\n \u201cWe are showing that last June, a year ago tomorrow, was not an anomaly,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cIt was not the end. It was the beginning.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The wins signify how New York politics and the Democratic Party have a new power broker. Hakeem Jeffries, the Brooklyn-based House Democratic leader, is losing two incumbent members and facing an ascendant band of agitators. And the people long in charge in Democratic politics, including the ones who for decades thought of themselves as the insurgents, aren\u2019t happy about it.\n <\/p>\n
\n They say they feel betrayed, left with a mayor they cannot trust. Around the city council, people who considered themselves his allies are sharing a line, according to one member who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity: Mamdani is only interested in allyship on his terms. Council members are talking about ways to give Mamdani his comeuppance, whether holding up funding for parts of his agenda or smaller ways of needling him.\n <\/p>\n
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\n Mamdani and those closest to him say: This is what a revolution looks like, on his terms. He elevated a former campaign volunteer in Avila Chevalier, with a long record of inflammatory tweets<\/a> and attendance at a widely decried rally<\/a> the day after Hamas\u2019 October 7, 2023, attacks, and propelled her toward Congress over the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.\n <\/p>\n \n That\u2019s even after Espaillat endorsed Mamdani last year after his primary victory over Cuomo when other Democrats wouldn\u2019t. Two people familiar with the mayor\u2019s thinking say that he was initially skeptical of Avila Chevalier\u2019s chances to win. But in a quietly convened City Hall meeting of democratic socialists and other allies, he decided to get on board.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMayor Mamdani is modeling a different kind of politics \u2014 not billionaire-funded or consultant-driven, but one that champions the needs of working people. That is precisely what New Yorkers are asking for, it\u2019s what his endorsed candidates stand for, and it\u2019s why this slate won tonight,\u201d Mamdani communications director Anna Bahr told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n Asked after the race was called for Avila Chevalier, giving Mamdani his trifecta, if the mayor would work to rebuild bridges after these primary fights or now people would have to come to him, Bahr\u2019s response was a succinct text: \u201c:).\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Mamdani, an avowed New York Knicks fan, posted a clip<\/a> of superstar guard Jalen Brunson speaking at the team\u2019s recent championship celebration.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that have a lot of negative stuff to say. There\u2019s a lot of people who have a lot of opinions,\u201d Brunson says in the clip. \u201cBut when you prove them wrong, you don\u2019t have to say shit to them.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Not long after Mamdani won last year, Jeffries delivered a message to Mamdani advisers, according to two people familiar with the matter: If they were going to come after any incumbent Democrats, he said, come after him.\n <\/p>\n \n At first, Mamdani didn\u2019t do that. To the consternation of some allies, he interceded directly to head off a brewing Jeffries primary challenge from city councilman Chi Oss\u00e9, rallying the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America against a politician who\u2019d been a friend and supporter.\n <\/p>\n \n Then Mamdani went on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d and said clearly that he wanted Jeffries to become speaker if the Democrats take the majority in the House.\n <\/p>\n \n Asked on Tuesday morning why he thought Mamdani was willing to go after others and not back his potential bid, Oss\u00e9 told CNN, \u201cI don\u2019t have an answer on that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Rep. Dan Goldman, who declined to endorse Mamdani last year given his anti-Israel views even as Goldman\u2019s district overwhelmingly voted for the mayor, was already in Mamdani\u2019s sights. Mamdani told another democratic socialist city councilwoman not to run because he would be backing Brad Lander, who ran for Congress after he didn\u2019t give Lander the job he originally wanted as first deputy mayor.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI guess easy enough for him to make Brad my problem, not his problem,\u201d Goldman told CNN outside a polling place in Brooklyn a few hours before polls closed.\n <\/p>\n \n For all their past issues, Mamdani threw himself into Lander\u2019s campaign. Less than an hour after polls closed, he was on stage with Lander, celebrating a very lopsided win.\n <\/p>\n \n The race for Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s seat was more fraught.\n <\/p>\n \n Vel\u00e1zquez backed Mamdani early in his primary campaign and was cheered as she spoke at his boiling-hot primary victory party last June. Now asked if she regretted supporting him, the congresswoman said she only supported his agenda and saw him as the better choice at the time.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHe made a strategic error of judgement not to see what it means to have relationships at the different levels of government. For a city that relies on federal funding and the state, you try to expand your tent, not diminish it because you\u2019re going to need help from everyone,\u201d Vel\u00e1zquez said.