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NYC DSA Co-Chairs on the 2026 Primaries, Mayor Mamdani, & More
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The co-chairs of the New York City Democratic Soc…
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- [00:00]
Grace Mauser
Foreign.
- [00:08]
Ben Max
Hello and welcome to MAX Politics. This is Ben Max coming to you from New York Law School and its center for New York City and State Law. Thanks for tuning in for the show. Speaking here on Friday, June 19, 2026. Joining me today on the show are the co chairs of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, Grace Mauser and Gustavo Gordillo. We are Speaking here on June 19, just a few days before Primary Day, which is Tuesday, June 23rd. Early voting is well underway, Mail in voting is happening, and the 2026 New York primaries, especially for Congressional seats and state legislative seats, are well underway. There's also a very interesting Democratic primary for New York State Comptroller which I've been covering here on the show with in depth interviews with the three major candidates. So check those out if you missed them all Democrats across New York State can vote in that Comptroller primary. But here today on the show, the co chairs of NY NYC DSA will talk over where the Democratic Socialist Party in New York City that just helped give rise to Zora Mamdani as mayor and has a bunch of their elected officials in state, federal and city offices is now putting resources in this 2026 primary cycle. There's some very interesting House races they're involved in, especially New York's 7th congressional district where NYC DSA and Mayor Mamdani are backing Assemblymember Claire Valdez in the race to replace retiring Congresswoman Nidhi Velasquez against Antonio Reynoso and Julie Juan. And DSA is also very invested in another Congressional race in Uptown Manhattan and into the Bronx, New York's 13th congressional district, where their candidate Darielisa Villa Chevalier is challenging Congressman Adriano Espail. DSA also has a whole bunch of State Senate and Assembly candidates running, some in open seats, some where they're trying to protect incumbents, and then some where they're trying to defeat incumbents who which they've done in a variety of races over previous cycles. So a very interesting conversation ahead with NYC DSA Co Chairs Grace Mauser and Gustavo Gordillo that also touches on bigger national themes, their interest in running perhaps Representative Ocasio Cortez for president in 2028, and a whole bunch more about internal battles within the Democratic Party, the NYC DSA relationship with Mayor Mamdani now that he's ascended to executive citywide office, and a whole lot more ahead. Briefly, if you've missed any recent episodes of the show, do check them out in the MAX Politics feed. I've been interviewing a lot of candidates for office, including those state comptroller, Democratic primary candidates, but also a whole lot of congressional candidates, and then also talking with other experts about bigger themes of the elections, races to watch and much more. And there'll be at least one more episode, if not more, leading into primary day. And if you're eligible to vote, I hope you make sure to get out there and cast your ballot and a whole lot more to come. Also here at MAX Politics in the aftermath of primary day, as we break down the results, there is a lot at stake politically and policy wise to watch out for. And we'll also be digging very soon into the New York City budget negotiations because there is a city budget due by the end of June, and Mayor Mamdani and the city Council have to come to agreement on that spending plan, which will probably happen sometime between primary day and the end of June. So a lot more to come here. But if you've missed any coverage of the primaries, check out those episodes after you listen to this one. All right. I'm very pleased to welcome back to MAX Politics the co chairs of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, NYC DSA Gustavo Gordillo and Grace Mauser. Gustavo, Grace, thanks for joining me again. How are you doing?
- [03:45]
Gustavo Gordillo
Well, thank you for having us on the show.
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Grace Mauser
Yeah. Excited for the election. Happy to be here.
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Ben Max
Thanks for taking the time. We're just a few days away from primary day here, so lots to dig into. Grace, you were at a rally, I believe, last night in Brooklyn on Thursday, June 18, with Senator Bernie Sanders, Mayor Zoram Mamdani, congressional candidates that the mayor is backing, two of which are DSA candidates and others. Quick takeaways from that rally. What were the messages that the speakers were really trying to get out there in terms of what these 2026 primaries are really about?
- [04:25]
Grace Mauser
The rally was a lot of fun, very high energy. I mean, the real thrust of it was that we can win these elections, both a ballot with the congressional races and down ballot with state candidates. But we have to keep fighting for it. Saran talked a lot about how the movement that elected him isn't. It can't be over if we want to actually put forward and bring into actuality the changes and the policy that Zuran was championing in his campaign in 2025. Bernie also referenced some of the incredible successes that we've seen across the country of Democratic Socialist candidates from Philadelphia to D.C. earlier this week. So it feels like there's real momentum, not just in New York, but across the country. But that momentum is not self perpetuating. It doesn't just keep going without work from all of us. So it was really a call to action for not only the people in King Cedar last night, but for all of our extended networks, our friends and our families to get on board, to keep pushing so that it's not just about one candidate, it's not about one win, but about a sea change across across Albany, across Congress, across New York, and hopefully across the whole country.
- [06:04]
Ben Max
And just stick with it for another minute. Grace, that I understand the sea change you're talking about is a broader sort of project of democratic socialism about, you know, a real change in the focus of government towards working people and fighting inequality and so forth. But below that broader set of themes, are there things that the messages that these elections are really about? Is this sort of, do you see this as a very sort of like anti war set of elections? Is it about, you know, anti corporate greed? I mean, I know those are two of the big things, but like, how would you sort of say what's at the top of the list of the messages for what people are fighting for here? And I was interested in what you just said that you were talking about this also being about building off the momentum of Mayor Mandani's win and maybe say a little bit more about that as well in terms of how important you see it for him to have more allies at the state and federal levels.
- [07:01]
Grace Mauser
Certainly anti war is a big part of it. I think basically every person on stage last night touched on either Palestinian rights on the Iran war, on the illegal invasions happening across Latin American countries perpetrated by the US that was a really big theme. Him we're seeing Trump engage in these wars illegally. And yes, the Democrats there talk about opposing it, but there hasn't been a lot of action on that front yet. And you know, we know of course they don't have majority in both houses, but we really need fighters who are going to be bold about not only winning and expanding the movement, but really being confrontational to leaders who either actively or passively, by not saying anything, basically condone these illegal wars. So that was a huge theme of the evening because we know that the money going to war is money that could be reinvested here at home put into social services. A big theme of Darlita's campaign is babies, not bombs. What she talked about. And Claire explicitly connected the people who benefit and profit for more to the class of people who don't care about workers, who intentionally oppress workers rights, who have no interest in making the average person's lives better. For example, Jeff Bezos, who doesn't want his workers to be considered workers at all, to be considered employees, but also certainly benefits and profits from not only those exploitative practices. Practices, but exploitative practices that we see happening abroad. So those were two big themes because they're intimately connected with each other. And I forgot the second part of your.
