By The Democratic Socialists of America are wasting little time turning a string of primary victories in New York City into a launching pad for the 2028 presidential race.
Fresh off a night in which candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani defeated several establishment Democrats, the DSA has begun a nationwide process to determine who should carry the movement’s banner in the next presidential primary, writes Politico. The effort follows victories by Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, and Darializa Avila Chevalier, with Mamdani joining supporters at Avila Chevalier’s election-night celebration.
The biggest upset came in New York’s 13th Congressional District, where Avila Chevalier, a self-described democratic socialist and DSA member, unseated five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat. She won roughly 49.4% of the vote to Espaillat’s 45.9%, a margin of more than 2,300 votes with most ballots counted. The heavily Democratic district spans parts of Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.
The victory has also renewed attention on Avila Chevalier’s past social media activity. One deleted 2019 post read: “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me,” accompanied by a smiling emoji. Other deleted posts from roughly 2018 through 2022 included harsh criticism of police and prisons, calls to abolish certain institutions, and repeated attacks on then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, whom she described as a “rapist” and “war criminal.” She also attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.
Avila Chevalier has since sought to distance herself from some of those remarks. “I certainly wouldn’t use a lot of the language that I used back then today,” she said, now that she’s a politician and has to lie to the public.
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Even as those controversies continue, DSA leaders are already looking ahead. The organization, which says it has roughly 110,000 members across 250 chapters, is distributing surveys to every chapter this summer asking members to identify their preferred 2028 presidential candidate and explain why. Chapters have until Sept. 15 to submit recommendations, which national leaders will use as the foundation for a broader strategy.
The process is expected to include discussions involving Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders, now 84, is not considered a likely presidential candidate, but he remains one of the movement’s most influential figures. A formal endorsement decision is expected at the DSA’s 2027 national convention, though leaders have indicated they could move sooner if the presidential calendar demands it.
DSA national co-chair Megan Romer argued the movement offers something Democrats have failed to provide in recent elections.
“What DSA represents is a real contrast to Democrats who have run the last couple of elections on fear,” she said. “You can’t run on that. You have to offer an alternative. And it’s really important that we be involved in that conversation in 2028. It’s important that we have somebody saying sensible things.”
Romer said any eventual candidate must emerge through a grassroots process rather than a top-down endorsement.
“We’re going to be talking about millions of hours knocking doors for 2028 — so when we decide to really run somebody, people have to feel like they had a say,” she said.
Mamdani has likewise made clear that, in his view, the race for the next Democratic nomination has already begun.
“They ask, ‘Who do you want to run in 2028?’ Then they ask, ‘When does the race for 2028 begin?’ It starts now. It starts on Tuesday,” he said at a Brooklyn rally before the primary.
One of the names already generating discussion is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, though she has announced no presidential plans. Romer emphasized that even the New York congresswoman would have to compete for the organization’s backing.
“She will have to sell her campaign and why DSA should throw down behind it,” Romer said. “We don’t do kingmakers.”
The relationship between Ocasio-Cortez and the national DSA has not always been smooth. In 2024, the group’s leadership briefly conditioned an endorsement on her positions regarding Israel, creating friction with the New York chapter, which had already endorsed her.
Still, Romer suggested the membership could ultimately rally behind the congresswoman.
“If it reveals that every chapter is like, ‘We want AOC, we want AOC’ — that’s something that could come out of this process,” she said. “And if that seems to be the overwhelming case, then that may be what we decide to do. We want to get in on the ground floor. It would be really great to be a day-one part of a campaign.”
Although Mamdani has become one of the movement’s highest-profile figures, he is constitutionally barred from running for president because he was not born in the United States. Romer said that has not stopped some supporters from joking about the idea.
“Some people are like, let’s just run him — let’s just cause a constitutional crisis,” she said, describing the proposal as a running joke whose seriousness varies among participants.
Bhaskar Sunkara, the former DSA vice chair and current president of The Nation, said the New York results marked a turning point.
“The sheer scale of what just happened in New York is historic,” he said. “Nationally, this is a massive boon for the democratic socialist movement. The old institutional left is hollowed out — DSA has proven to be the only real mobilizational force left on the ground.”
At the same time, Sunkara acknowledged the movement still faces challenges beyond major cities.
“A national map includes deep-red and rural districts where the left still has to figure out how to speak to working-class voters and compete,” he said. “Having national platforms through multiple members of Congress is a start there too.”
Romer described the years following 2018 as a difficult period for the movement because of the pandemic, the Biden administration, and the 2024 election cycle.
“The squad dropped off a bit,” she said. “2022 was a really, really tough year for left politics.”
Progressive commentator Hasan Piker, who campaigned for the DSA-backed slate in New York and had been a proponent of “microlooting” to attack capitalism, said Ocasio-Cortez is currently his preferred choice for 2028.
“That could change, 2028 is far out,” he said. “But that’s what I got so far.”
For DSA leaders, however, the immediate objective is clear. Rather than waiting for the next presidential cycle, they hope to use their New York victories to push the Democratic Party further left through continued primary challenges while positioning themselves to play a far larger role in selecting the party’s 2028 nominee.
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