Mayor Mamdani Flexes His Power in the Midterms

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Daily — "A Major Victory for Insurgent Democrats"
Date: June 25, 2026
Host: Rachel Abrams
Guest: Nick Fandos (Political Reporter, The New York Times)

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Overview

This episode unpacks the stunning results from New York's congressional primaries, where candidates endorsed by Mayor Zoran Mamdani—a rising, insurgent force from the party’s left—won a clean sweep. The discussion explores how Mamdani’s risky intervention shifted local and national politics, what drives this movement within the Democratic Party, the potential perils for Democrats heading into the midterms, and whether the left’s momentum in blue districts could disrupt party strategy nationwide.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mayor Mamdani’s Gamble and Its Context

• Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and movement politician who recently became New York’s mayor, took the unprecedented step of endorsing a slate of left-wing Congressional candidates.
• Previous mayors avoided intervening in contentious local primaries to preserve political capital, but Mamdani was “willing to put all of his on the line for a series of candidates from the left” (Nick Fandos, 02:23).

2. The Candidates and Their Races

• Brad Lander vs. Dan Goldman (Brooklyn/Lower Manhattan):
  • Lander, also a former mayoral rival, ran against incumbent Dan Goldman, who had stronger Israel ties and did not endorse Mamdani for mayor.
  • The Israel issue featured prominently, with Lander positioning himself as a sharper critic than Goldman.
    • “Goldman has been critical of Benjamin Netanyahu... but he’s drawn a line at calling what’s happened in Gaza a genocide… Lander was willing to do those things.” (Nick Fandos, 05:40)
• Claire Valdez vs. Antonio Reynoso (Velazquez’s old district):
  • Mamdani pushed the first political ally to endorse him, Claire Valdez, over the outgoing Rep. Velazquez’s preferred successor, deepening divides within his own coalition.
  • The contest drew clear lines between gentrifying, white left-leaning newcomers and the established, often working-class, communities of color.
    • "It drives a kind of geographic line through the district... between the young, very left, maybe DSA-inclined voters... and the old guard of the neighborhood." (Nick Fandos, 10:24)
• Darializa Avila Chevalier vs. Adriano Espaillat (Upper Manhattan/Bronx):
  • Mamdani initially promised to support the incumbent Espaillat but ultimately endorsed Avila Chevalier, reneging on a backstage deal and provoking establishment outrage.
  • Avila Chevalier’s controversial social media history became campaign fodder, underlining cultural divides on issues like deportation (“all deportations are bad”) and party loyalty.
    • “Her history as an activist left her with a trove of inflammatory and polarizing tweets... Among the most prominent was one where she basically said, all deportations are bad.” (Nick Fandos, 14:30)

3. The Risks for Mamdani

• By backing these candidates, Mamdani risked alienating both establishment allies and portions of his original coalition, especially communities that had been unified in his mayoral run.
• “If these candidates end up losing... he has really alienated people who supported him... he has potentially damaged his coalition.” (Rachel Abrams, 15:12)
• The gamble paid off—remarkably—giving the left a clear and convincing local mandate.

4. The Political Aftershocks

For Mamdani and New York City

• Kingmaker Status:
  • “He may be a political kingmaker in New York... his political capital can be transferred to other candidates and give them a real shot at winning across the city.” (Nick Fandos, 18:21)
  • “He is willing to take risks.” (Nick Fandos, 18:43)

For Democrats Nationally

• Implications for Leadership:
  • New left-aligned representatives might withhold support for Democratic leaders like Hakeem Jeffries in leadership votes.
  • “They could become real thorns in his side in Washington.” (Nick Fandos, 19:41)
• Platform Shift:
  • Expect a stronger platform for anti-corporate, tax-the-rich, anti-Israel-stalwart policies in the national Democratic debate.
  • This may alienate swing district voters but also energize disaffected or nontraditional turnout groups.

The Party’s Dilemma

• Progressive energy vs. swing-district peril:
  • Republicans quickly seized on the DSA’s gains, warning of “communists and socialists” infiltrating Congress.
    • “Republicans have shown they are very adept at taking the extreme comments... and saying… you’re voting to empower a party that is so crazy and outside of the mainstream.” (Nick Fandos, 23:55)
  • National Democrats worry about motivating moderates and swing voters, fearing backlash against the party brand.
  • Mamdani’s supporters argue these progressive messages tap into real frustrations and could broaden the party’s appeal to the politically disengaged.

