A Tale of Two Queens?
New York’s 2026 Democratic primary on Tuesday drew a clean line across Queens. In the eastern and northern reaches of the borough, moderate, bipartisan Democrats held their ground. In western and central Queens, as well as across the river in Manhattan and the Bronx, candidates aligned with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists swept incumbents and secured their ticket to the general elections in November.
The incumbent turnover was concentrated in some of the most reliably progressive districts in the country, while just outside of them and in other parts of New York State, the results were inverted. In the 6th Congressional district, Chuck Park, in an attempt to unseat incumbent Grace Meng by running on a similar platform that has powered the left in neighboring seats, lost by 14 points, with current results stable at 57% to 43%. Just further east, on the outskirts of NYC and including large swathes of Long Island, Tom Suozzi got close to 80 percent of the vote in the 3rd district against Danielle Welch, a public defender from Bayside.
In the west, Queens Assembly Member Claire Valdez, a Democratic Socialist, won the nomination to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez in the 7th District, which runs through western Queens into Brooklyn and includes Greenpoint, long the heart of the Polish-American community in the city. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was renominated easily in the neighboring 14th.
Outside of Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx delivered the night’s most consequential upsets. In the 10th District, spanning Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, former City Comptroller Brad Lander defeated two-term incumbent Dan Goldman, who served as lead counsel for House Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment. In the 13th District in upper Manhattan and the Bronx, outspoken and controversial DSA candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier ousted five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in perhaps the biggest upset of the night. Rep. Ritchie Torres held his Bronx seat in the 15th, and Assembly Member Micah Lasher won the crowded Manhattan race to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler in the 12th.
The General Elections to Come
The new crop of candidates in western NYC are expected to handily win their general election races, as their districts contain the most Democratic areas of the country, let alone the city.
Meanwhile, Suozzi, who has built his name on bipartisan deal-making, now faces a November rematch with Republican Michael LiPetri, the candidate he previously beat by two and a half points in 2024, while Meng faces a less competitive race against Joseph Chou, who also previously lost to Meng in 2024 without the party line (Meng won that race 60% to 38% against Thomas Zmich who passed the Republican primary with no opposition in 2024, while Joseph Chou ran under the “Truth Party” and received 2% of the vote).
The split between eastern and western Queens returns suggest less that the city moved left, than that it moved further apart, with progressive areas growing more progressive and moderate ones holding ground. This microcosm suggests that until these new crops of DSA candidates are tested in general elections against Republicans in competitive districts, establishment democrats may be hesitant to adopt their strategies and platforms, wary of trading away competitive swing seats for safer, bluer ones.
One thing to note: voter turnout fell sharply from last year’s mayoral race. The city Board of Elections reported about 420,000 check-ins through 6 p.m. on primary night, compared to more than 1 million votes cast in the 2025 mayoral primary.
The general election is Tuesday, November 3. New York City voters can confirm their registration and find their poll site at vote.nyc, with voter information also available in Polish through the city’s NYC Votes site at nycvotes.org (just use the dropdown menu on the top-right). Nassau County voters can check their status through the New York State Board of Elections at elections.ny.gov.
