Daniel Goldman

New York is still processing that Rep. Dan Goldman came out more than 30 points down. The former federal prosecutor — running for a third term in his Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn district — lost to Brad Lander, who ran on one line: that Goldman’s AIPAC endorsement disqualified him. Most of the district agreed.

You don’t lose a safe seat by 32 points by accident. Democratic leaders can read that honestly, or explain it away: New York is different; Zohran Mamdani is a special case; the districts are too progressive to count. I’ve heard every version, but the candidates lining up for 2026 primaries have stopped believing it. Goldman was the fifth House Democrat to lose a primary this cycle — and the most prominent.

For 20 years, AIPAC’s power was less about the checks it wrote than the funding it could deny: cross a backed incumbent and no one else would touch you. Then American Priorities, the pro-Palestinian super PAC backing Lander and Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s challenger Darializa Avila Chevalier, put real money on the other side. Pro-Israel groups still outspent everyone about two to one but they lost anyway. Opposing the war in Gaza had finally become survivable for a Democrat.

Money was always the smaller half of the threat. The deterrent also ran on the smear that siding with Palestinians was something sinister. It was never just rhetoric. In May, gunmen killed three worshippers at a San Diego mosque. Rep. Randy Fine wrote that choosing “between dogs and Muslims” was no contest. Laura Loomer, a self-described proud Islamophobe with a direct line to the White House, has called for deporting every Muslim in America.

A recent Opinium poll for the Concordia Forum found close to half of Muslim Americans fear being physically harmed for their faith, and more than a third avoid certain places to stay safe. The same poll found that Muslim Americans support democracy at a higher rate than the general public — 81% to 67%. These are not people radicalized by Gaza. They are people who believe in this country more than it has believed in them.

Maybe a name like Lander, lifted by Mayor Mamdani, wins regardless. But the base didn’t shift overnight; it moved because people organized on the ground for years. Groups like Emgage Action, DSA, YAMA Action, with a broader coalition of advocates, built toward a New York that includes all of its people — through years of watching Palestinians buried under rubble while too many party leaders read from an old script. The primary confirmed that shift, and every Democrat heading into a primary before November knows it.

Whether this reshapes the party’s posture on Israel is no longer the question. Even President Trump has openly broke with Bibi Netanyahu — over a ceasefire, over Iran, over who sets the terms in the Middle East.

For Democrats, what’s left is whether their leaders move first or get caught flat-footed, seat by seat, into the fall. They can begin by saying what their own voters have already concluded: that protecting Jewish New Yorkers and Palestinian lives are not conflicting goals, that opposing war is not hatred, and that families being attacked over their faith are owed protection, not suspicion.

AIPAC’s old hold is gone. The only question left is whether the party’s leaders help build what comes next or get replaced by it.

Gula is the interim CEO of Emgage Action, where he leads a national effort to build Muslim civic power through voter engagement, policy advocacy, and leadership development. He led the Million Muslim Votes campaign and has organized Muslim voters across battleground states for more than a decade.