5. Historical Parallels and What Comes Next

• Comparison to GOP Populist Takeover:
  • “There was a very similar situation on their [the Republican] side… After losing a series of elections, there was a faction who came in and said, we’ve got it all wrong... And they went on to start winning races.” (Nick Fandos, 26:41)
• Midterms as the Next Test:
  • Whether the movement’s anti-establishment, far-left energy will attract new constituencies or repel moderates remains the central question for the 2026 midterms.
    • “The midterms will give us one answer...the presidential election that’s waiting...will give an even bigger one.” (Nick Fandos, 27:47)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He decided he was going to put all of his on the line for a series of candidates from the left… pretty extraordinary gamble just six months into his term.”
  — Nick Fandos (02:23)

• “It drives a kind of geographic line through the district... between the young, very left, maybe DSA-inclined voters... and the old guard of the neighborhood.”
  — Nick Fandos (10:24)

• “Mamdani is jeopardizing the very coalition that he worked so hard to build.”
  — Nick Fandos (11:14)

• “If these candidates end up losing... he has potentially damaged his coalition for the next time he might want to run.”
  — Rachel Abrams (15:12)

• “He may be a political kingmaker in New York…”
  — Nick Fandos (18:21)

• “New York might just have been the opening bell.”
  — Nick Fandos (27:47)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:23] Mamdani’s gamble: context and what was at stake.
• [03:55] How Mamdani built and leveraged his movement post-mayoral victory.
• [05:19] The Israel issue and Mamdani’s criteria for endorsements.
• [10:24] Coalition fracturing and demographic splits within the left.
• [13:37] The backlash from breaking political promises; the scale of establishment pushback.
• [15:49] Victory margins: all three insurgent candidates win handily.
• [18:21] Implications for Mamdani’s power and the city’s political landscape.
• [19:41] National repercussions—how Congress and leadership splits may be affected.
• [23:55] Concerns about the national party’s brand and Republican response.
• [26:41] Parallel to Tea Party/Trump revolt inside the GOP.
• [27:47] How the midterms and presidential race will test the left’s appeal.

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Final Thoughts

This episode provides a rich, nuanced look at the raw power and risks of movement politics, the transformation of party coalitions, and the enduring tension between insurgency and electability. Mayor Mamdani’s willingness to risk—and win—has upended New York’s Democratic establishment and reverberates nationally, heralding a potentially transformative period for the party as it barrels toward the midterms and 2028 presidential cycle.

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Transcript

[Capital One Announcer]

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[Rachel Abrams]

From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is the Daily

[Claire Valdez]

Good evening everyone. What a good evening it is.

[Rachel Abrams]

On Tuesday, a blowout in the New York primary cemented Mayor Zoran Mandani as a local king maker.

[Claire Valdez]

What you all have shown this evening, whether for state assembly, state Senate or Congress, he said a year ago it was not the end of a political movement, it was the beginning.

[Rachel Abrams]

All of his chosen candidates won and their victories pointed to a growing movement within the Democratic Party.

[Nick Fandos]

Bsa, bsa.

[Rachel Abrams]

Today political reporter Nick Vandos explains whether their victories help Democrats in the midterms or put their chances of winning control of Congress at risk. It's Thursday, june 25th. Nick Fandos, welcome to the Daily.

[Nick Fandos]

So glad to be here.

[Rachel Abrams]

Mayor Mamdani is having a very good couple of weeks, it seems.

[Nick Fandos]

Yeah, an incredible couple of weeks. The Knicks are NBA championships. The World cup, his beloved sporting event, is taking place just across the river in New Jersey. And this week the mayor made a pretty audacious political gamble in a series of important congressional races in New York City, and he won every single one of them.

[Rachel Abrams]

So okay, as much as I want to talk to you about the Knicks, you are here to talk about Tuesday's election results. And I want to understand what these results in New York's primary tells us about the strength of Mayor Mamdani, of course, this rising political figure in the Democratic Party, but also what these results mean for the national political picture. So first, let's just talk about what were the results on Tuesday night.

