{"id":122221,"date":"2026-02-04T02:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T02:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/122221\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T02:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T02:58:07","slug":"fellow-dsa-member-will-fill-nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdanis-state-assembly-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/122221\/","title":{"rendered":"Fellow DSA member will fill NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s state Assembly seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 38-year-old Democratic Socialist will take over Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s state Assembly seat after a decisive special election win over two other members of the left-wing group.<\/p>\n

Diana Moreno (D-NY), a community organizer and devout member of the DSA secured 74% of the vote when the Associated Press called the race for Assembly district 36 \u2014 where Hizzoner served from 2021 until his mayoral win in November of last year.<\/p>\n

Moreno easily beat out two challengers, Muslim socialist Rana Abdelhamid and DSA member member Mary Jobaida. <\/p>\n

Other winners in the city\u2019s three special elections on Tuesday were City Council Member Erik Bottcher (D-3), who will serve as a state senator to Manhattan\u2019s district 47, and former City Council Majority Leader Keith Powers (D-NY), replacing Council Member Harvey Epstein (D-2) in Manhattan\u2019s 74th Assembly district.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Diana Moreno will take Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Queens 36th district. Derek French\/SOPA Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Former council majority leader Keith Powers will take over district 47 for newly minted council member Harvey Epstein. Robert Miller<\/p>\n

While ex-council members Bottcher and Powers both coasted to victory over their Republican opponents, Moreno, who was formally endorsed by both Mamdani and the DSA, faced a slightly more crowded field.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The democratic candidate went up against two fellow DSA members \u2014 and found herself in the middle of a political standoff between the mayor and his one-time close ally, Congresswoman Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez<\/a> (D-7).<\/p>\n

The retiring Queens rep. endorsed Abdelhamid for the seat that falls in her district. The move came after Vel\u00e1zquez expressed frustration over Mamdani\u2019s decision not to back her preferred candidate, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso (D-NY), for her own congressional seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHoneymoons are short, and people need to pay attention to the work at hand,\u201d Vel\u00e1zquez told the New York Times<\/a> after Mamdani revealed he was endorsing DSA candidate Claire Valdez despite her wishes. <\/p>\n

Erik Bottcher will serve as State Senator for the 47th district. He is expected to be replaced by his chief of staff, Carl Wilson. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n

Bottcher got an overwhelming 92% stamp of approval from his assembly district, which overlaps with the council district he has served since 2021 and was re-elected to in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bottcher\u2019s Chief of Staff Carl Wilson is the favorite to replace him in a separate special election expected to be held in the Spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Powers, who served City Council\u2019s district 4 from 2018 until the end of his term in 2025, will take over Council Member Epstein\u2019s district in Manhattan\u2019s Lower East Side after winning 82% of the vote over Republican Joseph Foley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 38-year-old Democratic Socialist will take over Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s state Assembly seat after a decisive special election…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1091,47671,57,9,17566,18571,56,63,65,64,38461,58,82],"class_list":["post-122221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-democratic-socialists-of-america","tag-keith-powers","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-state-assembly","tag-new-york-state-senate","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-special-elections","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}