{"id":338,"date":"2026-06-26T09:13:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=338"},"modified":"2026-06-26T09:13:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:13:51","slug":"heres-how-to-avoid-a-dsa-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=338","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s how to avoid a DSA challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

If you\u2019re a regular old New York Democrat looking at this week\u2019s election results, you might be rethinking your approach to elections. While many experienced candidates like Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman held familiar rallies featuring labor unions, public housing tenant presidents and prominent elected officials, the Democratic Socialists of America were gathering by the hundreds to execute sophisticated field campaigns. DSA volunteers were showing up to canvass on the weekends, making thousands of phone calls, touching base with voters again and again. And their approach \u2013 honed over the past eight years in races at many levels of government all over the city \u2013 is looking more and more unbeatable.<\/p>\n

Read more Winners & Losers: Primary Edition<\/a><\/p>\n

The day after the primary in which NYC-DSA notched victories in 9 of the 10 races they ran, unseating four incumbents and taking five open seats, we talked with NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo about how they did it \u2013 and what the Democratic establishment can learn. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.<\/em><\/p>\n

How are you feeling?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amazing.<\/p>\n

Are you happier today, or the day after election day 2025?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today honestly. We were kind of scared a year ago. It was like a mix of being really happy and also being totally overwhelmed when we won the mayoral race. And now it feels like, I don’t know, like we have a really strong foundation for the future.<\/p>\n

I saw your tweet about Council Member Chi Oss\u00e9, that <\/strong>he would have won<\/strong> if he had been allowed to challenge Rep. Hakeem Jeffries. Can you elaborate on what you meant by that, and how you feel about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was more of an internal-focused comment. I think that in 2028, the congressional districts are all going to be redrawn, and so we have no idea what that’s going to look like, or what the opportunities will be. Or at least it’s very likely that they’ll be redrawn. So I don’t think we can really make that many plans, or speculate that much about what will happen then, but I think the one conclusion that everyone has drawn from last year and this year is that we do need to contest the top-of-the-ticket races and put our agenda forward at a high level of government.<\/p>\n

Can you give any more detail, any more insight into the endorsement conversations this cycle between DSA and Mayor Zohran Mamdani?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We built the slate that we did on the assumption that we were in a political moment where there was an opportunity to dramatically expand our block in Albany and Congress, and those moments of opportunity can be fleeting. We have had a few cycles in the past 10 years where we\u2019ve been able to win big, and then other times we kind of are going through a drought period for four or five years. Zohran has lived through that, so he understands it as well. That was part of the case, that this was a year to go big and to expand in areas where we knew we could, and I think the Darializa (Avila Chevalier) race was the strongest example of that. And I don\u2019t think he would have gotten involved in that race if it hadn\u2019t been for the organization making the case to him about it.<\/p>\n

After you guys had endorsed City Council Member Alexa Avil\u00e9s to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman, the mayor came in and endorsed Brad Lander, kind of forcing her to suspend her campaign. How damaging was that to the relationship? Do you feel like that is forgotten at this point, or is there residual bitterness over that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’t think there\u2019s that much bitterness, really, over it. I mean, I don\u2019t feel bitter about it. It was an unusual case, because Alexa herself and a number of leaders in the org had told Brad that we weren\u2019t particularly interested in running against him. Alexa had kind of already told him that she didn\u2019t want to run against him, so it wasn\u2019t really, like, a big betrayal exactly. It\u2019s a little more complicated than that, I guess, but I think people have moved on at this point, and we\u2019re just focused on the project now.<\/p>\n

Do you feel like new candidates are loyal to DSA, or are they loyal to the mayor?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think they\u2019re loyal to DSA. I think actually the more recent electeds, they tend to come out of the organization more. People like Claire Valdez, who was on the steering committee for years, and (Assembly Member) Diana Moreno was similar. I think they\u2019re true believers in the project, which the mayor is himself, in a lot of ways. Because of that, I think they do really value the organization and the movement-building.<\/p>\n

What about Assembly Member Jessica Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas, who just won a state Senate primary, and Brian Romero, who just won the primary for her seat? How do you guys think about them? Are you going to bring them in as socialists in office?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more Lefties didn\u2019t just win state legislative races \u2013 incumbents lost big<\/a><\/p>\n

JGR has never been interested in doing it, so I don’t think she would want to. Though she is a member of the organization, and so is Brian. With Brian, I don’t know. I think there are a few newly elected legislators who are possibilities to add, I think Eli (Northrup) would be another one. But I think it would take some time to see if it really makes sense, kind of on both ends.<\/p>\n