- [09:09]
Ben Max
Yeah, it's okay. Let me actually come to you because that's okay. Yeah. Let me repeat it for Gustavo. You can jump in on this, Gustavo, the importance of how you're messaging, having more allies for the mayor. He's obviously in now such a prominent, powerful position. So he's become, along with Congresswoman Ocasio Cortez, your biggest, you know, DSA star, so to speak. But you're also often trying to make sure it's a movement that's about the movement and not about the people. So, you know, the individual officeholders is what I mean by people. So how, you know, how do you balance it sounds like from what Grace said, you know, some of the message certainly is Mamdani's in power now and needs allies. Say a little bit more about that piece, but also sort of balancing it with the broader message.
- [09:54]
Gustavo Gordillo
Yeah, I think also to answer your last question a little bit, there's an offensive and a defensive component to every, every candidate's agenda that we're putting forward. I think on the offensive front, everybody's focused on affordability. We're still seeing that as one of the top issues in polling. And housing in particular. Of all of the affordability issues, housing is the biggest one. I think it's probably the top issue in every district we're running in. And we just saw, we had this huge budget fight, this big tax the rich campaign. We were able to tax secondary homes on millionaires in New York City. But that's really only a fraction of what we need if we want to implement the affordability agenda the way that New York really deserves and the way voters voted for. So our argument to voters often is we need more power to actually implement the agenda that the mayor ran on, that so many voters want to see put into reality. And for the political establishment to take seriously that this is the agenda that working class people want, that you need to get behind if you want to stay in power, then we need to show that we can win elections on that basis. But the defensive part of the agenda, I think, is the fight against Trump. So much of the political opportunity that we've been able to take in the Last couple of years, I think, stems from Trump getting elected a second time and mainstream voters feeling that the Democratic Party establishment is responsible for Trump's rise. They were not able to stop him the first time he was elected, and now they've been given an opportunity twice and failed twice. I think that's left a power vacuum for us to fill. And many of our candidates are running against the deportation machine, against ice, against. They are oftentimes many of the organizers who are at anti ICE protests, they're getting arrested in front of detainments. They're fighting, as Grace said, the war machine that Trump is putting into action to distract the US Working class. So on the one hand, we have the offense going for a positive vision, the agenda and the defensive part, the anti war part, the anti ICE planks, I think, are equally important because they politicized so many people.
- [12:53]
Ben Max
Connecting a little bit of that to one thing you said specifically, which is the failure of mainstream Democrats to stop Trump, including the second Trump win. There's been some criticism of the broader far left, for lack of a better term, around so much criticism of the Democratic Party hurting, especially Kamala Harris in the attempt to win the presidency. Some of the uncommitted votes, some of the ways that, you know, turn off turnout dropped off from when Biden defeated Trump to when Trump defeated Harris in very big numbers in a lot of places. Have you, in nyc, dsa, and maybe more broadly among the left, as you talk to folks more nationally who you're aligned with, rethought any of that strategy as you're obviously, you're waging these primary battles now? And that's what we're going to dig into mostly here. But the general election will be soon after, and there's a lot of races that are going to be up for grabs for Senate and House across the country and in New York that are in purple districts or even red areas that Democrats are hoping to win? Have you rethought any of the ways in which, after the primaries, the sort of broader left of Democrats, including Democratic Socialists, need to sort of come together differently?
- [14:19]
Gustavo Gordillo
I think that we can't take internal constructive critique as something that only has an aim of bringing down candidates. You know, we, we often point our critique even at our own elected officials. And I think when the Democratic Socialist movement is saying, you know, this candidate, let's say Kamala Harris is claiming to stand for the working class in the US and yet she is not saying anything about the genocide in Palestine. She's not saying anything about how our Tax dollars are going to kill people abroad rather than being invested in the US I think that much of that many of us would have wanted to see her adopt an agenda that was closer to ours, that maybe could have resulted in her winning, but that's not what we saw, obviously. So I don't think that I regret, really, the uncommitted movement, for example, that was in the primaries. I think people need to engage voters in the political system that we have. And I would say that it was even back then in that presidential race, it was because candidates like Kamala Harris were not saying anything about Palestine, that actually a mayoral candidate like Zoran Mamdani, who was willing to say what most voters actually believed, that was the start of his campaign back in October of 2024. Some of the first waves of mass volunteer enthusiasm that we saw was exactly driven by that disillusionment, you know.
- [16:29]
Ben Max
Yeah, I mean, I think. And Grace, jump in here if you'd like. I think there's been a lot of criticism of the Harris campaign and, you know, broader, more broadly speaking, more mainstream Democrats around not taking a different position on Israel and Gaza especially. But I'm also wondering about, since you represent more of the further left, you know, this question of when there's messaging that is on the further left of sort of saying that mainstream Democrats and Republicans, you know, there's not that much difference between the two. Is that the type of thing that you would rethink at all, especially when you turn a corner from a primary to a general?
- [17:14]
Grace Mauser
I think we. We want to put forward our vision of politics. The problem to us with, and I think for many Americans with mainstream Democrats, is that a lot of times when they lose, they try to become more like Republicans. You, I think, saw this a lot in the 2024 campaign when Democrats were saying, well, we need to be harsher on immigrants, we need to not ever talk about trans rights, because those are, you know, Republicans are winning on those issues. So how we win is we become more like Republicans. You're even seeing this in other countries, like in the uk, where Keir Starmer is, instead of, you know, acting like a Labour Party candidate, is becoming more and more like a Tory in many ways. But the problem with that is that if someone wants to vote for a Republican, they will vote for a Republican, not a Democrat who is sort of behaving like a Republican. So what you have to do is present a different vision, a vision that is inclusive of everyone, that doesn't throw trans people or immigrants under the bus, but that is also grounded in people's material lives and what they are actually experiencing from housing insecurity, expensive child care, expensive groceries. And I think we, to us, that is democratic socialism. You know, if not everyone wants to call it that, that's, you know, that's fine. We're working on it. We're getting there. Democratic socialism is becoming more popular, but you can't, you can't get there by just continuing to capitulate a little bit more every time to Republicans. And that's what a lot of Democrats seem to think is a winning strategy, despite it being a losing one for several decades now. So I don't think we're interest in bashing Democrats for the sake of bashing Democrats if they become allies to what we see as a winning strategy. You know, come on in. We want to fight fascism, and that's going to require a lot of different types of people. But when they believe you can fight fascism by becoming a little bit fascist yourself, we're not going to stand for that.
