DSA candidates sweep in Queens
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Assemblymember Diana Moreno, David Orkin, Samantha Kattan, Aber Kawas, and Claire Valdez, all Democratic Socialist of America candidates, appeared headed to victory in their respective elections on Tuesday. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Jacob Kaye and Ryan Schwach
Powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s support and the political energy he generated a year ago, democratic socialist candidates in Queens swept races for Congress, the State Senate and State Assembly on Election Day.
Congressional candidate Claire Valdez, Assembly candidates Samantha Kattan and David Orkin, and Senate candidate Aber Kawas all appeared headed to victory as unofficial election results were tallied after the polls closed on election day.
It was a powerful showing for Mamdani’s brand in the World’s Borough, where DSA-endorsed candidates were poised to pick up three new seats.
“What you all have shown this evening, whether for the State Assembly, State Senate, or Congress, is that a year ago it was not the end of a political movement, it was the beginning,” the mayor said before a jubilant crowd of DSA members in Brooklyn.
Valdez, who will likely be elected to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez in New York’s 7th Congressional District in November, was able to celebrate victory early in the night, picking up 56 percent of the vote with around 92 percent of ballots counted an hour after the polls closed. Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso had around 35 percent of the vote at the same point in the evening. Queens councilmember Julie Won received around 6 percent of the vote, and attorney Vichal Kumar finished in fourth with less than 2 percent.
Valdez won 62 percent of the vote in the Queens side of the district, which includes parts of Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside, Maspeth, Ridgewood, and Woodhaven.
Valdez’s ascension to federal office comes less than two years after she was a relatively unknown candidate running to succeed Juan Ardila in the Assembly, when the then-lawmaker’s career in office was shaken by sexual harassment allegations.
“We haven't just won an election,” Valdez said on Tuesday. “We've declared that this movement is durable and it is growing and that it will not stop until working people are no longer asked to just move the table, no longer stop for the seat at the table, but will run the table.”
The Queens-Brooklyn legislator will likely join two other New York City DSA members in Washington come next year; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who cruised to reelection Tuesday and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who upset longtime incumbent Adriano Espaillat on election day.
Reynoso congratulated Valdez during his own election returns party in Brooklyn.
“We need to do everything we possibly can to inform her, and support her as she goes to be our representative so all of our voices are heard,” he said.
Apparent victories were solidified relatively early in the night for the other DSA candidates, as well.
Kawas, who is running to replace retiring State Senator Michael Gianaris in District 12, had won around 60 percent of the vote with 95 percent of ballots counted Tuesday night. Assemblymember Steven Raga, Kawas’ only opponent, held around 40 percent of the vote.
In winning, Kawas becomes the first Palestinian American, and first Muslim woman elected to New York State office.
“What this group right here is going to do is we are going to sustain the ways of the left,” she said Tuesday. “Dignity for working class communities, for people who toil at construction sites, in street cars, in taxi cabs, in classrooms. We are here to fund dignity for the working-class New Yorkers.”
Raga said the outcome was not what he hoped for in a campaign statement sent Wednesday morning.
“This election was hard fought, but it was fought on principle, not personalities,” he said. “That is how progressives should resolve our very real differences: through competing ideas about how we build power and how we fight on behalf of everyday New Yorkers.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who endorsed four out of the five Queens DSA candidates, celebrates a socialist sweep in the World’s Borough Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
Orkin, an attorney who was not formally backed by Mamdani but who received an endorsement from the DSA, was up 18 points over Rajkumar, who has represented Assembly District 38 since 2021. She was one of several young candidates from Queens that year to defeat an incumbent on the way to victory. Also among them was Mamdani, whose political influence appeared to play a role in Rajkumar’s ousting.
“My f–ing heart is in Queens,” Orkin said during a colorful victory speech on Tuesday,
Orkin’s margin of victory over a well-known, well-funded incumbent came as a surprise to some. But over the past several years, Rajkumar had tied her political future to former Mayor Eric Adams, whose multiple scandals contributed to Mamdani’s rise.
“It has been the honor of my life to serve the community of the 38th Assembly District and all New Yorkers,” Rajkumar said in a statement. “To serve is to be tested again and again, and still choose hope, dedication, and love.”
“I am deeply proud of the record we built together: nonstop service for our neighborhoods, historic victories in Albany, resources delivered to our communities, and a government that showed up for people,” she added.
With around 94 percent of ballots counted, Kattan held a 50-point lead over both of her opponents, Pia Rahman and Melissa Orlando.
At 99 Scott, a live music venue in Brooklyn where the DSA held a joint Queens results party, the crowd erupted as soon as the initial votes were counted. They did not stop as the results continued to pour in.
This time last year, many of the same DSA members and elected officials were celebrating what seemed at the time like the mountain top – a DSA member had been elected to be the Democratic nominee for mayor. On Tuesday, they celebrated a complete and overwhelming sweep of every Queens race they contested.
“It's what we dreamed of, what we worked our asses off for,” said Assemblymember Diana Moreno, who won a special election to replace Mamdani in the Assembly in February and who cruised to victory on Tuesday. “These are the results of an actual democracy, people power at work. We are showing that we can defeat the establishment.”
