House Democrats’ anxiety rises after wins by Mamdani-backed candidates: ‘Are we going to let them take over the party?’

By Sarah Ferris, Ellis Kim, Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — Top Democrats insist that they’re unfazed by the party’s forming a “Zohran Mamdani wing,” after the New York City mayor’s stunningly successful primary night.

But there is growing angst among many sitting congressional Democrats after Mamdani allies won three primaries, including defeats of incumbent Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman. And, most immediately, they worry it will make it tougher to flip the House this year, with Republicans eager to tee up the Mamdani slate’s most controversial positions for attack ads in battlegrounds across the country.

“Obviously, the socialists had a big win last night. The question is, are we going to let them take over the party? Or are we going to stand up and fight back?” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, a moderate Democrat who has criticized Mamdani’s politics and how he’s addressed allies of Israel. “Many of us believe, as I do, that if you’re a socialist, you’re not a Democrat.”

Gottheimer and others worry that Republicans will try to yoke their most vulnerable members to what they see as far-left ultra-progressives — and they worry that it will only highlight Democratic divisions in a must-win election year.

“If you ask me, it was not a good night for New York,” Rep. Greg Meeks, a powerful New York Democrat who is close with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, told CNN when asked about deleted posts from Darializa Avila Chevalier, who defeated Espaillat, expressing support for abolishing police, prisons and borders.

Asked about the fraught relationship between the Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratic Party, Meeks added: “Instead of us making sure we put all of our resources to fight Republicans and to fight Donald Trump, we’re using it to fight each other. It just doesn’t make common sense to me.”

One Democratic lawmaker sitting in a battleground district told CNN that they are so concerned about the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America that they have recently begun having serious conversations with donors about leaving the party altogether.

If Democrats do flip the House, the number of democratic socialists in their ranks is still likely to be a small minority of the caucus. And Democrats remain confident they can still win the House in November.

The House Democratic caucus gathered for a private briefing by their party arm on Wednesday morning, where party leaders presented internal polling showing Trump underwater in key battlegrounds, according to two people familiar with the briefing. No one brought up the Mamdani-backed candidate wins.

The Mamdani-backed candidates who won on Tuesday ran on the same affordability message that the party has embraced nationally, but their victories highlight broader friction over Democrats’ status-quo tactics in Washington — as well as deep divides on Israel.

“Our party nationally will need to reckon with this fact given that what you witnessed yesterday was not an anti-affordability or anti-economic policy strategy that won; it was an anti-establishment strategy beyond messaging that trumped,” a senior House Democratic aide told CNN.

Speaking Wednesday morning in New York City, Mamdani made the opposite argument, though he also connected cost-of-living issues to his longstanding critiques of US military support for Israel, a key issue in all three primaries.

“What we saw last night was a hunger for leaders who will be there on the front lines looking to make it easier for working people to afford life in the greatest city in the world,” he said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Wednesday downplayed fears within his party that the wins could reverberate in battleground districts this November.

“No, Donald Trump has a working relationship with the mayor of the city of New York, and he’s made that publicly and explicitly clear to America, not once but twice in the Oval Office,” Jeffries said.

Jeffries was asked by reporters if Mamdani had made enemies on Capitol Hill.

“Listen, the mayor and I agreed to strongly disagree about some of his endorsements, and he’s got work to do in terms of the conversations that he’s going to have with members of Congress moving forward,” Jeffries, who backed Espaillat and Goldman, told reporters.

Asked if Democratic voters want their members in Congress to be more progressive, Jeffries responded: “I think we’ve got to look at the totality of all 215 members of the House Democratic caucus, and that answer speaks for itself.”

The Brooklyn representative told reporters his relationship with Madmani is “a very good one” and that the pair speak regularly.

Morris Katz, a campaign strategist who is a key Mamdani ally, argued that Democrats can have a “big-tent populist party” that focuses on affordability and “invests in domestic priorities, in schools and in hospitals rather than in wars abroad.”

“I think that we spend a lot more time talking about labels than the average swing voter thinks about that,” Katz told CNN’s Dana Bash. “You see people interact with policies, campaigns, and ideas not predicated on the label they’re applying to themselves, but how are they going to make their lives better?”

And on Capitol Hill, progressives like Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna celebrated Tuesday night’s results.

“It’s a big win for the progressive wing of the party. We are a new party that will call out the genocide, tax the billionaires, and stand up for single payer healthcare” Khanna told CNN. “Our party wants a new generation leaders willing to challenge the status quo and call out the establishment.”

But one longtime Democrat, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, firmly disagrees that the results reflect the mood of the country.

Instead, he said it’s a small minority of Democrats who have run extremely effective campaigns.

“I think we have a lot of more organizing to do on the ground, especially in places like New York and California, places where DSA is is is being more influential, and we need to educate young people, we need to get more people, young people involved on more moderate policies, just the way the other side has, and run strong campaigns,” Gonzalez said.

“I don’t think it should be a concern for people in South Texas, but I think nationally it’s a huge concern, and how they push the policies within the Democratic caucus that we’re going to have to defend,” Gonzalez added. “A lot of these policies that obviously I don’t agree with, and would be very difficult for me to sell to people in South Texas, and I don’t intend to sell them, because I don’t believe in most of them myself.

As for his own reelection, Gonzalez was confident he could still win despite any GOP attacks linking him to the DSA: “I’ve been around long enough that people don’t see me as a socialist. In fact, I get beat up by socialists.”

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