- [19:44]
Ben Max
And you don't worry how that type of stance can lead some mainstream Democrats to not endorse people like Zoramdani when he wins a primary and say, you know, this is sort of now the Democratic Party civil war playing out and don't, you know, nobody's asking, nobody should be asking either sort of side here to support, you know, the Democratic nominee, no matter who. More or less.
- [20:12]
Grace Mauser
Yeah. Not, not so worried about that at this point. I mean, as conditions change, we might reevaluate, but.
- [20:19]
Ben Max
But then there can be consequences, of course.
- [20:23]
Grace Mauser
I mean, we're in a moment right now where Ziran won the primary and the general, despite some trepidation from mainstream Democrats and I think where socialism is on the upswing and we need to seize that, that opportunity. So we don't want to back away from that. This is a chance to show that our vision can win not only in primaries, but in generals, too. If conditions change, then we're strategic. We try to view politics realistically. We'll adapt to that. But in this moment, we see polls where Democrats widely are supporting Democratic socialism. We see Americans across the board being more critical of capitalism. I think the time is now for us to really put our ideas to the test.
- [21:14]
Ben Max
Certainly a lot of wind at your sails. And I think these elections will, will, you know, determine whether that momentum continues, obviously, or whether there's a different calculation involved. I will say, you know, some of the things you're saying about how Democrats will sometimes lose to Republicans or see some of what they deem as Republican gains in, you know, public positioning. Moving towards more sort of Republican light positions is something public advocate Jumani Williams has said on this podcast probably 20 times over the last six, seven years and many other places as well. So it's an interesting, you know, critique across many Democratic constituencies. But then also when you talk to more moderate Democrats, they talk about needing to win in places that are more purple and more divided. I'm wondering how you think about the sort of messaging and policies right now that appeal to voters, even in places where, you know, there's more of a balance of Democrats and independents and Republicans. And I know most of the primary ground that we're talking about here is being fought in more sort of Democratic strongholds, where it's really about which type of Democrat will be going on to easily win a general election in New York City. But there's been a rethinking of some of the, the approach to kind of economic populism, even some of the things that Donald Trump has seized on. And then there's obviously questions about what he's really meant and whether he's followed through and things like that that we don't need to litigate right now. But this question of the changing nature of politics, that there is a different sentiment around sort of populism, that there are many voters who are less concerned about some of these labels like socialism, but they want to actually hear solutions. How are you thinking about that? That again, as we think about, there will be these primary battles, but then it will the attention will quickly turn to the general election, where whoever wins these primaries will then be asked to be part of a sort of broader Democratic team that's looking to flip the House and maybe even the Senate and influencing the platforms that Democrats run on, even in purple areas. How are you thinking about that messaging and what needs to be forefront and what actually works?
- [23:35]
Gustavo Gordillo
You know, I think that we Democratic socialists have been at the forefront of thinking about economic populism as the center of a working class agenda. I would say before much of the Democratic Party establishment started to become more open to it. I think for the Democratic Party establishment, they are funded by, you know, billionaires, much of the 1%. And it's that class contradiction that makes it difficult for many of them to adopt a working class agenda because they are in this quandary where they have to both appeal to their donors and to their broader constituency. For us, we're a class first organization. We think that material conditions have to dictate what our agenda stands for. Because that's how we're going to build the majority that we need to create a world for the working class. So we saw that in the mayoral campaign. He ended up winning in the primary a huge number of election districts that had gone for Trump. And then in the general, I think about 1 in 10 Trump voters ended up voting for Mamdani. You know, we should be improving on that performance in the future. We don't really have much of a history in New York City DSA of contesting swing or purple districts, but we do see at the local level that we can run a socialist in, in some Trump areas and win support.
- [25:28]
Ben Max
Yeah. And even beyond that, just in some areas of the city that were sort of seen to be more moderate. And Mamdani put up numbers that surprised many people. So let's talk about this election cycle here. You have a huge NYC DSA slate here. This, this is a lot of, I mean, again, indicative of your recent success. You have a lot of incumbents who mostly seem like they're very safe, but some have real contests in the primary. And then you're trying to win some open seats and then also defeat some incumbents in the primaries, whether it's across the House of Representatives, the State Senate and the State assembly here. Say a little bit about sort of the broad size of this slate and just what we were talking about there, about the many places that you're trying to win and how you're thinking about that, and also broadly the sort of stakes for the New York City DSA project here. I've seen, Gustavo, you quoted recently in Politico that the stakes couldn't really be higher for New York City dsa. But say a little bit about the size of this slate and where you're trying to win here that are particularly of interest, maybe. And you know, how you're thinking about the stakes for your, for your movement and your organization here.
- [26:42]
Grace Mauser
It's. It's really exciting. This is our biggest slate ever. So it's too congressional races. It's eight new state races, plus, like you said, a few of our railing. Jabari has a competitive primary. Farah is also facing a candidate that's Jabari Brisport and Farah Suffrant Forest. And we're also supporting a candidate running in Buffalo, Adam BoJack. So if you count him, it's 11 people on our extended slate. It's true that the stakes are very high here where we're going big because of our big win in 2025. All of these districts are places where Xeron won the primary and of course the general. So we're trying to build on that base of voters that the Xeron campaign identified that are excited to vote for a socialist candidate. So we're really testing out the new electorate that was formed in 2025. And of course we want to build our block in Albany. If all of our state level candidates win, we will nearly double the size of our socialists in office that are in the state legislature. And then the stakes for the congressional races are different in the two districts, but incredibly high in each. New York 7, where Claire Valdez is running against Antonio Reynoso and Julie Wan, we see a real, real battle for what the future of the left could look like to us. We're back in Clare because she's really, truly an organizer. Her background of course is not only as an organizer in New York City dsa, but also in UAW where she was a union organizer. And I think what we're seeing play out here is Reynoso in particular talking a lot about his experience in government and his ideas. But for us, there are a lot of people with the right ideas and even the right values in Congress. There's a lot of people who identify as progressive in Congress already, but they are not organizers, in my opinion. And they don't value and put in time and energy into building an outside movement, which is what you need to actually change the conditions so that these good ideas come into fruition. Someone who by themselves has the right values and the right ideas can't change policy. We've seen that fail time and time again. You need someone who is invested in using their power to build the outside movement, to enact what we call an inside outside strategy so that not only are they trying to pass laws on the inside, but they're building the outside movement so that conditions change more broadly. And then briefly in New York.
