White Brooklyn socialists tell Hakeem Jeffries they will oust him next as they celebrate Mamdani-backed Claire Valdez’s win

Valdez is part of the new crop of socialists who are taking over the Democrat Party. She was endorsed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and was arrested twice in 2025. Once during a violent protest outside the offices of New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand in 2025 where she was angry with them for supporting Israel, then again when obstructing ICE enforcement at Federal Plaza in Manhattan. She opposes federal immigration law.

At her victory party in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, a trendy neighborhood into which Williamsburg and Greenpoint hipsters have expanded, the white crowd of constituents were exuberant. They cheered as she won, all of them screaming and raising their hands. And when Jeffries was mentioned they booed.

Footage from Katie Honan, a reporter for The City, showed the moment after the boos. As Jeffries was shown on the TV at the victory party, the white kids chanted "You're next! You're next! You're next!"

Jeffries and Mamdani clearly do not see eye-to-eye when it comes to the future of the Democrat Party. Mamdani is an avowed socialist, a foreigner who became a citizen in his late 20s, while Jeffries is a born-and-bred Brooklynite and member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mamdani's candidates, however, came out winners on Tuesday. Darializa Avila Chevalier, a recent Muslim convert and anti-Israel activist, won in the 13th district ousting incumbent Adriano Espaillat.

Ahead of the contests, Jeffries said of Mamdani "I don't think we're on opposite pages. You can ask him whether he thinks we're on opposite pages. He doesn't believe we're on opposite pages."

"A handful of primaries that go in one direction or the other in a given state or two aren't going to reshape who we are as House Democrats," Jeffries said, but that may be wishful thinking on his part.

They wore bandanas emblazoned with Valdez's name in their hair, they carried laptops covered in Zohran Mamdani stickers, they believe they are morally good upstanding people because they vote socialist even as they boo the black man who is the head of the Democrat Party, who anticipates becoming House Speaker should the Dems take back the House in November.

The crowd cheered when another DSA member candidate, David Orkin, won his race against incumbent New York State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar. And when Mamdani arrived to speak, as measures from the Jay-Z, Alicia Keys classic "Empire State of Mind" played, they were ecstatic. Then they chanted "Free Palestine," because a lot of the primaries in New York on Tuesday night were about Israel.

At the end of the night, Honan recorded the crowd singing the anthem of the Industrial Workers of the World, Solidarity Forever. The union, known as the Wobblies, was built on socialist ideals such as wealth transfer, organizing, and workers' rights.

Valdez will leave her seat in the 37th Assembly District for New York State where she made promises to lower utility costs, the cost of rent, and of course, to tax the rich. She is herself a member of the United Auto Workers Union Local 2110, which represents administrators at Columbia University.

Valdez was a program assistant in the visual arts department and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She moved from Texas to New York to pursue an arts career and now will fight against Israel in Congress. She was endorsed by her union.