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| AP /YOUTUBE |
For decades Americans were told that mass migration would have little effect on the nation’s political character, and yet New York is increasingly showing that that claim was never true.
Three socialist candidates won their congressional race primaries in New York on Tuesday. All three benefited from the same dynamic that helped propel socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani into office: large immigrant populations.For decades Americans were told that mass migration would have little effect on the nation’s political character, and yet New York is increasingly showing that that claim was never true. The city’s transformation and adoption of socialism have unfolded against a backdrop of decades of demographic change driven by immigrants. Mamdani’s own victory provides the best example, given that data and exit polls are still rolling in from Tuesday’s primary.
Mamdani’s best performances were in neighborhoods with high rates of foreigners and their children. In Queens, where roughly 48 percent of residents are foreign-born, Mamdani saw decisive margins. Jackson Heights, where roughly 60 percent of its residents are foreign born, delivered approximately 60 percent of its vote to Mamdani. Elmhurst and Corona, where roughly two-thirds of the residents in each area are foreign born, also backed him decisively. Bushwick, which is heavily populated with immigrants and first-generation populations, delivered Mamdani another massive win.
Meanwhile, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who challenged Mamdani, performed better with native-born populations.
It’s hard to ignore the reality that Mamdani’s coalition was strongest in the very same areas radically transformed by mass migration, and that same dynamic appears to have helped his slate of endorsed candidates. In New York’s 7th Congressional District, DSA candidate Claire Valdez won in a jurisdiction that’s roughly one-third foreign born, including areas of Bushwick and other areas Mamdani himself did well in. In the 10th Congressional District, former City Comptroller Brad Lander beat incumbent Dan Goldman in a district with large immigrant populations in Brooklyn and parts of Manhattan. In the 13th Congressional District, DSA organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated longtime incumbent Adriano Espaillat in a community with a heavy immigrant population.
Every city that takes in a large number of foreigners eventually sees political change that corresponds with that demographic change. Alexander Hamilton cautioned as much in 1802, saying that foreigners will “entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived.” Even if they “should be led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism?” --->READ MORE HERE
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| invadinginvader/wikimedia commons/cc by-sa 4.0 |
DSA politicians such as Lewis George, Mamdani, and Ocasio-Cortez are in the spotlight today because of the party’s increased mobilization efforts a decade ago.
Janeese Lewis George all but clinched the office of Washington, D.C., mayor on Thursday, after winning the city’s Democrat primary — making her the latest of a slate of socialists who are either running or in contention to run America’s biggest cities.On June 8, supporters chanted, “JLG!” outside the Prince Hall Masonic Temple as they came to vote early in the Washington, D.C., mayoral democrat primary. With more than 90 percent of expected ballots tallied, Lewis George has won 54 percent of the votes, earning the nominee spot after Kenyan McDuffie conceded the election. The Democrat Party has won every mayoral election in D.C. since 1967, after President Lyndon B. Johnson successfully backed a plan to reorganize D.C. government, making Lewis George’s succession to office almost a certainty.
Lewis George, however, is not simply a Democrat. She’s a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and D.C.’s probable mayor-elect, which means Washington, D.C., is about to join a growing list of America’s largest cities governed by DSA party members.
Socialists at the Helm
Perhaps most prominent on that list is New York City, where outspoken DSA member Zohran Mamdani won the mayoral race decisively in November 2025. “What the purpose is about this entire project — it’s not simply to raise class consciousness, but to win socialism,” Mamdani said in a 2021 speech for the Young Democratic Socialists of America. “We have to continue to elect more socialists. And we have to ensure that we are unapologetic about our socialism.”
Mamdani made headlines with his plans to implement failed socialist ideas in NYC, including offering free child care, creating city-owned grocery stores, and cutting $22 million dollars from the NYPD.
About a week after Mamdani’s win, self-proclaimed socialist Katie Wilson secured her seat as Seattle’s mayor. Though not officially endorsed by the Seattle DSA chapter, Wilson modeled her campaign in a socialist spirit similar to Mamdani’s and embraced comparisons to him. She co-founded Seattle Transit Riders Union (TRU) in 2011 and advocates for even more revolutionary socialism.
“I’m a socialist in a way that goes beyond that,” Wilson said in a recent radio interview. “I actually think that we need a really fundamental restructuring of our society and our economy. … I would even say that I’m a Marxist. … Socialism … requires a really fundamental restructuring of life and work and the role of what money actually functions as.”
DSA’s Radical Mobilization
The DSA’s political ascent did not happen overnight but is a result of a silent seizure of power across the nation in the last decade, starting at the local level. According to the DSA National Electoral Commission, between 2016 and 2025, 128 DSA-endorsed candidates won in city, state, and federal elections.
DSA has had a presence in the country since the early 1970s. The party was born out of a merger between the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the New American Movement. Its electoral efforts as the remnants of the Socialist Party of America went largely unnoticed as it grew and its members worked within the Democrat Party to get their preferred candidates elected to office.
This approach shifted dramatically in 2017, in the aftermath of the 2016 election, when the Democratic National Committee rejected DSA-aligned Bernie Sanders as their presidential nominee. That’s when the self-proclaimed “largest socialist organization in the United States since the Communist Party” decided to increase its own odds in taking over the Democrat Party through the expansion of radical-left activism involvement and Marxist educational initiatives. --->READ MORE HERE
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