- [30:05]
Ben Max
Let me just stop you there. We'll come back to New York 13 in a second. Yeah, I just, I find that so interesting. I mean, as you know, some of the Reynoso response to that is like, is almost incredulousness because he helped launch the New King's Democrats, he's helped launch the New York City Council Progressive Caucus. I mean that he's been doing a lot of that type of organizing work in his political career. You don't see that, you don't value it. It's. What have you done for me lately? What's the sort of response there? I mean, I know you have the experience with, with Claire Valdez from her work in DSA and what you've seen from her. But this doesn't seem like an instance where it is a Democrat on the opposite side who just. Just sort of has had, as you said, the right ideas or values in your view, but hasn't really been doing the organizing work.
- [30:54]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, I mean, Reynoso has been doing a lot of political work for. For many years. No one's trying to take that away from him. And there is a real tension between people, especially the elected officials who were the left edge of New York city politics in 2013, let's say, but haven't kept up with how the left has moved, how we've organized, how we've won. And to me, Antonio is just really, you know, five to six years behind where we need to be right now. A lot of the work he's done is admirable. I don't think it's the same kind of work that Claire is doing, you know, really directly empowering workers through her union organizing, building a new exciting political movement through dsa. That's not to disparage it, but I think it's a. It's a little out of date and it's not up to snuff for what we need to really fight a Republican machine of. In some ways it feels like a burgeoning fascist army. It's not up to snuff for what we need to fight the fights we have to fight in 2026.
- [32:20]
Ben Max
One more quick one on that, which is there's all this conversation that's been had around the attempts that Congresswoman Velasquez had. She wanted to get together with the, you know, mayor elect, then Mamdani, and try to agree on a candidate. She had supported the mayor in the primary when, you know, few members of Congress did. She was, you know, very outspoken there and she wanted to try to come together and even perhaps back a democratic socialist as her successor. But she didn't know Claire Valdez. That seemed sort of off the table for her. She was more interested seemingly in Tiffany Caban. Were the two of you or others in NYC DSA part of those deliberations? Were you frustrated with how that turned out because you didn't want to be on opposing sides with the congresswoman and some of her political movement. Here you've got other allies, again, not DSA folks, but other allies like Tish James who are on the other side and labor. Claire Valdez is sort of a labor organizer candidate, but most of the labor, the vast majority of labor endorsements are with Reynoso. Are you disappointed in how that turned out and were you involved in trying to broker any type of compromise there?
- [33:33]
Gustavo Gordillo
I've been involved. I've been disappointed in seeing the level of acrimony and maybe the number of resources put into this campaign to stop us. I think that we have maybe more important fights than to try to stop a democratic socialist from winning probably the most left district in the country. But, and you know, I have, and great. We all have a huge amount of admiration for, for the congresswoman's track record. This really is a district with a history of working class organizing, a history of class struggle. But I think the idea that the outgoing member of Congress, that the outgoing elected has the right to anoint their successor is one of these ideas from traditional politics, from the establishment that points out many people in this district want a new form of doing politics, something that we've been trying to build for 10 years now. So we did have one meeting with her and we said we would have a democratic process within our organization to figure out who our members wanted to support. And that person ended up being Claire Valdez. We were not willing to just allow someone to make that choice out of seniority. I actually don't really think that it was the mayor himself who had the power to select Claire. I think everybody knew that she was the person in our organization with the support of the rank and file and that's how we ended up going with Claire. And just to put a finer point on the distinction with Reynoso, agree he has an admirable record, but now he's taking donations from real estate. He did not back Mamdani in the mayoral primary. I think I've been on the ground in New York 7 quite a lot in the past couple of months and I've been actually surprised in many parts of the district at the doors to hear that voters, the distinction they find most compelling is when they learn that Claire is a democratic socialist and that her opponent is not. Sometimes voters will bring that up on their own to me when I'm at the doors because it's on her literature. And so I think we're in a different era.
- [36:39]
Ben Max
There's so many things to unpack here, but I do want to move on to other races. But just speaking of what you said about this being the most left leaning district, Congressional district. So is it fair to say then that this feels like the one with the most on the line for New York City DSA in this cycle?
- [36:59]
Grace Mauser
Yes, I think the stakes are very high here. The downside of Losing is high. The upside of getting an organizer like Claire, a committed DSA member like her into Congress, also very high.
- [37:14]
Ben Max
What's the downside, though, actually, in practical terms, is it just sort of like political narratives that DSA doesn't have the juice, you know, that people thought or like, what's the. I hear you saying having more of an organizer is the upside and someone who's a little more perhaps to the left on some issues and so forth, which again, you know, people could quibble with that. Reynosa would that the different, the positive side wouldn't be that different. And then maybe there's reason to say the negative side for you guys, you lose isn't really that big either. But there's a lot on the line here. Obviously there's lots of political narratives that form and there will be huge ones coming out of these elections about the mayor's power and your power as an organization. But what's really, I would say, I
- [37:54]
Gustavo Gordillo
would say pragmatically and from the perspective of our political project, we want to run a democratic socialist for president in 2028 or at least, you know, start to seek our attention higher. And electing more democratic socialists to Congress in this cycle will help us to build that muscle, will help the working class in New York to have a stronger movement so that we can elect a democratic socialist in 2028 and have a serious campaign. I think that if we don't elect a democratic socialist here, that's going to set us back a bit in that project.
- [38:39]
Ben Max
That's an interesting bigger picture view that I wasn't thinking about. In my assessment. When you say that, is that a. Or is that you want somebody who's carrying the DSA mantle to be in the mix of the Democratic primary, no matter what, to have a force that's sort of there, if you can find someone who wants to, who wants to do it, who's a good spokesperson and all of that to at least try to really impact the conversation. And then maybe, who knows, like mom, Donnie catch fire and you could possibly win. But is it sort of in your mind AOC or bust, or are there other things, other people that could potentially carry that mantle in 2028?
