How Brad Lander won

Rep. Dan Goldman didn’t just lose his primary Tuesday. He got trounced. With roughly 90 percent of votes counted, the incumbent New York congressman is trailing former city comptroller Brad Lander by more than 30 points. Goldman lost the Democratic primary despite his campaign spending more than $7 million—$2 million of which came directly from Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.

Lander’s victory is extraordinary. As a general rule, congressional incumbents don’t lose their primaries by dozens of points, absent personal or professional scandals. Goldman, who was first elected in 2022, has none. The exception to that rule is members of Congress who find themselves severely out of step during times of ideological realignment within their party. That is what happened in New York’s 10th Congressional District, which covers lower Manhattan, the wealthy neighborhoods of Brownstone Brooklyn, and sections of south Brooklyn. 

A related dynamic played out in New York’s 7th and 13th districts, where Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier—two left-wing candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America—defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and longtime Rep. Adriano Espaillat. Valdez leads Reynoso by more than 20 points, while Avila Chevalier—who ran in a less DSA-heavy district and was seen as a weaker candidate than Lander or Valdez—narrowly prevailed over Espaillat.

Israel and Gaza played a major role in the bitter contest between Goldman and Lander. Both men are self-described liberal Zionists who vocally condemned Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. But beyond that, their approaches to Israel diverge drastically.

In November 2023, Goldman was one of just 22 Democrats who voted to censure his colleague Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) after she shared a video that included the line “from the river to the sea” to show her support for Palestinian rights. Last year, Goldman broke with most of his party by voting to sanction the International Criminal Court after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a Hamas military commander. 

During a debate earlier this month, Goldman said he was “proud” to march in this year’s Israel Day parade in New York. Lander chose not to, saying he would not be attending “while Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, violating international law, [and] violating Palestinian human rights.” His differences with Goldman when it came to Israel, he said, were “profound.” 

Lander and Goldman are both Jewish candidates who were running to represent one of the most Jewish congressional districts in the country. But Lander’s views on Israel appear to be much more in line with those of fellow progressive Jews in neighborhoods like Park Slope. (As my colleague Sophie Hurwitz has written, Lander’s children are named after a Jewish leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and a Jewish labor organizer.)

Lander’s victory wasn’t just about Israel. The former city comptroller is about as known a quantity in Brownstone Brooklyn as a politician can be. Before being elected comptroller in 2021, he represented Park Slope and nearby neighborhoods on the New York City Council for more than a decade. While in that role, he successfully pushed a major rezoning in Gowanus that has led to a boom in housing construction in the neighborhood. 

Lander’s background and wonkish affect are also a natural fit in a progressive district that includes the Park Slope Food Coop. After growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, he attended the University of Chicago and became a Marshall Scholar. He later moved to Brooklyn, where he bought his home for a now-unimaginable price of $655,000. He is a quintessential Park Slope dad whose enthusiastic Pride-flag-waving has garnered affection on social media.

When Lander ran for mayor last year, he was considered one of Andrew Cuomo’s top rivals before Mamdani surged in the polls. But he accepted likely defeat rather than try to take Mamdani down. Toward the end of the primary, the two candidates cross-endorsed each other to take advantage of New York’s ranked choice voting system. After the mayoral election, Mamdani endorsed Lander in his bid to unseat Goldman.

Mayoral candidate Brad Lander was cuffed and detained by ICE agents after asking to see a warrant for people who were detained after an immigration hearing. Video from the city comptroller’s press secretary @chloecbristow. She says he’s still being held in 26 Federal Plaza. pic.twitter.com/cW9jIsp35b

— Jeff Coltin (@JCColtin) June 17, 2025

In Donald Trump’s second term, Lander has emerged as a prominent champion of immigrants’ rights. Last June, while running for mayor, he was arrested at a Manhattan immigration courthouse while trying to escort a man out of the building. Shortly before being detained, he told a reporter, “I don’t think there’s any place that’s more important to be right now than bearing witness and trying to stand up for the rule of law.” 

In September, he was arrested again at the same federal building, along with other Democratic officials, after demanding to inspect immigration detention facilities. Earlier this month, he was found not guilty of charges stemming from that arrest.

Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who served as lead Democratic counsel during Trump’s first impeachment, was always an odd fit for the district. When he first ran in 2022, he spent nearly $5 million of an inheritance worth up to $250 million. Doing so allowed him to effectively buy his way through a crowded, low-turnout primary. He prevailed with just 26 percent of the vote—2 points above his closest challenger. 

In 2022, Goldman, a rich Manhattanite, did best in wealthy sections of the island, like Tribeca and the West Village. He did much worse in more left-leaning and gentrified parts of Brooklyn. The dynamic repeated itself in the 2024 primary. Despite not facing a serious challenger—his main opponent spent less than $40,000—Goldman ended up with only 65 percent of the vote. In some areas, he actually lost—an obvious sign that he was vulnerable to being primaried.

Still, the scale of Lander’s victory is shocking. In some election districts (the New York equivalent of precincts), Lander appears on track to win more than 90 percent of the vote. Overall, Lander is winning Brooklyn by 45 points. And in Manhattan—Goldman’s home turf—Lander is up by about 10 points.

From an electoral perspective, the scale of his victory is reminiscent of recent primaries in which moderate Republicans have been ousted by right-wing challengers. In 2022, Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) ended up with 66 percent of the vote against Liz Cheney—the same percentage Lander has now. 

Hageman and Lander, of course, belong to opposing parties and hold wildly different views. But they represent similar intraparty upheavals. In Wyoming, the lesson in Hageman’s race was that the GOP had no room for criticizing Trump, let alone voting to impeach him. In New York, Lander’s victory shows that being the public face of a Trump impeachment is no longer enough for Democrats. The party’s voters are increasingly unwilling to tolerate representatives who enable an Israeli state responsible for genocide.