NEW YORK — Brad Lander, the New York comptroller, won the Democratic House primary in New York on Tuesday. Lander defeated Congressman Dan Goldman by more than 30 percentage points. Goldman said, "Israel is not the most important issue in this district."

Voters in Tuesday's New York primary elections also ousted two incumbent House Democrats. Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated five-term Congressman Adriano Espaillat in the Democratic primary. Avila Chevalier, a doctoral student, criticized Espaillat for accepting funds from Aipac. Justice Democrats recruited Avila Chevalier, and the organization also endorsed state assembly member Claire Valdez in the district represented by retiring congresswoman Nydia Velázquez. Valdez won the Democratic primary over Brooklyn borough president Antonio Reynoso.

Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, commented on the election results. Andrabi stated, "I think that it is a testament to just how much our movement has progressed against lobbies like Aipac, who have tried to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to keep us in a position where we spend hundreds of billions of dollars of our taxpayer money to fund a genocide and weapons and bombs abroad." He added, "Now, we are seeing what happens when you give voters the opportunity and candidates who not only reject Aipac money and call it out for what it is – a rightwing lobby – but also uncompromisingly stand up to oppose continued funding for the genocide and for a free Palestine."

Lander indicated his intention to be among the Jewish members of Congress who advocate for Palestinian human rights. He urged the Democratic party to acknowledge that President Biden's strategy regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a "catastrophic failure." Lander stated, "Democrats are painfully divided by our differences over the US relationship to Israel and Palestine. We have to face up to it squarely." Lander also said, "I believe it made us complicit in genocide." Corbin Trent, a former aide to Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said, "Our foreign policy, generally speaking, has been something that when people are confronted with the cost of that in lives abroad, and lives here, and in money, they reject it." Trent added, "That was one of the things that propelled Maga, that's one of the things that propelled these victories here."

Human rights groups and a United Nations commission have determined that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide. More than 75,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 2023. This followed an attack on Israel in October 2023 by Hamas militants, who killed approximately 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. A ceasefire in the conflict was reached last October.

Former congressman Tom Malinowski criticized the endorsements for Darializa Avila Chevalier. "It doesn't matter if candidates are qualified or what their beliefs are," Malinowski said. He continued, "All that matters is that they're on the team, backed by its leader." Malinowski also stated, "Anyone who questions that is slated for the next political destruction." He added, "When your followers treat Israel as the world's only human rights violator and Aipac as the only evil dark money group, that should be a red flag." Congressional Republicans stated that the primary results indicated that communists had taken control of the Democratic party. Lander, Valdez, and Avila Chevalier are expected to win their House seats in the November general election, as their districts are heavily Democratic. A former public health official, Abdul El-Sayed, has also accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza; El-Sayed is a leading Democratic candidate for a Senate seat in Michigan.