Issue 6

Primary School

— 6 min read

Issue #6

June 30, 2025

Outside $ Tracker

AZ-07

Results

New York

Holy shit, you guys.

You’ve probably heard the basics of what I’m about to tell you by now: Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist from Queens, stunned New York City and the world with his thrashing of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in last week’s Democratic primary. Seemingly everyone came in to help Cuomo, from the bosses of the Brooklyn, Queens, Harlem, and (tacitly) Bronx Democratic Party machines, to most of New York City’s major labor unions and many of its US Representatives, to national Democratic heavyweights like Bill Clinton and Jim Clyburn, to an exorbitantly-funded super PAC that blew $30 million and change on ads promoting Cuomo and slamming Mamdani as an inexperienced, antisemitic radical. None of it mattered, as Mamdani’s positive, social media-heavy campaign, relentless focus on affordability, and friendly alliance with fellow progressive and third-place finisher Brad Lander resonated with voters all over the city—not just the corridor along the East River waterfront where DSA candidates like Mamdani traditionally excel, but deep into central and eastern Queens, Upper Manhattan, and the East Bronx; Mamdani even won neighborhoods on conservative Staten Island, and performed respectably in establishment-friendly, homeowner-heavy Black neighborhoods where candidates like him are often lucky to break double digits. (Mamdani did, however, well and truly collapse in the city's very wealthiest precincts—the co-ops and supertall skyscrapers of the Upper East Side and Midtown near Central Park.)

Mamdani now faces a potentially competitive general election with Cuomo, Mayor Eric Adams, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, and centrist independent Jim Walden—but Cuomo’s air of inevitability has been punctured, his commitment to a general election bid is now questionable, and many of the major organizational players that backed Cuomo (or other primary candidates like Lander) are coming around to Mamdani rather quickly. We appear to be in a new era in New York City politics—and its name is Mamdani, M-A-M-D-A-N-I.

I’ll have fuller thoughts on New York in July after ranked-choice voting tabulations are run and we know the winners of every election. (First, my longer-form thoughts on New Jersey, which are already a work in progress.)

Elsewhere in New York, the Working Families Party achieved a clean sweep in the three upstate mayoral races where it took sides. In Buffalo, state Sen. Sean Ryan defeated acting Mayor Chris Scanlon for the Democratic nomination; after his defeat, Scanlon dropped his plans to run on a third-party line and endorsed Ryan, and third-place finisher Garnell Whitfield also dropped his third-party plans. Albany City Auditor Dorcey Applyrs, backed by the WFP and progressive area politicians, trounced ex-Republican eldercare company executive Dan Cerutti by a nearly 2-to-1 margin for the Democratic nomination to lead New York’s capital city. And in Syracuse, WFP-backed Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens got a commanding 62% of the vote against a pair of Syracuse Common Councilors, one of whom, Patrick Hogan, had the backing of much of the area’s Democratic establishment. Progressive councilor Mary Lupien lost badly to incumbent Rochester Mayor Malik Evans—but the WFP sat that race out, allowing them to preserve an unblemished record in major New York Democratic mayoral primaries this year.

VA-11

Through no one’s fault but my own, I accidentally set the reminder to write the VA-11 preview as if the election was on a Tuesday, even though I myself have written in this newsletter about the Saturday, June 28 election date. Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw, the chosen successor of the late Rep. Gerry Connolly, won with just under 60% of the vote in a low-turnout primary which was nevertheless the highest-turnout firehouse primary in Virginia history. Walkinshaw, a centrist backed by millions in corporate and crypto money, will likely make the Democratic caucus worse, not better; this election result is a loss for the left and anyone who isn’t a crypto fanatic.

News

CT-Gov

After Gov. Ned Lamont vetoed a pair of bills passed by the Democratic legislature—one to spur affordable housing production and another to allow striking workers to receive unemployment benefits—at least one legislator is angry enough to be talking openly about a primary. State Rep. Josh Elliott entered politics by taking on the then-speaker of the state House (who ultimately retired rather than face Elliott), and that same spirit seems to have prompted him to make a promise: “Let me assure you, if he decides to run again, he will not run uncontested.” State Sen. Saud Anwar also wrote an op-ed calling for the governor to quit and encouraging primary challengers to make moves towards running. Elliott tells the Hartford Courant that Mamdani's win is already making many rethink what's possible in Democratic primaries—and it can't hurt that Lamont made a late, rambling endorsement of Cuomo.