\n <\/p>\n \n The outgoing congresswoman at first wanted a woman to succeed her \u2014 specifically, a woman of Puerto Rican descent, like her. According to multiple people familiar with what happened, Mamdani was clear that two people who fit that bill with deepest ties to the district, city councilwoman Tiffany Caban and state senator Julia Salazar, were not acceptable because despite their own DSA ties, they\u2019d initially been skeptical of his mayoral run, worried he would lose and set the democratic socialist project back.\n <\/p>\n \n As he did, Mamdani warmed to Claire Valdez, a one-term assemblywoman without much of a legislative record but who\u2019d been out early for him in the mayoral race. He knew by then that Velazquez would be backing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.\n <\/p>\n \n Mamdani kept asking Vel\u00e1zquez to hold off in going public for Reynoso, including the day before an interview he had conducted was published in which he was endorsing Valdez, which he didn\u2019t tell her about.\n <\/p>\n \n Vel\u00e1zquez found out about the endorsement the next morning. She canceled a dinner they had scheduled for that night.\n <\/p>\n \n Three months later, Vel\u00e1zquez said she\u2019s still too mad to talk about it.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAll I can tell you is the dinner didn\u2019t happen,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n After Mamdani\u2019s primary win, Jeffries had been dismissive of how much of a threat his political backers would be in congressional primaries with a top adviser last year calling them \u201cTeam Gentrification\u201d to CNN<\/a>. Speaking to CNN on Tuesday before the results came in, the adviser said the elections did not have a broader meaning for Democrats \u2014 but at Valdez\u2019s party, the crowd started chanting \u201cYou\u2019re next!\u201d<\/a> about him.\n <\/p>\n \n Before and after being elected mayor, Mamdani has struggled with many Jewish voters in the city<\/a> over his critiques of Israel. Wounds were reopened among some when at a rally for his three candidates last week, Mamdani suggested the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was among \u201cmonsters,\u201d <\/a>as part of a critique of AIPAC\u2019s spending in political campaigns. He received condemnation from an array of Jewish leaders who accused him of engaging with antisemitic tropes.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhat has emerged with the mayor is he appears to care most about the Middle East, which of course is not part of his job,\u201d Goldman told CNN before polls closed. \u201cBut it seems to motivate just about every single thing he does on a political level, and certainly he has invested much more time in the political aspect of things than in the governing aspect of things. And he is creating an increasingly toxic environment, especially for Jews.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Mamdani may have also done damage with some key Black and Latino leaders.\n <\/p>\n \n One particularly notable critic of his endorsements in Tuesday\u2019s primaries was New York Attorney General Letitia James, a key backer during his campaign.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cSome of the candidates that he has supported are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district, who have not been part of the history and the struggle of some of these districts, and are relatively new to the body politic,\u201d James told CNN, pointing particularly to what she said was Mamdani\u2019s lack of understanding of race and class issues that run deep.\n <\/p>\n \n James said she and other political leaders she\u2019s spoken to are \u201cdisappointed\u201d in Mamdani.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAll of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party. But you don\u2019t blow it up. That\u2019s what MAGA has done,\u201d James said.\n <\/p>\n \n Standing in Brooklyn on Tuesday with James and Reynoso, Jasmine Gripper, the state director of the Working Families Party \u2014 the powerhouse pushing New York politics to the left for 25 years until Mamdani\u2019s win elevated the DSA \u2014 tried to be diplomatic, including when acknowledging the annoyance at DSA supporters who felt the WFP should have gotten behind Valdez and Avila Chevalier.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cDSA has a project to elect socialists. The Working Families Party has a project around building governing power on a broad coalition to deliver for working families. There are times where that project is parallel and aligned and united, and that\u2019s great. And then there are times when we differ,\u201d she said. \u201cI hope we can learn to fight cleaner races. I think this one got a little bit too personal, too dirty. And so I hope that\u2019s a lesson we all learn.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In his last scrapping for votes against Valdez outside a senior center on Tuesday afternoon, Reynoso \u2014who himself entered politics as an insurgent against the longtime Brooklyn Democratic machine \u2014 said he\u2019d spent time thinking about the fork in the road from these elections.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf I win, I think he\u2019s going to have a lot of talking to do,\u201d Reynoso said. \u201cIf we lose, maybe he dismisses us.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n This story has been updated with additional information.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Outside Rep. 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