Lame Ducks and Insurgents: How Money Lost to Momentum in New York’s Democratic Primaries

By Hollis Wrayburn, Congressional Correspondent

When the 120th Congress convenes in January, New York City’s House delegation will look more different than it has in decades, and almost none of the change will have come from Republicans.

Two incumbents lost their primaries in June. Two more chose not to run. Across the river, a fifth seat is opening in New Jersey. All five are safe Democratic seats, which means the real elections were the primaries, and the lesson of those primaries is one every member of the delegation has studied closely since: in New York City in 2026, money did not buy safety.

Goldman: $8.7 million and a 32-point loss

The marquee result came in the Tenth District, which takes in Lower Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn. Rep. Dan Goldman, the former impeachment counsel and Levi Strauss heir in his second term, lost to former City Comptroller Brad Lander by 58,047 votes to 29,781, or 66 percent to 34 percent, according to the Board of Elections’ certified return.

The money ran the other way. Goldman has raised about $8.70 million this cycle, according to FEC data, more than three times Lander’s roughly $2.79 million. It did not matter. The race, the BBC reported, laid bare the party’s divisions over the Israel-Gaza war; Goldman was backed by pro-Israel groups, and Lander, who has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, was endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Goldman conceded graciously. “Tonight, the voters of 10th District have spoken. While this is not the outcome I worked so hard for, I respect their decision,” he said. President Trump called him “weak and pathetic.”

Espaillat: the caucus chair falls

The night’s biggest surprise came uptown. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a five-term incumbent and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, lost the Thirteenth District primary to Darializa Avila Chevalier, a doctoral student who has joined pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and who was also endorsed by Mamdani, the BBC reported.

Here too the incumbent had the larger war chest: Espaillat has raised about $2.89 million this cycle to Avila Chevalier’s $1.60 million, according to FEC data. Mamdani described her as a person “of clarity, of conscience and of conviction.”

The open seats: Velázquez and Nadler

In the Seventh District, which runs from Williamsburg and Bushwick into western Queens, Rep. Nydia Velázquez is retiring after more than three decades. Assemblywoman Claire Valdez, a democratic socialist backed by Mamdani, won the primary with 39,626 votes to 25,127 for Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and 4,438 for Council Member Julie Won, per the certified return. Valdez has raised about $1.92 million, nearly double Reynoso’s $1.02 million, FEC data show.

The Twelfth District, Manhattan’s East and West Sides, produced the most expensive and most star-studded contest. With Rep. Jerry Nadler retiring, his former aide, Assemblymember Micah Lasher, won with 41,940 votes to 37,637 for Assemblymember Alex Bores and 11,719 for Jack Schlossberg, President Kennedy’s grandson, according to the certified return.

The money in the Twelfth is the clearest illustration of the year’s theme. George Conway, the conservative lawyer and Trump critic who ran as a Democrat, has raised about $7.10 million, the most of anyone in the field, and won only about 6 percent of the vote, the BBC reported. Schlossberg raised about $4.08 million and Bores about $3.99 million. Lasher, the winner, raised about $3.49 million, according to FEC data, the fourth-largest total in the race.

And in New Jersey

Across the Hudson, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who has represented the Twelfth District around Trenton since 2015, is retiring, opening another safe Democratic seat. And the delegation has already turned over once this Congress: Rep. Analilia Mejia won a special election this spring for the Eleventh District seat Sherrill vacated to become governor.

What it means for the delegation

Add it up and, come January, at least five of the metro area’s safe Democratic seats are all but certain to have new occupants, and three of the New Yorkers taking over, Lander, Valdez and Avila Chevalier, arrive as members of the party’s left flank with Mamdani’s endorsement. That will change the internal politics of the delegation, where Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has spent years balancing the city’s progressive and moderate wings.

Jeffries, for his part, was dismissive of the idea that June marked a turning point. Of Mamdani, he said, “We have agreed to strongly disagree,” and added: “A handful of primaries that go in one direction or the other, in a given state or two, aren’t going to reshape who we are as House Democrats.”

The defeated incumbents remain in office until January, which gives Goldman and Espaillat a lame-duck session to cast their final votes.

For the members who survived, the lesson is more practical. Goldman and Espaillat both outraised their challengers, and Conway outraised everyone. In a city where a mayor’s endorsement and an energized volunteer base can beat a seven-figure advertising budget, the old rule that a fat war chest scares off challengers is not holding. If that holds, the members who survived June should expect company in 2028.

Featured image: Rep. Dan Goldman, official portrait, 119th Congress. Photo by Brendan O’Hara via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.