[Nick Fandos]

So on Tuesday night, voters across New York City went to the polls in a series of very competitive congressional primaries. Now in New York, a very Democratic city, the primaries actually are the elections that end up deciding who is going to fill these seats. And Mayor Mamdani did something unusual in these elections where his predecessors have tended to try and stay out of local politics of the kind of bitter inner party fights that could divide their coalition or zap their political capital. He decided he was going to put all of his on the line for a series of candidates from the left, many of them Democratic socialists who share his vision for the city and he thought could win these seats in Congress for their movement. This is a pretty extraordinary gamble just six months into his term. If he succeeded, it would give him a foothold in Congress where he could inject the economic populist ideas from the left, his views on Israel and other issues into the national conversation that Democrats are having right now about their identity. But if he lost, he'd be squandering a lot of his own political capital. He'd be empowering people who are trying to stand in his way. And frankly, I think he'd make even some of his allies think this guy's not as strong as we thought. Maybe we don't need to go along with what he's talking about.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay, so you've just explained sort of the gamble of it. Let's talk a little bit about how he decided to take the risks that he did.

[Nick Fandos]

So to answer this, I wanna go back all the way to last year's mayoral campaign.

[Rachel Abrams]

Right?

[Nick Fandos]

Mamdani was a little known state lawmaker. He was a Democratic socialist. He was the kind of guy that when he got into the race for mayor, nobody thought he could win. And a year ago this week he did in remarkable fashion. He beat Andrew Cuomo, this titan of Democratic politics. So from the start, it's important to remember that Mamdani is an insurgent politician and he's a movement politician. By the time last fall comes around and it's clear he's going to be elected mayor in the general election, he's already looking ahead to this year's races to figure out how can I expand that movement.

[Claire Valdez]

New York, we know anything's possible with a great team.

[Nick Fandos]

I'm Brad Lander and I'll block billionaires from buying our elections. The first candidate he identifies is Brad Lander. Now, Lander was actually a fellow mayoral candidate who Mamdani had beat. But then they locked arms to take on the Democratic establishment. And Mamdani said to him, as the election is coming to a close, you know where we could use you most would be running for Congress. Why don't you run in the Brooklyn and lower Manhattan seat where you're from against Dan Goldman, who was a Democratic incumbent, a former federal prosecutor, but crucially did not endorse Mamdani in last year's election and historically has pretty close ties to Israel, which has become one of the animating issues obviously of the mayor's political movement.

[Rachel Abrams]

Isn't it kind of bold of Mandani to take on an incumbent politician in this way?

[Nick Fandos]

Absolutely. But in this case, Lander had a long track record in this district, and I think both of them knew that, that he had a very good shot of beating Goldman and flipping this. And crucially, Lander was willing to do something that Goldman never was, which was.

[Claire Valdez]

Good evening.

[Nick Fandos]

Welcome to New York 1's debate for the 10th congressional district. Both these guys consider themselves liberal Zionists. They're both Jewish. And Goldman has been critical of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government. But he's drawn a line at calling what's happened in Gaza a genocide. Israel is not the most important issue in this district. What is most important, and he's not completely denounced groups like aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, even if he didn't take their money in this election, Lander was willing to do those things. He voted for every US military aid package to Israel. He won't recognize it as genocide. He's never used the word occupation to describe. He was willing to be much more vociferous in his criticism of Israel and in separating himself from the kind of pro Israel political forces in the United States. And for Mamdani, that was crucial.

[Rachel Abrams]

Wow. That really shows you how divisive Israel has become.

[Nick Fandos]

That's right. But the way that he made this a campaign issue and that he figured it would resonate with the voters in a district that he's known for a very long time was to basically say that Dan Goldman is beholden to a special interest. He is taking money from the pro Israel lobby. He is taking money from corporate interests, and that is affecting the way that he represents you in Washington. And that was a pretty powerful critique at a moment, I think, when a lot of Democrats are thinking about the entrenched interests of money and corporate power in the United States. So it took this rather small distinction and made it a bigger one where he could differentiate himself.

[Rachel Abrams]

And all of what you've just described, of course, jives with Mamdani's positions when he first ran for mayor.

[Nick Fandos]

Absolutely. But his intervention here also started to raise another question, which is basically, how involved is Mamdani, this new mayor, who's gonna be trying to govern an ungovernable city, as people like to call New York? How involved is he gonna get in politics? And we start to get some answers pretty quickly. Last fall, in one counterintuitive move, he actually intervened to shut down a primary challenge by an ally of his in the DSA who was looking to challenge Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader. And after his private warnings to this OW I didn't get through. Mamdani actually showed up at a public forum and made a case for why it would hurt his maritalty and their cause to go after Jeffries in that way to pick such a big fight.