IL-Gov, IL-Lt. Gov.

Gov. JB Pritzker, seemingly one of the few Democrats who remembers his job is to loudly and consistently oppose Donald Trump as well as govern, announced he would seek a rare third term as governor next year, even as a potential presidential bid looms and his two-time running mate Juliana Stratton is now busy with a Senate campaign of her own. It’s unlikely Pritzker faces serious primary opposition, and the more interesting question is who will replace Stratton as Pritzker’s running mate.

IL-09

Civil rights attorney Howard Rosenblum, a Deaf activist and longtime leader in disability advocacy, has joined the crowded race for Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s open Chicago-area seat. Already in the race are Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, state Sen. Laura Fine, progressive journalist and influencer Kat Abughazaleh, Skokie school board member Bushra Amiwala, and activist Miracle Jenkins. If elected, Rosenblum will become the first Deaf member of Congress.

According to a new poll paid for by Abughazaleh, taken before Rosenblum’s entry into the race and also testing a number of names who may not be running, Biss leads the field with 17% to Abughazaleh’s 10% and Fine’s 8%. (One of those names tested is state Sen. Mike Collins, who is very much interested in a run but has yet to announce formally.)

IL-17

Montez Soliz, a deputy chief of staff to Illinois state Rep. Amy Murri Briel and a former staffer to U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, appears to have filed with the FEC to run for Congress against Democratic incumbent Eric Sorensen, who has represented this awkwardly-shaped Democratic gerrymander since winning his first race in 2022. The district is a roughly C-shaped mess, with Rockford (the home of both Sorensen and Soliz) on the northeastern end, the Illinois side of the Quad Cities metro in the western bend of the C, and Peoria and Bloomington towards the southeastern end of the C. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris all won this swingy but blue-leaning district, and in what is likely to be a Democratic year the Democratic nominee should be favored here.

MO-01

Former Rep. Cori Bush may be interested in returning to politics after her narrow loss to now-Rep. Wesley Bell in 2024’s Democratic primary, but she reportedly doesn’t have a firm timetable for making a decision on whether she’ll seek a rematch with Bell. Bell was buoyed by a flood of AIPAC spending, and the organization would likely spend once more to keep Bush from returning to Congress if she went for the rematch.

NJ-01

According to the New Jersey Globe, Rep. Donald Norcross’s April hospitalization was more severe than previously known, at one point requiring heart pumps to prevent cardiac arrest. Despite this, the 66-year-old from Camden seems set on reelection—and, in fairness, his condition, a sudden gallbladder infection which asymptomatically progressed to life-threatening sepsis, was entirely unrelated to his age. As the Globe notes, however, it hits especially close to home here in New Jersey, where two of the state’s long-serving Democratic representatives, the late Reps. Donald Payne Jr. of Newark and Bill Pascrell of Paterson, died after sudden illnesses last year.

PA-03

Missed last week: prominent Philadelphia Democrats including pro-charter school state Sen. and state Democratic Party chair Sharif Street and state Reps. Morgan Cephas and Chris Rabb are not saying no to the idea of running for Rep. Dwight Evans’s congressional seat, which takes in most of West Philadelphia, all of Northwest Philadelphia, and Center City. Evans suffered a stroke last year and has been slowly recovering.

RI-Gov

Boston Globe’s Rhode Island columnist Dan McGowan says state House Speaker Joe Shekarchi is likely to spend the summer making a decision on a gubernatorial run. With Democratic Gov. Dan McKee already unpopular and hobbled by a narrow plurality win after 2022’s contentious Democratic gubernatorial primary, Shekarchi isn’t the only candidate eyeing a challenge—former CVS executive Helena Buonanno Foulkes, who lost to McKee in 2022, is already raising money for a run. As McGowan notes, Shekarchi is more of a back-room dealmaker than the kind of fighter Democratic voters increasingly say they’re looking for—but the same could be said of McKee and Foulkes.

VA-08

75-year-old Rep. Don Beyer announced his reelection bid mere weeks after the death of his colleague and district neighbor Gerry Connolly.

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