CS Knowledge Base

The contest for the 7th district began in November of 2025 after longtime incumbent Nydia Velázquez, who had served since 1993, announced her decision to retire.^[106] Velázquez, a longtime reformer who was staunchly opposed to the political machine associated with the Brooklyn Democratic Party, had cultivated strong ties with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in her latter years in office, and with the 7th having a reputation as one of the most left-wing congressional districts in the country it was believed by analysts such as Trip Yang that the organization would seek to have one of its own elected as Velázquez's successor.^[106]

Velázquez initially remained neutral in the race, a decision attributed by political analyst Michael Lange to her belief that the DSA would select either state senator Julia Salazar or New York City Councilor Tiffany Cabán as their standard-bearer.^[107] However, Salazar had no interest in running, and Cabán's brief attempt to was shut down by the newly-elected mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a member of the DSA himself, due to her having been reluctant to support Mamdani's mayoral run.^[107][108] Instead, Mamdani and the DSA selected first-term state assemblywoman Claire Valdez, who had been one of the mayor's earliest and most enthusiastic endorsers, as their candidate.^[109] Velázquez, who had very little relationship with Valdez, viewed this as unacceptable.^[108] She instead threw her support behind Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, an anti-machine progressive who had been her longtime protégé.^[110]

Two other candidates, New York City Councillor Julie Won and public defender Vichal Kumar, also made the primary ballot for the election, but were considered to have no chance of winning.^[107][111] While Valdez and Reynoso were ideologically similar, with both wanting to abolish the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency and denouncing the Gaza genocide, their contest quickly become a proxy conflict between the DSA and the Working Families Party (WFP), which backed Reynoso.^[107][109] Michael Lange opined that both organisations were fighting over which would have the leading role in New York City's progressive left, with the insurgent DSA seeking to supplant the more traditional WFP.^[112]

Results

Democratic primary results

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Claire Valdez	37,531	56.1
	Democratic	Antonio Reynoso	23,960	35.8
	Democratic	Julie Won	4,231	6.3
	Democratic	Vichal Kumar	1,134	1.7
	Democratic	Write-in	97	0.1
Total votes			66,953	100.0

Incumbent Jeffries had represented the 8th district since 2013, and had been elected leader of the House Democratic Caucus in 2022 following the retirement of Nancy Pelosi. Since then he had served as House minority leader in the face of a Republican-controlled House of Representatives, becoming along with his Senate counterpart Chuck Schumer one of the most high-profile Democrats during the Second Trump administration.^[173] Jeffries had however faced criticism, especially from more progressive Democrats, for the perception that he was a stodgy and awkward opposition figure, unable to adequately oppose congressional Republicans and President Trump.^[173]

Seeking to exploit this perceived vulnerability was New York City Councilor Chi Ossé, the youngest member of the Council, who had gained a profile after passing prominent tenant rights legislation.^[174] Ossé represented Bedford-Stuyvesant on the Council, an area which was young, gentrifying and had shown an appetite for insurgent left-wing politics.^[175] A member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Ossé sought to capitalise on the group's recent success in the 2025 New York mayoral election and mobilise them for a primary campaign against Jeffries.^[176]

However, his campaign was considered to have almost no chance of succeeding. While Jeffries had faced left-wing criticism for his performance as House Democratic leader, unlike his Senate counterpart Schumer he had opposed all major Republican legislation passed during the 119th Congress and had remained scandal-free.^[173][175] He maintained a very strong base of support in the mainly African-American neighbourhoods of Canarsie and East New York, which had consistently backed moderate candidates in Democratic primaries and which Ossé had not represented in elected office.^[175] Jeffries also had effectively unlimited resources and institutional support as the House Democratic leader, and left-wing groups were extremely reluctant to endorse against him out of fear of damaging their relationships with the wider Democratic Party.^[175] These skeptics included some of the most prominent DSA officials in New York City, such as mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who actively lobbied the group to not endorse Ossé.^[176]

On the November 22, 2025, the New York City branch of the DSA voted against endorsing Ossé's campaign, effectively leaving him without the support to continue running.^[177] Ossé ended his campaign two weeks later, all but ensuring that Jeffries would win another term in office.^[178]

Goldman, the incumbent representative, was widely viewed as vulnerable to a primary challenge coming into the 2026 electoral cycle.^[194] While generally considered a progressive Democrat, Goldman had only narrowly won the Democratic primary in 2022 with 26% of the vote against a split field of more left-wing candidates, and his re-election campaign in 2024 was considered by analysts such as David Weigel to have been unimpressive, with the congressman winning only 66% of the primary vote against two low-profile challengers.^[194][195] Goldman's electoral struggles were attributed in part to his support for Israel, which had become extremely unpopular among left-wing voters as a result of the Gaza war.^[194]

These left-wing concerns were heightened following the 2025 New York City mayoral election. In the Democratic primary for that election, pro-Palestine democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani defeated moderate, pro-Israel Andrew Cuomo handily, in a performance which included defeating Cuomo by 23 percentage points in the 10th district.^[195] In the ensuing general election, where Cuomo ran as an independent, Goldman refused to endorse Mamdani due to the latter's pro-Palestine stance.^[194] Mamdani nevertheless again prevailed, winning the 10th by 25 percentage points. Goldman's refusal to endorse Mamdani made him an immediate target of the progressive and socialist forces that had backed the incoming mayor, and also showcased the lack of influence the incumbent had over voters in his district.^[196]