[Rachel Abrams]

So he's basically telling the guy to stand down.

[Nick Fandos]

Exactly. And so that might have been where this all ended. But in late November, one of Mamdani's allies in Congress, Nydia Velazquez, who's been there for 30 years, announces unexpectedly that she's going to retire. There's going to be a lot of people interested in this seat. I believe you've said there's no heir apparent.

[Antonio Reynoso]

I want to see a strong, independent, progressive public servant.

[Nick Fandos]

And the district that she represents is one of the city's farthest left. It's also the place that Mamdani ran up the largest margins anywhere in the city. And so when she retires, he sees a once in a lifetime opportunity to put one of his allies into that seat and expand his foothold in Congress beyond just Lander. It's too good to pass up. As it happens, Mamdani had someone very particular in mind. A young assembly woman named Claire Valdez, who had been his first endorser in the race for mayor and a fellow Democratic Socialist. Velazquez didn't know her at all.

[Antonio Reynoso]

It is what it is. I have a lot of respect for the mayor, and I guess that we disagree this time.

[Nick Fandos]

She felt Mamdani blindsided her and was meddling in the race. She ends up backing another candidate, the Brooklyn Borough President, Antonio Reynoso.

[Antonio Reynoso]

Knowing my district, knowing my communities, I decided to step in and endorse Antonio.

[Rachel Abrams]

And why did he prefer his candidate, Valdez over the handpicked successor from Velasquez?

[Nick Fandos]

It's a great question. And on paper, there's not a huge amount of difference in these two candidates in terms of policy. They both want to abolish ice. They both have called what happened in Gaza a genocide. They both support raising taxes on the rich, as the mayor does. But Valdez comes out of the mayor's political movement. Remember I said he's a movement guy. She was with him on day one when very few people were.

[Claire Valdez]

Claire was there. If you look at photographs of the New York Left over the last eight years, a canvas in 2018, UAW picket

[Nick Fandos]

line, and he felt basically, yeah, that guy's progressive. I like him. But Claire is my candidate.

[Claire Valdez]

And now we need to be able to do everything we can to get her across that finish line.

[Nick Fandos]

And what follows is this really Fascinating race that drives a kind of geographic line through the district and through Mamdani's coalition, where on one side you have young, very left, maybe DSA inclined voters who are more often white and college educated than their neighbors who have moved into this district over the last 10 years. And on the other side, you had Reynoso and Velasquez, who represented and were appealing to kind of the old guard of the neighborhood, the large Puerto Rican and Dominican populations that grew there, the working class black populations, the other immigrant populations in neighborhoods that have not gentrified in quite the same way.

[Rachel Abrams]

Which is so interesting because here's Mamdani, a candidate who had attracted both of those groups, now driving a wedge between the two of them with his endorsement of Valdez.

[Nick Fandos]

Right. And so Mamdani is jeopardizing the very coalition that he worked so hard to build. And it might have stopped there, actually in another year, but he kept going because as the spring progressed, he had his eye on another district. This one was in upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. It's a heavily Latino district. It's got a big black population. But similarly to the race, we were just talking about a gentrifying white community that's coming in and changing parts of that district. Now, the interesting wrinkle here is that initially, Mamdani stayed out of this race because he had actually promised the incumbent, Congressman Adriano Espaillat, that he would be with him. Esplat had given Mamdani a key endorsement during the mayoral race, brought along Latino support that he needed at the time. And in private, we've reported they had a handshake deal. The mayor said, I'll return the favor if you ever need it. And so, even though his allies on the left were lining up behind a challenger to Espailant, a woman named Darieliza Avila Chevalier. Mamdani initially stayed on the sidelines, but as the spring progresses and Avila Chevalier is picking up momentum as the DSA endorses her, he starts thinking to his I can't stay on the sidelines of this. She's got a real shot of winning. And if she doesn't win and I stay, well, that could be on me. There's an opportunity with my popularity in that district, with the resources I can bring to it, that I can help push her there. So he decides to add her to his slate, the third candidate. And this is the decision more than any other, that really makes the Democratic establishment, black and Latino Democrats, labor unions go ballistic because they say it's one thing to go against an incumbent like Dan Goldman in a district that he's out of step with, it's another to compete for an open seat and upset the outgoing congresswoman. But to go after the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the first formerly undocumented immigrant in Congress, someone who actually is objectively pretty progressive on every issue except for Israel, and that's key. Is a bridge further. I mean, that is much more provocative.

