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Zohran Mamdani<\/a>\u2019s growing influence over the Democratic party was on show in New York City<\/a> on Tuesday as three congressional candidates endorsed by New York\u2019s democratic socialist mayor won closely watched primaries, while voters in Maryland, Utah and South Carolina cast ballots in primaries and runoffs.<\/p>\n Brad Lander, the former New York<\/a> City comptroller who also ran for mayor last year before endorsing Mamdani, won his race comfortably, defeating the Democratic representative Dan Goldman.<\/p>\n Another Mamdani ally, <\/strong>Claire Valdez, a state lawmaker and former union organizer, defeated Antonio Reynoso, the preferred successor of retiring Democratic Representative Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez in New York\u2019s seventh district, encompassing parts of Brooklyn and Queens. And in a stunning upset, the public defense investigator Darializa Avila Chevalier<\/a> toppled Representative Adriano Espaillat, the powerful five-term incumbent who chairs the Congressional Hispanic caucus, in the state\u2019s diverse 13th congressional district, which covers Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat a glorious time to be a New Yorker,\u201d Lander declared at this election night party in Brooklyn, where he was joined by the mayor. Mamdani then appeared at a watch party for Valdez, where he told a jubilant crowd: \u201cThe old politics that got us into this crisis is not the politics that\u2019s going to get us out of this crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a clean sweep for Mamdani, who waded into the House primaries earlier this year, spending his political capital to boost three leftwing allies \u2013 a gamble that would test his popularity and his influence. With his slate of candidates all but certain to be elected to Congress in November, Mamdani has left his stamp on the state\u2019s congressional delegation and expanded his ascendant progressive movement.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the city, <\/strong>Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F Kennedy, was unsuccessful in his bid to revive the political legacy of the US\u2019s most vaunted political family.<\/p>\n In a House race that attracted outsized national attention, Schlossberg, 33, had hoped to parlay his huge social media presence and charisma into a Congressional seat, but he came up short in a crowded field of Democrats hoping to succeed the long-serving representative Jerry Nadler. Micah Lasher, a longtime New York politician and self-described \u201cnerd\u201d<\/a>, won the primary in New York\u2019s 12th district, a deep-blue district whose voters tend to identify as liberal rather than left-wing. The race also included the prominent anti-Trump critic George Conway and state assembly-member Alex Bores, whose candidacy became the fulcrum for what observers described as an \u201cAI civil war<\/a>\u201d.<\/strong> Lasher will be the heavy favorite to win the safely Democratic district in the November midterm election.<\/p>\n Late on Tuesday night, Queens-born Donald Trump<\/a> celebrated the defeat of both Goldman and Conway in a pair of social media posts. \u201cWeak and pathetic Congressman Dan Goldman just lost, BIG! I guess people didn\u2019t like him illegally targeting President TRUMP,\u201d the president said of the congressman, who served as the lead counsel to House Democrats during the Trump\u2019s first impeachment. Of Conway, whose ex-wife was a top adviser to the president during his first term, Trump gleefully predicted that he would \u201cend up at about 5% of the vote in a rather weak field of young and aggressive Communists\u201d.<\/p>\n Though the night highlighted the growing influence of the party\u2019s left flank, moderate Democrats<\/a> prevailed in a handful of districts that will be consequential in November.<\/p>\n On Long Island, the Democratic freshmen representatives Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen easily fended off primary challenges as they prepare to defend their swing-district seats in November.<\/p>\n And in a battleground Hudson valley district, Cait Conley, the former White House counter-terrorism official and army combat veteran, won a competitive Democratic primary to take on the Republican representative Mike Lawler. <\/strong>New York\u2019s 17th district is one of just three across the US that voted<\/a> in 2024 for Kamala Harris for president but elected a Republican member of Congress, and Lawler is considered one of the most endangered members of the House in a year when Democrats hope voters will deliver a strong rebuke to Trump and his unpopular presidency.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one is coming to save us,\u201d Conley said in remarks on Tuesday night. \u201cWe are the cavalry.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, there were signs Trump\u2019s stranglehold on the Republican party remained intact, as Anthony Constantino won the Republican primary in the upstate New York 21st congressional district. Constantino, who was endorsed by the president, faced Robert Smullen, a state assemblyman who was backed by local party officials.<\/p>\n Constantino will be the favorite to win the November election in a heavily Republican seat vacated by the Maga enthusiast Elise Stefanik. Stefanik, who the president nominated for UN ambassador before withdrawing that nomination<\/a>, ended<\/a> her subsequent campaign for New York governor last year.<\/p>\n In Maryland, Adrian Boafo won the extremely crowded primary race to succeed Steny Hoyer, the longest-serving House Democrat and a longtime member of leadership who is retiring at the end of his 23rd term. Boafo, a state delegate, defeated <\/strong>the <\/strong>former US Capitol police officer Harry Dunn, who defended the building on January 6, and businesswoman Quincy Bareebe.<\/p>\n In one of the most expensive House primary races in US history, the Democratic congresswoman April McClain Delaney fended off her predecessor, the former Democratic congressman David Trone, who sought to reclaim his seat in Maryland\u2019s sixth district after an unsuccessful bid for Senate two years ago. In Utah, former congressman Brad McAdams, a political moderate, won the primary to compete in a \u200bn\u200bewly drawn Democratic-friendly district in Salt Lake City\u200b.<\/p>\n