The Democrat Party just sent a message to every working American.
New York’s socialist left just scored a jaw-dropping primary sweep.
And Zohran Mamdani just unleashed one horror that will cause everyone to buckle up.
Valdez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso-backed rivals by roughly 20 points to secure the Democrat nomination for an open House seat following the retirement of Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY). The district leans so far left it has been nicknamed the “Commie Corridor.” It spans parts of Brooklyn and Queens and heavily favors Democrats, positioning Valdez as the strong favorite heading into the November general election.
Valdez was endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Senator Bernie Sanders, NYC-DSA, Justice Democrats, and the United Auto Workers. That’s quite a coalition — socialist mayor, socialist senator, socialist organization, socialist-aligned union. Quite the coalition of people who have never run a business, met a payroll, or paid for their own TSA PreCheck.
“My hot take is we need to abolish PreCheck,” Valdez said during a podcast appearance. “I’ve got like a million beefs with the airline industry . . . we need to nationalize the airline industry, but let’s start by abolishing PreCheck.”
Let that sink in. Her opening move on aviation policy isn’t fixing the broken terminals, the staffing shortages, or the flight delays that have plagued New York airports for years. It’s eliminating the one program that actually makes flying a little less miserable for the people who planned ahead, passed a background check, and paid a modest fee.
TSA PreCheck doesn’t just help the people who pay for the service. When agents do background checks on people and determine they’re less risky than people they haven’t prescreened, they can use more resources on unknown travelers. Abolish that, and it means resources have to be reallocated to do more screening of passengers determined not to be a threat. In other words, the lines get longer for everybody. That’s the plan. Spread the misery around equally — classic socialist logic.
But nationalizing the airlines is where this gets truly expensive. Every country that has tried government-run aviation has ended up with the same results: longer waits, worse service, higher costs, and eventually a bailout funded by the very taxpayers who couldn’t afford a business-class seat in the first place. Valdez calls this progress.
“The airline industry is making a lot of money while constantly undermining consumer rights, nickel-and-diming us in every single facet of having to fly someplace,” Valdez said. Fair enough — the airlines aren’t exactly beloved. But handing the whole operation to the federal government, the same entity that runs the DMV and the VA waiting list, is not a solution. It’s a punishment.
And the airport stuff is almost the tame part of her platform.
Valdez has declared “this nation was founded on genocide.” She also liked a tweet stating “Glory to the resistance and the people of Palestine” after the October 7 attacks. And at her victory party, she wasn’t exactly subtle about where she stands. Valdez capped off her victory speech, saying, “Solidarity forever, abolish [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], free Palestine, organize your union, and join DSA.”
The Queens Assembly member says she wants to abolish ICE — and prosecute agents and officials, and provide “reparative justice” to people they’ve targeted. So not just abolish the agency. Prosecute the agents. The men and women doing the job of enforcing immigration law would face criminal charges under a Valdez-shaped America. That’s not a fringe position being whispered in a faculty lounge. That’s the victory speech.
During her congressional campaign, Valdez was a strong critic of Israel, calling its actions in Gaza a genocide and apartheid and supporting the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he came to New York.
Valdez has also advocated policies including universal rent control, construction of social housing, and stronger tenant protections. Rent control has a long and well-documented track record of destroying housing supply everywhere it has been tried. New York City is itself the most famous example of a city where decades of rent regulation have produced a shortage so severe that people inherit apartments like heirlooms. Valdez wants to take that experiment national.
And she wants Medicare for All — the full government takeover of healthcare. Claire is running for Congressional District 7 because workers and tenants need a champion in Congress who will fight for unions, for housing and Medicare for All, and to end U.S. complicity in genocide and apartheid. That’s from her own campaign’s description of why she’s running. Government-run healthcare, government-run housing, government-run airlines. The only thing left to nationalize is your lunch.
President Trump read the New York results clearly. He wrote on Truth Social: “The Communists are finally making their move. I’ve been waiting and preparing for this for a long time. It’s easy to be a Communist — All you have to do is say, ‘I’ll give you everything,’ but that means you’re taking it away from others that have earned it.”
President Trump, speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, predicted the rise of socialist candidates would benefit Republicans in the midterm elections. He said, “They want a lot of communists,” and added, “The people that they’re pushing are communists, and this country is not going to have communists.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson wasn’t laughing either. Johnson said: “These kind of people have been popping up. You’ve been hearing me say for weeks there are many Mamdanis popping up all around the country. It is a dangerous thing. This is not a joke. We are in a fight right now to save the republic, and every American needs to take this seriously. You need to wake up.”
But here’s what’s worth paying attention to beyond the headlines. The victories by the Mamdani-backed candidates guarantee that the number of Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidates will at least double in the next Congress and give Republicans further ammunition as they continue to portray all Democrats as far-left radicals.
The Democrat establishment in Washington is watching this happen and doesn’t know what to do about it. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries backed the losing candidates in nearly every one of these races. His preferred successors got wiped out. And at Valdez’s watch party, as Jeffries appeared on-screen, supporters broke into chants of “you’re next” — a reference to attempts to primary Jeffries himself.
This is what the Democrat Party is becoming. Not a party of working-class voters and lunch-pail Democrats. A party that wants to nationalize your airline, abolish the agency that deports violent criminals, prosecute the agents who enforce immigration law, and tell your kids that the country they live in was built on genocide. And the people pushing this agenda just won their primaries by 20 points.
Every Republican running for Congress in November should be printing Valdez’s victory speech on a mailer and sending it to every swing voter in their district. Political analyst J.C. Polanco put it plainly: “When New York City Democrats are electing folks that are so antisemitic in their rhetoric, [it] is going to send the message to purple districts and purple states that this is where the Democratic Party is going.”
And it is. That’s not a warning anymore. It’s a result.
Sources: Breitbart, Washington Examiner, View from the Wing, RedState, Western Journal, Fox News, The Hill, Queens Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Paper, City & State NY