[Rachel Abrams]

And somebody that Mamdani had given his assurances to that he would support in this very race.

[Nick Fandos]

Precisely. And so a lot of them look at that and also say, what good is the mayor's word if he's gonna go back on it here? How can we trust this guy going forward? So now, with three districts now in play, this fight just kind of keeps growing outward. So labor unions become very involved. Prominent New York Democrats like Jeffries, who are close with Espaillatt, get involved. They start campaigning on the ground. Super PACs start dropping millions of dollars for and against candidates on both sides of the race. The mayor throws himself aggressively into the slate. And it's worth noting he has gone way above and beyond what even an endorsing mayor might do in a race.

[Claire Valdez]

We need Claire Valdez, Darialisa, Avi La Chevalier, and Brad Lander fighting for us.

[Nick Fandos]

He's been raising money. He's been offering strategy advice. He was out on the campaign trail in the final weeks.

[Rachel Abrams]

Back and forth.

[Nick Fandos]

Exactly. He held a big rally with Bernie Sanders. Some of it, frankly, gets ugly. Avila Chevalier, who is a PhD student and relatively untested. It turns out that her history as an activist left her with a trove of inflammatory and polarizing tweets. Among the most circulated were tweets that attacked the Democratic Party. In one of them, she said F. Kamala Harris and other ones expressed policy positions that were really far outside of the mainstream. So, again, among the most prominent was one where she basically said, all deportations are bad. We shouldn't be removing anybody from this country under any circumstance.

[Rachel Abrams]

Clearly, very out of step with the majority of Americans.

[Nick Fandos]

Exactly.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay. I can see why you described all of these as risks. And Mamdani's taking a big gamble in this race, because if these candidates end up losing, not only has Mamdani not installed his allies in Congress, he has really alienated people who supported him in his initial race for mayor. He has potentially damaged his coalition for the next time he might want to run. And never mind the fact that he has made it harder for him to

[Nick Fandos]

accomplish his agenda and made some pretty powerful enemies.

[Rachel Abrams]

Sure. And of course we know in the end, gamble pays off. Mamdani had a huge victory on Tuesday night because all of his candidates won.

[Nick Fandos]

All of his candidates won. And I just want to add in convincing fashion, Lander won by almost 30 points, Valdez won by about 20 points, and Avila Chevalier had a narrower margin, but somewhat comfortable four points over a powerful incumbent. They were margins so big that even Mayor Mandani and his allies were surprised, and so big that they sent shockwaves that went not just throughout the five boroughs of New York City, but frankly, well beyond and right now are rattling the foundations of the Democratic Party.

[Rachel Abrams]

We'll be right

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[Nick Fandos]

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[Antonio Reynoso]

Every day.

[Nick Fandos]

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[Nick Fandos]

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[Antonio Reynoso]

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[Rachel Abrams]

Nick, I want to talk about what this clean sweep that we saw from the DSA actually means. So let's start small and go big. So first, what does it mean for Mamdani and his agenda here in New York City?

[Nick Fandos]

I think that for the mayor, one of the most important things that this election showed is is that he was no fluke. In fact, he may be a political kingmaker in New York that his political capital can be transferred to other candidates and give them a real shot at winning races across the city.

[Rachel Abrams]

It's interesting that a guy who essentially ran against the establishment, who derided the whole idea of kingmakers, has now become one.

[Nick Fandos]

Yeah, I think he would say, I'm not a kingmaker, I'm a movement leader. But I think kingmaker is an apt term. I mean, this is someone now who seems to be among the most popular political figures in New York, as his own team would say. He has a huge amount of political capital, and he's not afraid to use it. I think that's the other thing that this has shown us. He is willing to take risks. And in this case, the risk paid off. And he not only now has new allies, but he also has other Democrats in the system, people in the City Council, people in Albany, the governor, who are seeing that his political power is real and they're gonna have to respond to it. And so when they get into fights about his agenda, about how to pay for childcare, about whether to raise taxes, you can really bet that going forward, he's gonna be coming in with a stronger hand.

[Capital One Announcer]

Right.

[Rachel Abrams]

What about on the national level, though, Nick? Cause we know in Congress, Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader, he has been focused on winning control back from the Republicans. So what does he make of all of this?