- [39:20]
Gustavo Gordillo
You know, it's ultimately the congresswoman's decision, what she does. I would be very happy to support her if she did decide to run for president in 2028. I think there are other dark horse candidates who, who could be an option, though, if she decides to. To seek another office. I'm curious, Claire, Sorry, Grace. If you have any thoughts on that?
- [39:48]
Grace Mauser
No. I mean, I would also be thrilled to support AOC for president. Like Gustavo said, there might be someone who comes forward and we can rally around. But to me, AOC is clearly the best choice. Extremely popular in polls and I think has, has been battle tested on a national level of how difficult but also how emboldening and exciting it is to bring democratic socialist ideas to youth, to a broad swath of Americans who maybe haven't encountered it before. And seeing her do that on a presidential level would be incredible. And further, I think may be our best shot at defeating a Republican candidate who maybe isn't going to be so committed to things like elections in 2032.
- [40:50]
Ben Max
Boy, there's so much more to talk about there. But let's, let's, let's stay with the, let's stay with 2026. Although Gustavo or either of you, is there anyone you want to name that sort of like in that other possible candidate bucket that you were alluding to?
- [41:08]
Grace Mauser
I'm curious who Gustavo's thinking.
- [41:10]
Gustavo Gordillo
I would think Sean Fein or Sarah Nelson.
- [41:14]
Ben Max
Okay. Interesting. There's always the, the attempt to change, change the constitution for your New York City mayor, but that's probably a long, a long term project, but he's still young, so. All right, coming back to New York city and the 2026 primaries here, Grace, you were heading to a couple notes on the New York 13 primary. This is, as most listeners know, Dariel Lisa Villa Chevalier against Representative Adriano Espaillat. Uptown Manhattan and some of the Bronx. This is another spot where the mayor is taking some heat around the ways in which he's sort of cast some political either promises or allegiances aside, not in the same way that he seemed allied with Congresswoman Velasquez. But, you know, Congressman Espaillat did endorse the mayor after the primary. Again, that doesn't, you know, doesn't necessarily mean that much in politics when he was an Andrew Cuomo supporter in the primary. But there was some discussion that the mayor had agreed to stay out of that race and then went back on that. Is that, is this one. What's your view of the odds of a win for your side in this one and, and what are the repercussions for the mayor if, you know, and the DSA movement if Espail wins and has an especially big sort of chip on his shoulder about how this all went down?
- [42:43]
Grace Mauser
This race is neck and neck, which is incredible. I mean, Darielita was pulling in the single digits for a very long Time, much like Ziran was last year. I think the City and state article that came out earlier this week calling her the next aoc, maybe apartment Right. She really came from asking the question, I think, yes, sorry. My answer is yes, she really is. Was not a known political figure. Came out of Palestine organizing, organizing at Columbia University and I think has really been able to capitalize on the immense hunger of uptown voters and residents for change. I mean, this is a very exciting district for DSA to run in. We're not only running Darielita uptown, but also at the state level. Conrad Blackburn. And the reason we took another big,
- [43:53]
Ben Max
big move against sort of establishment power players, by the way.
- [43:58]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, I mean if we could take out of the uptown machine bosses at once, that would be, that would be a big deal for us. But the reason we did it is because the Xeron election last year showed that not only was there an incredible base of voters who wanted to support Iran, but an incredible base of volunteers. I mean, every week in the spring of 2025, we were adding more Harlem canvases because there was so much demand for canvassing and supporting Xeron and people getting newly activated that the amount of canvases we had was simply not enough. We've seen the most growth of any area in the city in terms of DSA membership. In our Bronx and Upper Manhattan branch, it's grown by nearly 180% since the fall of 2024. And what this shows is that there's this base of leftists who are not being organized either by Keith Wright's machine or by Espad's machine and are looking for a home and have found that in DSA and then democratic socialist politics.
- [45:24]
Ben Max
Quick question on. I mean, there's so many things again to here, but we don't have the time. But, but let me ask you, because it's been such a focus now of the campaign, how does, how does New York City DSA go about sort of vetting candidates? There was a lot that's come out about Avila Chevalier's old tweets. She's apologized for the language she used in a number of instances. Do, do you do any of that vetting before you're going to support a candidate? Do you think any of that matters anymore? There's obviously some lines that someone could have crossed in their past that would disqualify them. But I think, you know, that line has moved a lot in the, in the Trump era especially. But, you know, whether it's on the left or the right. But how do you Think about vetting candidates and social media history or past statements of any kind. And you know how you sort of approach that as an organization.
- [46:16]
Gustavo Gordillo
Yeah. I mean, a fun fact is that before Grace and I were co chairs of the organization, we were co chairs of the candidate Recruitment Committee in dsa, which is in my opinion one of the most important bodies in the organization. And we prioritize organizing history when we're recruiting candidates. In my experience, I've learned that we're actually one of the only organizations in New York that has an active candidate recruitment operation. And we spend a lot of time talking to allies and partner unions and organizations, asking them, are there community leaders, members in your ranks who are a good fit in certain districts? We're prioritizing. Those are that history of having organized with working class people having a history of concrete victories. Those are the most important things that we vet for when we're looking for candidates. We do also do social media searches ourselves. We also ask candidates to look through their own social media accounts and flag anything they think might be an issue.
- [47:47]
Ben Max
And did that come up in this case or.
- [47:50]
Gustavo Gordillo
I don't think it did actually in
- [47:52]
Ben Max
this case because her accounts have been deleted already.
- [47:55]
Gustavo Gordillo
Maybe, or, and you know, what I would say is that ultimately those are not the, it's not anywhere near the top list of qualities that we're selecting for or prioritizing because I think a lot of voters understand that if you, if they want to be represented by a grassroots organizer, by, you know, a fellow working class candidate in the halls of power, that person's probably not going to have the sterling media trained background that some establishment candidates, somebody who has wanted to be in elected office since they were a kid.
- [48:42]
Ben Max
That's interesting. That's very interesting.
- [48:46]
Gustavo Gordillo
I think we've seen that, you know, in Maine with Graham Platner who's, well,
- [48:50]
Ben Max
that's, yeah, that's, that's a. Probably an extreme, an extreme case of over.
