Here’s how to avoid a DSA challenge

If you’re a regular old New York Democrat looking at this week’s election results, you might be rethinking your approach to elections. While many experienced candidates like Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman held familiar rallies featuring labor unions, public housing tenant presidents and prominent elected officials, the Democratic Socialists of America were gathering by the hundreds to execute sophisticated field campaigns. DSA volunteers were showing up to canvass on the weekends, making thousands of phone calls, touching base with voters again and again. And their approach – honed over the past eight years in races at many levels of government all over the city – is looking more and more unbeatable.

The day after the primary in which NYC-DSA notched victories in 9 of the 10 races they ran, unseating four incumbents and taking five open seats, we talked with NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo about how they did it – and what the Democratic establishment can learn. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

How are you feeling?

Amazing.

Are you happier today, or the day after election day 2025?

Today honestly. We were kind of scared a year ago. It was like a mix of being really happy and also being totally overwhelmed when we won the mayoral race. And now it feels like, I don't know, like we have a really strong foundation for the future.

I saw your tweet about Council Member Chi Ossé, that he would have won if he had been allowed to challenge Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that, and how you feel about that?

It was more of an internal-focused comment. I think that in 2028, the congressional districts are all going to be redrawn, and so we have no idea what that's going to look like, or what the opportunities will be. Or at least it's very likely that they'll be redrawn. So I don't think we can really make that many plans, or speculate that much about what will happen then, but I think the one conclusion that everyone has drawn from last year and this year is that we do need to contest the top-of-the-ticket races and put our agenda forward at a high level of government.

Can you give any more detail, any more insight into the endorsement conversations this cycle between DSA and Mayor Zohran Mamdani? 

We built the slate that we did on the assumption that we were in a political moment where there was an opportunity to dramatically expand our block in Albany and Congress, and those moments of opportunity can be fleeting. We have had a few cycles in the past 10 years where we’ve been able to win big, and then other times we kind of are going through a drought period for four or five years. Zohran has lived through that, so he understands it as well. That was part of the case, that this was a year to go big and to expand in areas where we knew we could, and I think the Darializa (Avila Chevalier) race was the strongest example of that. And I don’t think he would have gotten involved in that race if it hadn’t been for the organization making the case to him about it.

After you guys had endorsed City Council Member Alexa Avilés to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman, the mayor came in and endorsed Brad Lander, kind of forcing her to suspend her campaign. How damaging was that to the relationship? Do you feel like that is forgotten at this point, or is there residual bitterness over that?

I don't think there’s that much bitterness, really, over it. I mean, I don’t feel bitter about it. It was an unusual case, because Alexa herself and a number of leaders in the org had told Brad that we weren’t particularly interested in running against him. Alexa had kind of already told him that she didn’t want to run against him, so it wasn’t really, like, a big betrayal exactly. It’s a little more complicated than that, I guess, but I think people have moved on at this point, and we’re just focused on the project now.

Do you feel like new candidates are loyal to DSA, or are they loyal to the mayor?

I think they’re loyal to DSA. I think actually the more recent electeds, they tend to come out of the organization more. People like Claire Valdez, who was on the steering committee for years, and (Assembly Member) Diana Moreno was similar. I think they’re true believers in the project, which the mayor is himself, in a lot of ways. Because of that, I think they do really value the organization and the movement-building.

What about Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas, who just won a state Senate primary, and Brian Romero, who just won the primary for her seat? How do you guys think about them? Are you going to bring them in as socialists in office?

JGR has never been interested in doing it, so I don't think she would want to. Though she is a member of the organization, and so is Brian. With Brian, I don't know. I think there are a few newly elected legislators who are possibilities to add, I think Eli (Northrup) would be another one. But I think it would take some time to see if it really makes sense, kind of on both ends.

Which race surprised you the most last night?

I thought that winning 9 out of 10, or whatever it was, was actually a very possible outcome, but I thought that they would all be pretty narrow victories, or a lot of them would be, and they ended up all being landslides, except for Darializa's, which was close, so that was very surprising to me. And then with her, I just thought it was a toss-up, truly, and we did so much last-minute campaigning for her. We identified like 6,000 supporters in her district in the last two or three days, and that was her margin of victory – it was like 2,500 or something like that.

How do you mean? You identified them, like, how did you find them?

Through canvassing, phone banking, you know, the usual field methods.

So you revisited people that you had already made contact with?

We were still making contact with brand new voters who we hadn’t reached before. We had these giant phone banks the last few days where we were calling, like, basically every Democrat in Upper Manhattan. We made like 200,000 calls, so we identified a lot of new supporters that way.

Are you guys going to come back for Assembly Member Jordan Wright, do you think?

It’s up to Conrad (Blackburn). I would imagine that Conrad wants another go at running for office. That would be my guess.

So, if you were someone from a union, or like New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, a more typical Democrat, non-DSA, someone looking at what's been going on in the city, and you’re thinking, “How do we defeat DSA going forward? Or how do we even compete with them?” What do you think is the answer to that?

I think they should realign and be more like us, which I do think that actually some of them have done. I think (Assembly Member) Grace Lee did that, actually, in the past year. She was very supportive of the tax the rich bills and the agenda.

So you’re saying it’s about ideologically supporting the right policies. 

Yeah.

I guess I'm asking from a campaign perspective, because the whole thing of, like “We’re having a rally and we’re having all the unions come with their T-shirts and their signs,” like that just doesn't work. And the mailers, and driving your truck around, it just doesn't work.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, a lot of their organizing infrastructure has decayed, and they need to think about that. The unions in the city need a deeper organizing approach to their members, and you know, I’ve spent a lot of time in organized labor, and I think sometimes some unions are afraid of their members.

So, if you're an elected official, like Assembly Member Grace Lee, or like state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, or, I don't know, New York City Council Member Lincoln Restler – I'm trying to think of people who are, like, Antonio Reynoso-types. Can they come and sit down with DSA and say, “How do I become a Mike Gianaris and not an Aravella Simotas?” Is there a path for non-DSA elected officials to find some sort of common ground with you guys, so that you don't primary them, or do you reserve the right to primary anyone, regardless of where they stand ideologically?

Yeah, I mean, we never would have primaried Mike Gianaris, right? And I think, like, (state Sen.) Gustavo Rivera, actually is similar, probably (state Sen.) Robert Jackson as well. It’s pretty rare for us to primary a sitting progressive, because those are actually pretty hard races for us, and Zohran versus Simotas is probably one of the only successful examples of that. But I think that it’s important for actors and organizations in the left ecosystem to pick the right fights and not waste organizing capacity on infighting. Like Claire versus Reynoso was a complete waste of time and money for a lot of the left, and you know, I’m really glad that Claire emerged with a landslide victory. I think we knew that going in that this was a district where a movement politician like her was going to resonate, and I don’t think it made any sense to try to stop a democratic socialist from getting elected in probably the left-most district in the country.