[Nick Fandos]

For Hakeem Jeffries, there are very specific implications and much broader ones for his party. Specifically, two of the candidates in this race, Avila Chevalier and Valdez, have not committed to backing him in a leadership fight next year when he's trying to become speaker. They could become real thorns in his side in Washington. But I think that the bigger implication, both for Jeffrey's politics in New York City and in Washington, is that this is going to give the left a much bigger platform. The Mamdani left, specifically to advance its ideas at a time when Democrats are really in this big national argument about what they want to be as a party. And Mamdani and his allies have a very specific vision. It's anti corporate power. It's big government, it's tax the rich, it's pay for social services to help working people. And it's pulled the United States away from its alliance with Israel. And on each of those issues, now, they're going to be speaking in a louder way and in a way that, frankly, may cause problems for Jefferies as he looks towards the midterms this fall, where races are not gonna be won and lost in deep blue New York City, but in swing districts across the country.

[Rachel Abrams]

But this new wave of progressive Democrats, they obviously represent a lot of frustration that Democrats have with the Democratic Party, with Democratic leadership. And that's gotta be on the minds of some of the more establishment Democrats, of course. And I wonder whether it's possible to pull apart how much we saw on Tuesday could be attributed to that frustration and how much can be attributed to the pull of Mamdani, as you have described it.

[Nick Fandos]

I think there is no doubt, as we've been watching primaries play out across the country this year, and frankly, ever since Donald Trump was elected, the Democrats are really frustrated with their leadership. They're frustrated that they lost to Trump in the first place, and they're frustrated that they have not been able to stop him from enacting much of his agenda over the first couple of years. And so in any election like this, I think there is a degree to which voters are coming out to vote against the status quo. They're gonna look at any candidate that's backed by leadership and be against them. And that's gotta be concerning for Jeffries, because if that spreads across the country enough, he could end up with an unruly caucus or nominees and close contests that can't win against Republicans. But I also think that there is something undeniably particular happening in New York City where Mamdani, who is in some ways a product of that discontent himself, is. Is also able to kind of harness it and put a frame around it and direct that energy behind a particular alternative. And so what I think he did in these races that was risky but also powerful was by associating himself so much with these other candidates, he was kind of able to link together races that might otherwise have been sleepy, disparate primaries, fought about different things and make them all kind of a referendum on what the Democratic Party is right now. His version versus the status quo. And so that kind of amplifies both the discontent and it offers a particular alternative and tries to put some force behind it so that it can become more relevant in national politics. And New York City, of course, is in some ways an anomaly, but in some ways, it has often been a leading indicator in politics. I mean, this is the place, after all, where Jeffries is from. But so is Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority leader. And it's the place that in 2018, Alexandria Ocasio Corte won her own surprise Democratic primary against Joe Crowley and launched basically a progressive movement that did meaningfully push the Democratic Party left and led to all kinds of incumbents falling across the Country. So I think anyone who doesn't take this seriously does so at their own peril.

[Rachel Abrams]

Okay. I understand how all of these dynamics play out in places that are very blue, where it's basically Democrat versus Democrat.

[Capital One Announcer]

Right.

[Rachel Abrams]

But just looking forward to the midterms, the very far left politics that these candidates won on, I wonder how that might translate to races that are much tighter in places that are purple, for example. Right. Or saying something like, I don't believe in deportations is really going to turn off voters potentially.

[Nick Fandos]

I think this is a question a lot of Democrats are asking today. And those who are on the winning side would say, well, they're going to help us. The Democratic Party is losing across the country because regular people are not into our ideas. They think we're not fighting for. We think we're not committed to the right issues and we're trying to push the party towards a place that we think it can win. Now, a lot of those people are not actually living in the kind of districts you're talking about out in the suburbs of New York or in the middle of the country, in the Midwest, wherever it may be. And the candidates running there, I think look at these results and are a little worried. Republicans have shown they are very adept at taking the extreme comments of lefties in New York City or Chicago or LA and broadcasting them all over the country and saying, you may think you're voting for this reasonable, moderate candidate, but you're voting to empower a party that is so crazy and outside of the mainstream. They're going to do X or Y or Z. They want a lot of communists to come in.

[Capital One Announcer]

I'm saying it.

[Nick Fandos]

And that's exactly what we started to hear from Republicans just hours after the election results became clear. The people that they're pushing are communists. And this country is not going to have communists. President Trump himself, Speaker Mike Johnson in the House, the Democrat Party, the socialists, the Marxists, have nominated some of the most radical candidates to ever run for office. And they're running for Congress, warned that Marxists and socialists like those in New York City, we're going to be cropping up all over the country. The insurgent left is on the rise.

