I joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in April 2007 at the age of 17. DSA back then was a small group with an ageing membership and an almost negative amount of buzz. If you’d told me its candidates would someday sweep primaries across New York City, I would have been surprised to say the least.

Last week, they did. Darializa Avila Chevalier, an organizer in her early 30s, beat the five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat in a Harlem-and-Bronx seat. Claire Valdez, another socialist, took the open seat Nydia Velázquez is leaving in Brooklyn and Queens. Add the state races, and DSA will seat at least 15 of its endorsed candidates in Albany next year. The movement that made Zohran Mamdani mayor is starting to look less like a pressure campaign and more like a bloc that can govern.

As a New Yorker and a socialist, I won’t pretend I’m not thrilled. But the wins sparked rebuttals from centrist commentators that deserve a serious response. Within a day, ABC News had run an analysis under the headline “Mamdani won big, but it’s a mistake to think all Democrats swung left,” noting that on the same night a moderate won the swing-seat primary up in NY-17 and a centrist beat the progressives in Utah.

Andrew Mamo, a spokesperson for the centrist recruitment outfit The Bench,........

© The Guardian