Hipster Tammany Hall scored its most stunning win to date when one of its own, Zohran Mamdani, was elected mayor of America’s largest city. This far-left coalition comprises the Working Families Party, the Democratic Socialists of America, and their allies in the nonprofit world. With Mamdani’s victory, these groups might be expected to consolidate their gains and act with prudence as they look ahead to the 2026 elections.
But the leaders of this new political machine appear to be embracing a different political strategy, one closer to “permanent revolution.” Looking ahead, moreover, they appear to have set their sights on more than just the five boroughs of New York City.
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Even before Mamdani was sworn in on New Year’s Day, his comrades in the Working Families Party (WFP) had announced new targets. In North Carolina, the party endorsed Nida Allam, a radical candidate challenging incumbent Democratic representative Valerie Foushee in the primary. Last summer, it announced its support for Randy Villegas, a young progressive Democrat attempting to flip a GOP-held House seat in California.
The WFP has been vocal about more high-profile efforts, as well. In November 2025, the party announced that it would work to defeat one of America’s best known and most unorthodox Democrats: Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman. Notably, the WFP made this vow before the end of 2025, though Fetterman isn’t up for reelection until 2028. The WFP has made this moderate’s defeat a priority.
It’s hard to say if Hipster Tammany will have as much success outside of New York as it has had in recent years within the Empire State. After all, the WFP—the boss of this new machine—occupies a unique space in state politics due to New York’s system of fusion voting, which allows more than one party to nominate the same candidate. States that don’t allow fusion voting could prove tougher terrain.
And thanks to recent action by New York governor Kathy Hochul, the WFP finds itself heading into 2026 with new legal authority to punish those in the Empire State it sees as wayward members. Hochul recently signed into law a bill that gives the WFP state committee the ability to commence disenrollment—or expulsion—proceedings against party members who it believes are not in alignment with the party’s principles. That power already exists under New York’s Election Law, but until this change it could be exercised only by county party chairs. Unlike the other recognized parties, however, the WFP has no organized county committees. This new law “fixes” that. It’s almost certain that the WFP, with this new legal tool, will look to punish and expel members who dare to stray from the party line.
For now, the Empire State undoubtedly remains the WFP’s primary focus. In 2026, New Yorkers are likely to see multiple Democratic primaries that look like reruns of last year’s battle for New York City’s Democratic mayoral nomination.
One such fight: outgoing New York City comptroller Brad Lander is challenging incumbent congressman Dan Goldman for the Democratic nomination in the overwhelmingly blue Tenth Congressional District. While Lander is running from the left, Goldman is hardly a centrist Democrat—his voting record in Congress shows that he rarely strays from the party line.
In the eyes of Hipster Tammany, however, Goldman is guilty of two unforgivable sins. First, he’s a steadfast supporter of Israel. He voted with Republicans to censure fellow Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib over her use of the phrase “from the river to the sea” and remained supportive of Israel throughout the Gaza War. Second, he refused to endorse Mamdani.
As payback, Mamdani and his machine have coalesced behind Lander. On the day he announced his candidacy, Lander received endorsements from Mamdani, the WFP, and Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Like every good political machine, this new Tammany Hall moves quickly to consolidate support behind its candidate. On the day Lander jumped into the race, another potential far-left challenger to Goldman—New York City council member Alexa Aviles—announced that she would not run for Congress. Given the unified opposition on his left, Goldman faces a serious threat.
New York’s Tenth Congressional District race isn’t the only one where Hipster Tammany is likely to throw around its new political weight. A contest similar to the Goldman-Lander fight is shaping up in the Bronx, where Michael Blake—a former Obama staffer, 2025 mayoral candidate, and one-term state assemblyman—is challenging incumbent Democrat Ritchie Torres in the primary for the 15th Congressional District. (Torres won his seat in Congress in 2020 after defeating Blake in the Democratic primary.)
Blake is making opposition to Israel a central issue of his campaign—though it’s no stretch to say that his hostility to Israel is more about primary politics than personal conviction. In previous campaigns, Blake took pride in being a strong Israel supporter. But key players of the new machine like the WFP and the DSA are openly hostile to the Jewish state. Blake will need their money and muscle to stand a chance of winning his primary. And the new Tammany has shown that it knows how to win primaries.
Torres, like Goldman, has remained a steadfast supporter of Israel. In 2024, he even quit as a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus over disagreements with the group over the Gaza War.
With Mamdani’s win in 2025, Hipster Tammany erased any doubt that it has become a major player in Democratic politics. But power does not appear to be making this new machine more measured or responsible. Instead, its early moves suggest a desire to identify new targets and enforce ideological discipline.
If this hard-left machine has its way, 2026 will produce a wave of primary challenges against lawmakers who deviate, even marginally, from its line in New York and beyond. Opponents of the machine, particularly within the Democratic Party, should take the new Tammany seriously.
Top Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images