Following Mamdani's victory, emboldened progressives began searching for a candidate to challenge Goldman. A favored choice was former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who had finished third in the mayoral primary behind Mamdani and Cuomo, and had cross-endorsed with Mamdani in the latter stages of the campaign.^[197] Lander was considered a strong candidate for several reasons; he had wide name recognition from his service as Comptroller, and despite finishing a distant third behind Mamdani and Cuomo in the mayoral primary had performed well in the 10th district itself, where he took 23% of the first-preference vote.^[197] However, Lander was not immediately able to unite the left behind him; NYC Councilor Alexa Avilés had also been considering a challenge to Goldman, and had secured the endorsement of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America after forming an exploratory committee to do so.^[198] Mamdani however intervened to support Lander; making it known to Avilés that he would endorse the former Comptroller if he ran.^[198]

Lander announced that he would be challenging Goldman on December 10, 2025, with mayor-elect Mamdani's backing.^[199] With no chance of winning without Mamdani's support, Avilés withdrew the next day.^[199][200] Lander immediately became the prohibitive frontrunner, with polls showing him beating Goldman by over 20 percentage points.^[194] Lander primarily attacked Goldman for not doing enough to oppose the actions of the Trump administration and Israeli government, and for not endorsing Mamdani's general election campaign.^[201][196]

Results

In line with polling, Lander easily defeated Goldman by a margin of over 30 percentage points. His victory was called by media outlets only five minutes after polling stations had closed.^[258]

County results

Precinct results

Democratic primary results^[259]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Brad Lander	55,060	65.8
	Democratic	Dan Goldman (incumbent)	28,445	34.0
	Democratic	Write-in	156	0.2
Total votes			83,661	100.0

Incumbent congressman Jerry Nadler, who had served in the House of Representatives since 1992, announced his retirement on the 2nd of September 2025.^[273] Nadler, who was already facing a primary challenge from non-profit executive Liam Elkind, declared that he had decided to retire after witnessing the collapse of the 2024 re-election campaign of Joe Biden due to concerns over the former President's health, and that he felt it was time for a younger politician to represent the 12th district.^[273]

An extremely large field of candidates almost immediately entered the race to replace Nadler.^[274] As the 12th district was safely Democratic, the open seat represented a rare opportunity for local politicians to gain a congressional seat they could not be easily unseated from.^[274] Several prominent candidates, such as Elkind, New York City Councilor Erik Bottcher, and left-wing activist Cameron Kasky initially joined the race, but withdrew well before the primary as mounting costs and outside spending caused it to become the second-most expensive House primary in history.^[275][276]

As the primary campaign drew on, four main candidates emerged for the seat. These were Upper West Side state assemblyman Micah Lasher, Upper East Side state assemblyman Alex Bores, lawyer George Conway, and Jack Schlossberg, a social media influencer and member of the Kennedy family.^[274] Lasher, who had the endorsement of the outgoing Nadler as well as Governor of New York Kathy Hochul and former mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, became widely regarded as the 'establishment' candidate in the race despite only being a first-term assemblyman.^[274][277] Bores, who had co-authored the Responsible AI Safety and Education Act (RAISE), made strengthening the regulation of artificial intelligence a large focus of his campaign.^[277] Conway, formerly a high-profile Republican activist, based his campaign entirely around a promise to impeach President Donald Trump and his cabinet, promising to serve only a single term in office and focus solely on accomplishing this impeachment.^[274] Rounding out the four frontrunners, Schlossberg based his campaign around the argument that traditional politics were failing to mobilise young voters under the Democratic Party's banner, and that his large following on social media was evidence that he could inspire them to do so.^[274]

Naaman Zhou, writing in The New Yorker, noted that the ideological differences between the four candidates were minimal; while being interviewed by Zhou, Bores was unable to name a single policy disagreement between Lasher and himself.^[274] All four frontrunners supported the continuation of weapons sales to Israel, with only Schlossberg arguing that these sales should be limited to defensive weaponry. The progressive Working Families Party, which had been staunch supporters of Nadler throughout his career, elected not to endorse a candidate, while left-wing activist group Our Revolution endorsed Bores but was immediately disavowed by the assemblyman for their anti-Israel stance.^[274]

In the absence of ideological disagreements, the race soon devolved into a contest of personalities and geographical bases. Due to his passage of the RAISE Act, Bores became the target of significant spending from the artificial intelligence industry, with OpenAI spending millions of dollars to oppose his candidacy. Bores used this negative spending to argue that voting for his opponents was a vote for unregulated artificial intelligence.^[278] However, Bores was also supported to the tune of millions by the AI company Anthropic and by cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen, which led to fierce attacks by Lasher and Schlossberg that if elected Bores would be a puppet of the cryptocurrency industry.^[278]

Polling in the race was scattershot, with different pollsters showing different candidates in the lead, but the joint attacks by Bores' opponents on his financial backers led City & State's Annie McDonough to argue that Bores was the frontrunner in the race.^[274][278] Lasher was also considered a likely victor, due to his inheritance of Nadler's Upper West Side base that had already proven victorious over Upper East Side Representative Carolyn Maloney in the 2022 primary cycle.^[279][280] Schlossberg's campaign was in contrast marred by disorganisation, and critics frequently assailed him for the content of his social media posts, which included a large amount of irreverent material such as thirst traps that was viewed as unbecoming of a congressional candidate.^[274][277] Conway was considered to have the least chance of winning, due to his past as a Republican in the heavily-Democratic 12th.^[277]