New York's democratic socialist sweep is a warning for USA | Opinion

Three Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates beat establishment Democrats in New York City's June 23 primary, winning with the backing from the city's democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier won in the 7th and 13th Congressional Districts for the U.S. House. Aber Kawas won in the New York State Senate District 12.

Brad Lander, a former DSA member, also won his Democratic primary for the 10th Congressional District, defeating U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman.

These candidates are so extreme that even members of their own party are denouncing them.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, posted on X: "Anti-Israel. Anti-America. Anti-Western Civilization. Why am I the only Democrat in the U.S. Senate that refuses to excuse this or defend any of those self-identified communists?"

New York Attorney General Letitia James blamed Mamdani for blowing up the Democratic Party with these results. "Some 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," James told CNN.

James is right that electing socialists is damning for a party that still claims to represent center-left voters. But I'd go further: What happened in New York isn't an aberration ‒ it's evidence of a larger trend, with Democrats drifting further left than at any point in recent memory. Conservatives have warned about this for years. The question now is whether the Democratic Party will finally listen.

This won't stay contained to New York. It will spread to other blue cities. In a country built on liberty, free markets and personal responsibility, electing multiple socialists to prominent office should set off alarm bells, not just for Democrats and Republicans, but for any American who wants to preserve Western values.

Democratic socialists in plain view

The new primary winners hold views many Americans would consider well outside the mainstream, even for the Democratic Party:

• In a campaign ad, Mamdani, Avila Chevalier, Lander and Valdez vowed to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "block billionaires from buying our elections" and "stand up to bad landlords and greedy corporations."
• In 2017, Kawas told a panel that the 9/11 attacks were America's fault, the result of "capitalism and racism and White supremacy ... and Islamophobia."
• In a May 4 post on X, Valdez said New York police shouldn't collaborate with ICE, calling it "a rogue federal agency terrorizing our neighborhoods." "Abolish ICE," she said.

Avila Chevalier is the most radical of the three democratic socialists:

• Before the primary, in an interview, she would not say that murderers should go to prison.
• After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, she attended a rally in Times Square where protesters burned an Israeli flag.
• As a college student, she cofounded Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which in a 2024 social media post described itself as "fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization."

Electing someone with this record to represent one of America's most important states is a genuine blow.

The only consolation is that these races were won with incredibly low turnout, fueled by young, idealistic New Yorkers who unabashedly embrace socialism as a net good and by highly educated elites who can comfortably advocate for policies whose consequences are unlikely to affect them in real life.

Republicans saw this coming, Democrats didn't

Still, as abhorrent as these views and statements are, Republicans have seen this coming, while Democrats appear shocked that these politicians exist and carry weight among voters, much less grasp how worrisome this is for American ideals.

It's no secret that socialism has grown more popular. A Gallup poll found that 66% of Democrats view socialism favorably, while only 42% have a favorable view of capitalism.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, both espouse ideas that are common in socialist countries but not in the United States, where capitalism reigns. Yet Sanders and AOC are treated as leaders of the Democratic Party.

Even so, the Democratic Party wasn't alarmed when then-Vice President Kamala Harris ran for president on economic plans that echoed socialist ideas ‒ including up to $25,000 in down payment assistance for homebuyers and a federal ban on grocery price gouging.

Now, Graham Platner has won the 2026 Democratic Senate nomination in Maine despite a chest tattoo resembling a Nazi insignia. Has no one in Democratic leadership read a history book?

Given how popular socialism is among young people, the Democratic Party may not be all that surprised by the takeover of New York.

If there's a caveat, it's that the left's decade-long obsession with Donald Trump got in the way of clarity. Liberals have spent years calling the president a fascist, a "dictator in chief" or just like Hitler. Yet many of the same people leveling those charges have spent that decade embracing Marxist socialism themselves, ushered into power by wealthy elites and college graduates who see themselves as the cure for the "scourge" of free-market capitalism.

I've previously argued that New York should let Mamdani and his democratic socialist agenda run their course, on the theory that voters won't like how higher taxes, rent control and "free" groceries and transit play out in practice. But the truth is that socialist ideas are contagious: They spread, and they're now taking hold among some of America's best and brightest.

New York's election results should serve as a wake-up call. Candidates who embrace socialism are no longer on the fringes of American politics. They're winning elections and gaining real influence within one of the nation's two major parties.

The question is no longer whether socialism has a foothold in American politics. It does. The question is whether Democratic leaders are willing to admit it before these ideas spread far beyond New York City.

Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and get it delivered to your inbox.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New York's democratic socialist sweep is a warning for USA | Opinion

Reporting by Nicole Russell, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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This story was originally published June 26, 2026 at 1:03 AM.