[Rachel Abrams]

Right. If these DSA members end up working against the Democratic brand nationally in the midterms, and that could actually feel like a loss for Mamdani. Right. Like he could get blamed for taking a big risk on these candidates that is then seen as backfiring.

[Nick Fandos]

I think that is certainly a risk for him, but I think to give the mayor his Say what he would allow is that he's probably gonna get blamed and attacked anyway. He's already one of the most visible left leaning politicians in the country. And so why not take a big swing at trying to push the party to a place where he thinks he might actually help them by advancing ideas that he really believes are not only attractive to many Democrats, but also can be attractive and persuasive and activating to people who have either been turned off by the political process altogether or maybe voted for Republicans who feel like basically the system is not working for them. The people who frankly, he was able to bring out in large numbers in his mayoral election who don't typically vote or in some cases had voted for Donald Trump for president and then came around to support him.

[Rachel Abrams]

Does this, Nick, feel to you like a potential mirror of what happened on the right, which is that populists took over the mainstream of the Republican Party?

[Nick Fandos]

I think in many ways there are similarities. I mean, whether you look at the Tea Party after President Obama was elected, or you look at Donald Trump's rise in the 2016 Republican primary, there was a very similar situation on their side. After losing a series of elections, there was a faction within the Republican Party who came in and said, we've got it all wrong. We've got to change drastically if we're going to win across the country. And they went on to start winning races and we find ourselves where we do now. Democrats right now are trying to figure out how do we get our mojo back? And I don't think we're going to have a true answer for a couple of years until we have candidates on the presidential debate stage and vying for the attention of the entire country.

[Rachel Abrams]

It sounds like the big question going into the midterms is basically whether the far left views of these candidates that might be seen as turning off a lot of moderate voters, whether that will push more people away than the broadly popular economic and anti Israel messaging, frankly, that we have seen that might attract them.

[Nick Fandos]

The midterms will give us one answer to that question. And I think that the presidential election that's waiting right behind it will give an even bigger one. Because Democrats, not just here in New York, but in races from Maine to Michigan to other places, are testing out their tolerance right now for ideas and labels that previously would have been seen as outside the mainstream, that might have been seen as disqualifying and deciding. Is that something that we like? Is that something we're willing to tolerate because of the energy and dynamism and the freshness of what they're bringing to the table? Or or do we want to retreat to something more familiar to try and win over our neighbors who are not already on board? And that's going to be a raucous multi stage fight. And so Tuesday night New York might just have been the opening bell.

[Rachel Abrams]

Nick, thanks so much.

[Nick Fandos]

It was my pleasure.

[Rachel Abrams]

Foreign. We'll be right back.

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[Antonio Reynoso]

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[Rachel Abrams]

Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, President Trump plunged Congress into chaos after he abruptly canceled the signing of a bipartisan housing measure demanding once again that Republicans pass highly contentious voting restrictions ahead of the midterms, even though they say they don't have the votes needed to pass. Republicans had hoped that the sweeping housing bill would project a unified effort to address affordability, one of the top issues for voters before Congress headed home for the Fourth of July break. Instead, as the stage for the signing ceremony was being erected in the Capitol, the president blindsided his allies, emboldened critics of the bill and effectively brought Congress to a standstill. And two major earthquakes struck central Venezuela on Wednesday, causing buildings to collapse in the capital and people to swarm into the streets. The first earthquake of 7.2 magnitude was followed less than a minute later by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, according to U.S. monitoring agencies. The stronger Quaker was the largest at the country since 1900. Neither the scale of the damage nor its human toll was immediately clear, but given the earthquake's power and the large number of vulnerable buildings in the stricken region, fears of a widespread disaster were high. Today's episode was produced by Jack Desadoro, Stella Tan and and Asta Chaturvedi. It was edited by Paige Cowett and Patricia Willins. Contains music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker and Rowan Nie Misto. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the Daily I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.

[Capital One Announcer]

This podcast is supported by the Capital One Venture X Card. Venture X offers the premium benefits you expect, like a $300 annual Capital One travel credit for less than you expect. Elevate your earn with unlimited double miles on every purchase, bringing you one step closer to your next dream destination. Plus, enjoy access to over 1000 airport lounges worldwide. The Capital One Venture X Card what's in your wallet? Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capitalone.com for details.