- [48:54]
Gustavo Gordillo
It is an extreme case, but I think it's, it's shows a disjunction between the, the qualities that the establishment considers important versus the parameters that voters are using to evaluate.
- [49:09]
Ben Max
I'm not following that race closely, but it does seem like the more and more that comes out though about his past. But this is not, not, not social media driven, I don't think particularly. But you know, he does seem to. His, some of his standing seems to be dropping in some of these general election polls that I've seen. But that's maybe for, for another discussion.
- [49:26]
Grace Mauser
I would say we're not worried about that level of things with Dar Elisa well there.
- [49:31]
Ben Max
But you make an interesting point about people who have more of an eye on elected office for a long time, as opposed to being perhaps more of a young, passionate organizer who were tweeting things. Again, some of this stuff can raise questions about judgment. And she's acknowledged mistakes in judgment about how she articulated things on social media. I mean, again, this came up with Zora Momdani's candidacy. There's people who grew up in the digital age here who put things out on social media without thinking too much about what they're putting out in the public domain. But that also shows sort of a commitment on certain issues. And I think this is one of the questions I've asked Ms. Avila Chevalier, which is like, is it about how you say it or is it about the content? You know, I think that's an interesting question and whether people are moving away from some of their positions. Which leads me actually to a question for you both which this came to mind about aoc and it's obviously a very live topic about the mayor, which is this question of moderation. And again, for a DSA elected official, moderation means, you know, moving a little bit more towards a regular progressive perhaps, but you know, on some issues or some stances. But how are you thinking about that and dealing with that? I know New York City DSA just put out a statement with some other groups criticizing the mayor for planning to hire more headcount in the nypd and it not reflecting the values that he ran on when he, when he promised not to do that. How are you thinking about the more elected officials you get into office and questions around needing to make compromises or believing in some moderation because that's the view of where the electorate is at. How are you thinking about that right now?
- [51:20]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, it's a difficult question and one we're constantly grappling with. I mean, we, we are an organization that has a core set of socialist values, but we are also very serious about winning and after we win about governing. And we recognize that governing requires compromise and finding the line of where you are and aren't willing to compromise is extremely difficult. We don't want to be, nor have we been, I think, a marginal organization that just throws up red line after red line so that you're voting no on everything and over time excluding yourself from the governing process. But nor are we willing to capitulate on a number of things. Finding that middle ground is really difficult. I think one of our strengths as an organization is that it's often not up to one individual person to do that. If it was, I think that person would be weak. I mean, people, especially when they're isolated, are extremely fallible. And I'm not speaking directly about any of our officials, but just humans in general. If it was totally up to me all the time about where to compromise and where to draw the line, I'm sure I would make many, many mistakes. But we have systems of organizational democracy and member feedback that kind of help us negotiate those lines. And it's through a lot of political education, many, many years of discussion on how we win and why we win and what we do with power once we have it, that we negotiate where that line is in the case and
- [53:33]
Ben Max
is it different for. Oh, go ahead, please.
- [53:35]
Grace Mauser
Oh, I was just going to say, in the case of the headcount statement, one reason we put that out is because there was a lot of member feedback about that, and not only member feedback, but also organization outside of DSA that were concerned about this. And so we discussed, like, okay, we're really excited that the campaign, or sorry, not the campaign, the administration is creating and funding an Office of Community Safety. We want to support that work. And we also feel that we need to counterbalance a lot of pressure that we know is coming from the nypd, from the conservative business community, from Tisch, her commissioner, Tisch herself, to increase the headcount to empower more police. They're saying, crime is down, let's get more police. And we have to counter that and organize that, because if there's no counter pressures, Iran is only hearing from one side. So that was part of our calculation. And it's not to castigate the mayor, but to say, hey, this is a core value for us. We are going to organize and create pressure around this topic.
- [54:47]
Ben Max
He seems to have realized in the campaign and now into the governing, though, that the issue of crime in both, you know, reality and perception and wherever they diverge, is so essential to sort of how his larger and your larger project is able to proceed. Do you feel, although you obviously criticized, you know, this planned budget move and headcount move, but do you. Do you sort of get that sense, especially with an executive office holder here? Because obviously New York City, DSA has been dealing a lot with legislative officeholders, whether at the city or state level, especially the state level, in recent years, but now to have this executive power is very different. Do you sort of organizationally also see that to, you know, more broadly take on these issues of economic populism and affordability and what the mayor really ran on, on that. There also have to be a lot of compromises made right now around issues like policing and criminal justice reform.
- [55:48]
Gustavo Gordillo
I think that.
- [55:49]
Grace Mauser
Oh, sorry, go ahead, Gustavo.
- [55:50]
Gustavo Gordillo
Having, having those priorities really is helpful for rooting our overall agenda, our attention, our capacity. I think it also, I would say the economic agenda priorities are the areas where the mayor has been most steadfast and principled and that's, I think, created a lot of trust with the public, with the voting base, with our own members and organization. So I wouldn't say that I don't really see him as someone who's moderated a huge amount because on the core agenda that we all really drafted together, he's been very committed. I think we always knew that was
- [56:41]
Ben Max
partly, though, in an original conception of the mayoral race, to not really foreground those issues. Right. I mean, you create a Department of Community Safety, but that's almost like, you know, creating another. Again, it has some significant reforms in a larger vision which he's just begun to work on. Clearly this is going to be a multi year process. Nobody expects, you know, a new mayor to enact their whole agenda in six months. But, but there was a conscious decision even in drafting that agenda. Right. To, to really foreground affordability issues and not as much things like police reform.
- [57:19]
Gustavo Gordillo
Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, we cannot take everything all at once. He certainly cannot. So things, you know, big fights, they have to be secret for them successful.
- [57:31]
Ben Max
Similar question. Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but there's sort of an expectation with New York City DSA that your elected officials will then support your slate of candidates. Now, we talked at the beginning of this conversation about how big your slate has gotten. So maybe, you know, there's some questions about whether, how, how well that can hold together the more elected officials you get into power and then the more races you take on. But that, you know, the mayor at the highest profile, but you have some other of your DSA members who are in elected office who are not backing your full slates. And part of this goes to some of the relationships that people like Antonio Reynoso have. But what can you say about that and how the mayor is taking a pretty careful, you know, he's put a lot of political capital on the line in some ways and then he's taking a more careful approach on some of the state legislative, legislative primaries. What's going on around that? And is that a source of tension, frustration? Are you trying to rethink Some of that, or do it differently in the next election cycle. Where. Where's that. That sort of system at?
