare for All. Because the primaries effectively decided these seats, the final hours of campaigning in New York have been quieter than the run-up to June, with canvassers harder to find.
The three arrived by different routes. Lander, a former New York City comptroller, defeated Congressman Dan Goldman in a race in which Israel was the defining issue, in a district with one of the largest Jewish populations in the United States. He has described Israel's military campaign in Gaza as genocide and its occupation of Palestinian territory as apartheid, while identifying as a Zionist who supports a two-state solution. Two weeks before the election, Israeli forces detained him in the occupied West Bank during the olive harvest, and Israeli authorities have since revoked his travel documents for a planned return visit. Avila Chevalier, a community organiser, unseated Congressman Adriano Espaillat after building her politics around Palestinian rights and immigration; her "Babies Not Bombs" platform would redirect military spending towards childcare and healthcare. Valdez, a state assemblymember and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, came to politics through the labour movement and backs the PRO Act, national rent control and government-run healthcare. Valdez and Avila Chevalier were both backed by New York City's DSA chapter.
The harder question is what they can deliver. Abolishing ICE and ending military aid to Israel are, as Al Jazeera puts it, lofty goals unlikely to be achieved without navigating competing interests in Congress and the White House. Even if the balance of congressional power shifts towards the Democrats, the newcomers must choose which priorities to pursue first. The strategist Nomiki Konst told the outlet that the lesson of Mamdani's early mayoralty, including his push to fill 200,000 potholes, is to find an agreed issue and use the opening of a new Congress to press it.
The candidates' own answers are notably more modest than their slogans. Lander points to banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, which he says might restore a little trust, and to restoring enhanced government subsidies that expired at the end of 2025 and raised premiums for people who buy private insurance individually. Avila Chevalier names her "Babies Not Bombs" agenda; Valdez names the PRO Act.
What is not yet known is whether any of these measures can pass a divided legislature, or how a progressive bloc would work with a White House whose occupant the article does not identify. The election results themselves are not yet confirmed. What the campaign has shown is that the energy behind Mamdani's movement can win primaries in safe seats; whether it can convert that energy into legislation is the test that begins after Tuesday.