Which race surprised you the most last night?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I thought that winning 9 out of 10, or whatever it was, was actually a very possible outcome, but I thought that they would all be pretty narrow victories, or a lot of them would be, and they ended up all being landslides, except for Darializa’s, which was close, so that was very surprising to me. And then with her, I just thought it was a toss-up, truly, and we did so much last-minute campaigning for her. We identified like 6,000 supporters in her district in the last two or three days, and that was her margin of victory \u2013 it was like 2,500 or something like that.<\/p>\n

How do you mean? You identified them, like, how did you find them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Through canvassing, phone banking, you know, the usual field methods.<\/p>\n

So you revisited people that you had already made contact with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We were still making contact with brand new voters who we hadn\u2019t reached before. We had these giant phone banks the last few days where we were calling, like, basically every Democrat in Upper Manhattan. We made like 200,000 calls, so we identified a lot of new supporters that way.<\/p>\n

Are you guys going to come back for Assembly Member Jordan Wright, do you think?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s up to Conrad (Blackburn). I would imagine that Conrad wants another go at running for office. That would be my guess.<\/p>\n

So, if you were someone from a union, or like New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, a more typical Democrat, non-DSA, someone looking at what’s been going on in the city, and you\u2019re thinking, \u201cHow do we defeat DSA going forward? Or how do we even compete with them?\u201d What do you think is the answer to that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think they should realign and be more like us, which I do think that actually some of them have done. I think (Assembly Member) Grace Lee did that, actually, in the past year. She was very supportive of the tax the rich bills and the agenda.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re saying it\u2019s about ideologically supporting the right policies.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

I guess I’m asking from a campaign perspective, because the whole thing of, like \u201cWe\u2019re having a rally and we\u2019re having all the unions come with their T-shirts and their signs,\u201d like that just doesn’t work. And the mailers, and driving your truck around, it just doesn’t work.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, yeah, I mean, a lot of their organizing infrastructure has decayed, and they need to think about that. The unions in the city need a deeper organizing approach to their members, and you know, I\u2019ve spent a lot of time in organized labor, and I think sometimes some unions are afraid of their members.<\/p>\n

So, if you’re an elected official, like Assembly Member Grace Lee, or like state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, or, I don’t know, New York City Council Member Lincoln Restler \u2013 I’m trying to think of people who are, like, Antonio Reynoso-types. Can they come and sit down with DSA and say, \u201cHow do I become a Mike Gianaris and <\/strong>not an Aravella Simotas<\/strong>?\u201d Is there a path for non-DSA elected officials to find some sort of common ground with you guys, so that you don’t primary them, or do you reserve the right to primary anyone, regardless of where they stand ideologically?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I mean, we never would have primaried Mike Gianaris, right? And I think, like, (state Sen.) Gustavo Rivera, actually is similar, probably (state Sen.) Robert Jackson as well. It\u2019s pretty rare for us to primary a sitting progressive, because those are actually pretty hard races for us, and Zohran versus Simotas is probably one of the only successful examples of that. But I think that it\u2019s important for actors and organizations in the left ecosystem to pick the right fights and not waste organizing capacity on infighting. Like Claire versus Reynoso was a complete waste of time and money for a lot of the left, and you know, I\u2019m really glad that Claire emerged with a landslide victory. I think we knew that going in that this was a district where a movement politician like her was going to resonate, and I don\u2019t think it made any sense to try to stop a democratic socialist from getting elected in probably the left-most district in the country.<\/p>\n

Read more Opinion: Universal childcare means expanding after school programming too<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Q&A with DSA Co-chair Gustavo Gordillo, who\u2019s relishing this year\u2019s victory even more than 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,30],"tags":[79,31],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dsa","category-personality","tag-dsa","tag-personality"],"yoast_head":"\nHere\u2019s how to avoid a DSA challenge - Business Relocation Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=338\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Here\u2019s how to avoid a DSA challenge - Business Relocation Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Q&A with DSA Co-chair Gustavo Gordillo, who\u2019s relishing this year\u2019s victory even more than 2025.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/businessrelocationdigest.com\/?p=338\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Business Relocation Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-26T09:13:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/businessrelocationdigest.com\\\/?p=338#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/businessrelocationdigest.com\\\/?p=338\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/businessrelocationdigest.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3174a35dc160ba2a2c93ee7892afb9e0\"},\"headline\":\"Here\u2019s how to avoid a DSA challenge\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-26T09:13:51+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/businessrelocationdigest.com\\\/?p=338\"},\"wordCount\":1699,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/businessrelocationdigest.com\\\/?p=338#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/businessrelocationdigest.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/701e40bb62a1c3bc5cd0cd87ca08b830.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"DSA\",\"Personality\"],\"articleSection\":[\"DSA\",\"Personality\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/businessrelocationdigest.com\\\/?p=338#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/businessrelocationdigest.com\\\/?p=338\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/businessrelocationdigest.com\\\/?p=338\",\"name\":\"Here\u2019s how to avoid a DSA challenge - 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