Full text
Brad Lander, an ally of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, won the Democratic primary in a progressive New York House district on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, in a race that hinged largely on the candidates’ different stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
With 53 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Lander, a former city comptroller and mayoral candidate who has criticized Israel’s war in Gaza, was almost 30 points ahead of the incumbent, Representative Dan Goldman, a pro-Israel former federal prosecutor who helped lead the first impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
Mr. Lander benefited from his deep roots in the 10th District, which covers Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. His victory makes him the likely winner of the general election in November.
Mr. Lander, 56, was one of three progressive primary candidates endorsed by Mr. Mamdani, with whom he has had a political alliance since last year’s Democratic mayoral primary.
The two men began as rivals, but cross-endorsed each other as the primary date closed in, saying they wanted to work together to keep former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo from winning the nomination. Their alliance has elevated them both — Mr. Mamdani to City Hall, and Mr. Lander to the cusp of a congressional victory.
Mr. Lander reflected on the decision to team up with Mr. Mamdani during a televised debate last week, saying it had modeled a new kind of politics for New York.
“It unleashed a nice sense of solidarity,” he said on the debate stage. “People said to me, ‘Wait, you mean politics doesn’t have to be a sour, selfish ego trip — it can be a team sport for the values you share?’”
Among several closely watched primaries across the city and state, the contest in the 10th District was notable for the degree to which it was dominated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both Mr. Lander and Mr. Goldman are Jewish and describe themselves as liberal Zionists, but they approach the issue in very different ways.
Mr. Lander has spent decades in the world of progressive Jewish activism, working with organizations like Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and cofounding the New York Jewish Agenda, a left-leaning group.
He has also been a longtime player in Democratic politics in New York City, and entered the primary with a committed base and a groundswell of good will in the district.
He spent many years running a community development organization in Park Slope, then served on the City Council for more than a decade representing several of the congressional district’s neighborhoods. After he left the Council, he served as city comptroller, during which time he chose not to repurchase State of Israel bonds that had matured.
Mr. Lander has been an outspoken critic of Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, which began after the Hamas-led terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Mr. Lander has backed claims by human rights groups and a United Nations commission that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, frequently using that word on the campaign trail, and has said he supports legislation to block U.S. military aid to the country until it meets human rights standards.
Mr. Goldman’s views hew more closely to the longtime status quo in American politics regarding the U.S.-Israel relationship. He is a critic of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, but has said he supports continuing to provide the military aid that underpins the decades-long alliance between the two countries.
And he has said he does not believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza or that its treatment of the Palestinians can fairly be described as apartheid — another word Mr. Lander frequently uses — calling them ideologically charged terms.
Mr. Goldman accepted the endorsement of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a hard-line pro-Israel lobbying group increasingly shunned by Democrats, but was also endorsed by J Street, a more liberal pro-Israel group.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/nyregion/ny10-primary-lander.html


Brad Lander’s liberal Zionism, in particular, is obviously irksome, but the fact that DSA totally swept these primaries is certainly impressive.
We’ll see what happens once they’re in office, but It’ll at least be fun to watch chuds foam at the mouth about it, even more than they already were ¯_(ツ)_/¯
How is DSA winning a primary when a liberal Zionist Democrat is who won.
Edit: my question was rhetorical and I think folks have a misunderstanding so I’m bumping this here: Lander is not a DSA candidate. He’s a liberal Zionist Democrat, he’s been a Democrat for ages. His only proximity to DSA is that he endorsed Mamdani and Mamdani endorsed him.
So let’s interrogate what it means to say the DSA swept.
because america doesn’t have political parties, DSA doesn’t run for seats under their own name, and they try to parasitize the democrats’ institutional access but aren’t doing ideological entryism thinking they’ll change democrats as a whole.
it’s cool they’re mobilizing a bunch of people, it would be cooler if they used that outside of elections to do anything.
Lander isn’t DSA at all what are you talking about. Lander is just a liberal Democrat.
This isn’t a case of “using the party to get ballot access”. At all.
i imagine it’s “dsa sweep” on the headline because of his history with mamdani
Yes I think it’s literally just that Mamdani-endorsed candidates won
This correct. The majority of DSA supports the so-called, “Dirty Break” strategy, where they’ll break from the Democrats at some point in the future, while parasitizing them in the short term, and the conversion of DSA into a party now seems to be the majority position in the org, with various steps taken in that direction.
NYC-DSA, in particular, is an electoral machine. It’s impressive, but there definitely needs to be more going on. And to be fair, DSA is also engaged in a ton of labor and tenant organizing, through its associated mass organizations EWOC and ETOC, but that kind of stuff just doesn’t get the same kind of air time, or focus as I think it should.
EWOC is a weird beast. While nominally a joint project with DSA there are instances with no DSA members and that actively avoid association with DSA. And many that are, unfortunately, little more than a LARP. There are still many that are good, though.
I mean, it’s also a joint venture between DSA and United Electrical, so it makes some sense that there are EWOC folks who aren’t in DSA.
I can’t speak to elsewhere, but my local DSA chapter is very active in labor and tenant organizing. Tenant organising especially. Though I don’t think we have local EWOC or ETOC branches
Yeah but I mean like an entire EWOC instance with like 8 members, none in DSA, where those members are actively wary of DSA and try to slow walk having any interactions with them whatsoever. Some DSA chapters have an… inconsistent and short-term labor focus and so many groups experience the “oh hey [local] DSA remembered we exist” phenomenon. Kind of a good case study for why it’s important to maintain relationships and community embedding and not unique to DSA. These are the times when someone will ask, “why aren’t we responding to this email?” and the answers will be filled with rumors, nobody present able or willing to correct them