Hyperventilating political prognosticators don’t always get it right. 

“(New York City) Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his Democratic Socialists of America are now the most capable political force in the Democratic Party heading into 2028,” John Ketcham and Christian Browne at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative policy think tank, just wrote in City Journal. “In yesterday’s primaries in New York, his three endorsed candidates beat better-established adversaries, demonstrating how Mamdani and the DSA have become the face of the party’s progressive wing.”

“…the Democratic Party has been taken over by socialists,” says Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents a suburban New York House seat.

Before other pundits and the public accept this assertion, let’s step back and examine what just happened in New York City, focusing on one of the winning socialist candidates, Darializa Avila Chevalier.

32-year-old Chevalier is no shrinking violet. In 2020, she branded Joe Biden a “rapist” and a “war criminal” and called the US a “fucking disgrace”. The day after the horrific October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre of Jews in Israel, she joined a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square organized by leftist groups that appeared to celebrate the event. In posts onTwitter from 2018 through 2022, she maligned interracial relationships. She’s written that Russia invaded Ukraine because the United States had “been bullying Russia”. In a tweet disparaging America, she wrote, “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me”. 

Voter apathy in primary races is the culprit here, as in so many political contests across the country. That, combined with the creation of safe districts across the country, is increasingly causing primaries to be the real elections.

In looking at the New York primary race, it’s important to recognize not only that the race was limited to registered Democrats, of which there are 373,000 in the District NY-13, but that only 67,473 voters participated in the primary, or 18.09 percent. That allowed the Democratic Socialists to wield disproportionate influence. Of those, who bothered to vote, just 32,790 voted for Chevalier, who came out ahead of her main challenger, Adriano Espaillat, by only 2,326 votes.

There’s a parallel here with Democratic Socialist Janeese Lewis George’s  victory in Washington, D.C’s mayoral Democratic primary, which has led some to declare her win a mandate. There are approximately 357,000 registered Democrats in Washington, D.C., making up roughly 75% of all registered voters in the District. Only about 38% of registered Democrats voted and Janeese Lewis George won with just 75,000 votes. A mandate? Hardly.

So, calm down folks.

This isn’t to say, however, that the new socialist legislators in the House, largely a result of voter lethargy, won’t muck things up.

Even if the Democrats retake the House in November, their margin is likely to be slim and an enlarged cadre of disruptors will be able to challenge leadership. Republicans are also likely to try to tar the entire Democratic Party for its association with the Democratic Socialists. President Trump has already called the socialist nominees “godless” communists who are threatening the country. At a Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering, he urged religious conservatives to prevent a “communist” victory in the midterms, saying his pro-Christian policies would be reversed if Democrats returned to power. 

And right on cue, Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for National Republican Congressional Committee, said, “Tonight wasn’t just a bad night for so-called ‘Leader’ Hakeem Jeffries. It was the night the Democrat establishment officially surrendered to Zohran Mamdani and the socialist wing of their party. Every House Democrat, in safe and competitive districts alike, will now answer to the radicals calling the shots. And Americans should be terrified by where the Democrat Party is headed.”

Hang on.