- [58:39]
Gustavo Gordillo
You're right that our members have voted repeatedly to ask our elected officials to endorse our full slate every. Every cycle. And this cycle was no different. We asked all of our elected officials to make a full slate endorsement. Most of them did. We asked the mayor as well. He was no exception. Right now, though, I would say our priority is electing the full slate. We've only got a few days left, and I think we'll reassess after. After election day.
- [59:13]
Ben Max
Did you understand his reasoning, which I assume is to not make more enemies in the state legislature and, and, you know, to be. He's sort of. He's sort of playing a. You know, he has to. To the point of compromise. He has to decide where to pick his political battles a little bit differently now as mayor. Is that. I mean, is that fair to say? Do you understand that? Were you very frustrated by his choice here?
- [59:36]
Grace Mauser
We both understand it and are also frustrated by it. Right. Both. You know, we. We saw, close up, the negotiations that he had to do with, you know, the, The. The three men in a room with Governor Hogle.
- [59:53]
Ben Max
Three people in a room.
- [59:54]
Grace Mauser
Three people in a room, yes. Sorry, you couldn't see me. I was doing air quotes.
- [59:58]
Ben Max
No, no, I figured I, I was doing that. I was. I was helping out there.
- [60:01]
Grace Mauser
Yeah. Governor Hogel, Senate Majority Leader Stuart Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Hasty. And it's widely known that Hastie is extremely defensive of his incumbents. And Zaran made a calculation that to keep Hasty as an ally in future budget negotiations, he wouldn't endorse against those incumbents. Now for dsa, of course, we can't grow our block in Albany if we just continue to wait for open seats. Nor can we make a statement about incumbents who are doing bad things. Jennifer Rajkumar, who David Orkin is running against, comes to mind as a. A prime example of an incumbent who not only votes incorrectly, but is, I think, pretty clearly corrupt. How. So? We understand it and we're also frustrated by it because it. It is not. It is not a sustainable way to grow the movement at a state level. So we're hoping that that shifts in future years.
- [61:17]
Ben Max
Sorry, I just have to ask, what do you mean by Assemblymember Rajkumar is clearly corrupt? Because, I mean, I'm not. I'm not quite sure what that's a reference to.
- [61:27]
Grace Mauser
Oh, of course. Yeah. Well, this was unfortunately overturned and I think a somewhat dubious process in a court but there's. There was quite a bit of evidence that she was forging signatures on her petitions this year. There were many people who were deceased that were on her petitions. There were signatures that were our volunteers. Very highly educated, like, politically educated people who would certainly never sign a. Gotcha.
- [62:01]
Ben Max
That's what I thought that was a reference to.
- [62:02]
Grace Mauser
I wasn't sure.
- [62:03]
Ben Max
Yeah, okay. Gotcha.
- [62:03]
Gustavo Gordillo
Gotcha.
- [62:05]
Ben Max
Yeah. I mean, I don't know the ins and outs of that. And obviously there are things that. That can happen on campaigns with those types of, you know, signature gathering work that are not the candidate or the elected official directing that. So I just want to, you know, be a little careful because we don't really know if that was.
- [62:22]
Grace Mauser
I think you have to be more balanced than.
- [62:24]
Ben Max
No, no. Right.
- [62:25]
Gustavo Gordillo
Fair.
- [62:25]
Grace Mauser
No.
- [62:25]
Ben Max
And that's why I'm asking about. Okay. But anyway, so. Okay, so.
- [62:28]
Grace Mauser
Right.
- [62:29]
Ben Max
So the mayor can't get in there. I don't want to keep you guys too much longer here, but I was actually about to ask you not about that specific race in Queens, but I was about to ask you each if you wanted to name just one of your, I don't know, higher priority or most bellwether state legislative races. We obviously can't go through your whole slate at all here, but is there one race that you're each particularly sort of looking at as a very important DSA contest in this primary for the state legislative races here? Gustavo, anything top of mind for you. I know you. You love all your children equally, but, you know, anything particular that you would. That you're, like, really invested in and want to see, you know, your candidate prevail in the state legislative races?
- [63:16]
Gustavo Gordillo
I think Conrad Blackburn has probably the hardest race of almost any of our candidates running against Jordan Wright in an area where we're really trying to expand our footprint. So he also happens to have a very strong campaign. I think he has the most volunteers out of any of our state races or are up there. So I'm eager to see how he does.
- [63:38]
Ben Max
Grace?
- [63:40]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, this is difficult. I. I will quickly just name name two because it's our second bite at the apple for both of them. But Ian Huntley came close and lost in 2024. He's running in bed sty against Stephanie Zinnerman. So hopefully he. He gets across the finish line this time. And then Christian Celeste Tate running in Bushwick in East New York and Cypress Hills. We've taken a run at Delon before. Eric Delon. Julia took out his dad, of course, in 2018. And I would love to see us put kind of an end to the Delon political dynasty and get Christian the win.
- [64:24]
Ben Max
Some of what you just referenced, particularly the Huntley race, also gets though to some of these bigger political proxy battles, which I was actually going to reference the fact that the mayor has sort of made a decision to not upset Assembly Speaker Carl Hasty, but he's done probably a little bit more to frustrate potential next House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries by endorsing against, you know, two sitting members of his Democratic conference in Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat. But at the same time, the mayor also previously helped make sure that Chiose the City Council member didn't challenge Jeffries directly. So there's a lot of different dynamics at play in that relationship. And also the fact that there are all these central Brooklyn races being contested at different levels of government. It's become like uptown in Manhattan, areas of significant demographic change and gentrification and issues around affordability and questions around who is a New Yorker and transplants versus newcomers and all of this that we don't have time to get into now. But some really, really interesting them. Anything I said there that you want to quickly touch on? Because I don't want to keep you too, too long.
- [65:42]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, I mean, we didn't primary Hakeem Jeffries and Mayor Mamdani certainly actively participated in our decision making process around that. But we are in, for lack of a better term, surrounding him. Right. Jabari Chi Once we get Ian in there, all of the down ballot reps and Hakeem's home base of Bed Stuy will be socialists and hopefully that, that exerts pressure on him and moves him in a way to be more, more bold when he's fighting Trump and leading the Democratic Party and Congress and that.
- [66:21]
Ben Max
Do you think he's movable? He seems, he seems, he seems like he sort of wants to dig in and fight. He doesn't. I don't know how movable he is on.
- [66:32]
Grace Mauser
I mean, that's, that's one strategy. We didn't run against him in 26, but it's not a guarantee we'll never consider it again. 28 and 2030. So if he's the House speaker, I
- [66:45]
Ben Max
understand you want to move him, but is that a good enemy to have? Is that a good. This is, I mean, these are such interesting calculations.
- [66:54]
Grace Mauser
I think Hakeem Jeffries may be an enemy of dsa. No matter how many overtures we make, he really does not like dsa. But these are all things that we talk about pretty openly in our strategizing. And, you know, a lot of people voted not to endorse XI against Hakeem because we were worried about ways that he could make Iran's first year very, very difficult. But the balance of power might change and Zoran's second, third, fourth year. So we'll just have to evaluate those conditions as they come.
- [67:31]
Ben Max
Last two things. One, any concerns about the early voting numbers? We've seen there's been interesting reporting in Gothamist about some of those early numbers, comparing them to 2025, which again is, as the article even notes, not, you know, nobody's expecting turnout like a mayoral race for these congressional and state races, in part because there's only one statewide primary on the ballot for comptroller on the Democratic side, which is not thrilling, you know, not exciting, a lot of voters to come out. So there's, you know, no gubernatorial primary to sort of lead things. There's areas of the city that don't have have, you know, competitive primaries for races. So, of course, turnout would be down in some areas. But are you looking at your own internal dsa, you know, numbers and your canvassing data and things like that? Do you have any concerns about voter turnout and what that means for as we talked about earlier in this conversation, sort of replicating as much of, from your view as possible of the Mamdani coalition coming out to vote?
- [68:29]
Gustavo Gordillo
Yeah, you know, turning out out young voters to the polls is one of our core tactics. It's, you know, fundamental to our strategy. So we were in fact, very alarmed at the beginning of this week when voters under 50 were only turning out, you know, 56%, 59% in New York 7, for example. But we put in a number of changes to our strategy internally. We had several emergency all member calls calls and the, the numbers seem to have improved every day. And yesterday was our best day yet. New York 7. At least 76% of the electorate yesterday was under 50. So I'm, I'm optimistic going into this final weekend.
- [69:21]
Ben Max
And I wonder if overall, though I understand that point about young voters and obviously being much less dependable, but overall, aren't there ways that your operation perhaps lower voter turnout than maybe some people might have expected coming out of the mayoral race favors some of your candidates? I'm not really totally sure what to make of it because the Mamdani coalition was even well beyond, you know, anything that was sort of seen as the DSA coalition. Right. So, I mean, there might be drop off there, especially perhaps in certain more moderate Areas of the city, perhaps. But does lower turnout in some ways maybe favor you in. In some areas?
- [70:06]
Gustavo Gordillo
In my experience, you know, over the past multiple cycles, yeah. Lower turnout is almost always worse for us.
- [70:15]
Grace Mauser
Okay.
- [70:15]
Gustavo Gordillo
Okay.
- [70:16]
Ben Max
Yeah. I didn't know if that had changed a little bit given your, your get out the vote operation and how so many voters will not turn out traditionally for, you know, some of these off year midterm elections, so. Wasn't sure about that. Gotcha. Okay. Lastly, personally, do either of you have a favorite in the New York 12 primary in Manhattan? I'm just curious. DSA is not playing in this race. The Mayor Mandani has stayed out of this race. But do you see Michael Lasher, Alex Boris, Jack Schlossberg, George Conway, Nina Schwelbe? Anybody else who's on the ballot as the most sort of progressive, nearest socialist? Mamdani Ally, Best of the bunch.
- [71:07]
Grace Mauser
I was talking, a friend asked me for a recommendation and, you know, I was like, I. I don't know, man. I think I, I. Based on one of the debates that I caught, it seems like Nina has the, the boldest ideas that I feel the most aligned with. But I also know she is trailing by quite a bit. Schlossberg seems chaotic and I don't quite know what to make of him. And I, I don't fully trust his, his political instincts. And then I, I don't have a strong opinion between Boris and Lasher, frankly, so I'm happy that I don't have to have an opinion in that race.
- [71:58]
Ben Max
Gustavo, any thoughts on that?
- [72:00]
Gustavo Gordillo
Someone I respect a lot politically is working for Boris, but I really can't say much more than that.
- [72:07]
Grace Mauser
Okay.
- [72:09]
Ben Max
All right. I appreciate all the time and thoughts here. Anything we didn't touch on that, that either of you wanted to mention. I know we touched on a lot, but anything. There's, there's lots of things on my list here we didn't get to. Because you can only get to so much. But anything worth shouting out here in
- [72:25]
Grace Mauser
a final moment, I mean, if you're, if your listeners are inspired or interested even in any.
- [72:32]
Ben Max
Not a canvassing pitch. No, no, no.
- [72:34]
Grace Mauser
I mean, look, that's, that's what we do. They should be.
- [72:38]
Ben Max
I opened the door for that. I know.
- [72:39]
Gustavo Gordillo
I opened the door. Yeah.
- [72:45]
Ben Max
All right. Well, I appreciate all the time and thoughts. I do want to have you back when we're turning from the elections towards the new year and governing, because one thing I didn't get to here was sort of how you're thinking about the next bite at the apple at the Albany session. I know you we alluded to it or touched on it briefly at different times when talking about some of the stakes of these state legislative races. But I do think think there's a lot of interesting ground to discuss in terms of why, as I believe Gustavo mentioned early on, the effort to win tax increases only showed the Piedra terra tax that you mentioned and was otherwise a struggle in the governor's election year. While the mayor was relatively standing down on a lot of that, he wasn't abandoning his call for higher taxes, but he could have probably exerted a lot more pressure on the governor publicly. I'm interested about your thoughts on that as we head to next year, but we'll talk about that another time. Grace Mouser, Gustavo Gordillo, thanks so much for the time and thoughts. Really appreciate it.
- [73:49]
Grace Mauser
Yeah, thank you, Ben. Good to talk. It.