On Tuesday night, three democratic socialist candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept Democratic congressional primaries, ousting two sitting members of Congress. The party's activist left didn't push the establishment aside. It replaced it.

Brad Lander beat Rep. Dan Goldman 62 percent to 38 percent in the 10th District. The AP called it minutes after polls closed. Minutes. And Goldman was the good news.

Goldman — the former lead counsel for Trump's first impeachment, backed by AIPAC — got crushed in Lower Manhattan and western Brooklyn by a candidate who called Israel's war in Gaza a genocide. Goldman had also opposed Israel's military operations. He just wouldn't use that word. In the current Democratic primary ecosystem in New York City, that's the whole ballgame. The line between winning and losing is "genocide" versus "I oppose the operations but."

Goldman tried to thread the needle. He criticized AIPAC from a debate stage while accepting their support. He opposed Israel's conduct while calling himself a Zionist. He was running as the more electable, more reasonable option.

Democratic primary voters in Lower Manhattan were not interested in reasonable.

But Goldman's loss was the smallest story of the night.

In New York's 13th District — Upper Manhattan and the Bronx — five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the 71-year-old chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, lost to a 32-year-old community organizer named Darializa Avila Chevalier by three points.

Avila Chevalier is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. While at Columbia University, she co-founded a group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest. That group later posted "Death to America" on its social media pages.

On October 8, 2023 — one day after Hamas murdered 1,200 people in Israel — she attended a pro-Palestinian rally. When asked directly to condemn Hamas and the October 7 massacre, she refused. She turned the question into another attack on Israel instead.

Her past social media posts include calling former President Joe Biden a "rapist" and writing an unprintable phrase about Kamala Harris.

She is going to Congress.

Espaillat had represented this district since 2017. He chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He had institutional relationships, seniority, and deep community ties in a district with a large Dominican and Puerto Rican population. None of it was enough. A candidate whose college organization posted "Death to America" beat him by three points in a Democratic primary.

In New York's 7th District — Astoria, Bushwick, Williamsburg, Long Island City — State Assemblywoman Claire Valdez, another DSA member and Mamdani endorsee, demolished Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso 58.1 percent to 32.5 percent. A district that had been represented by mainstream Democrats for decades now has a democratic socialist as its November nominee.

Three races. Three Mamdani-backed DSA candidates. Three wins. Two sitting members of Congress gone in a single night.

This wasn't a wave. Waves recede. What happened Tuesday in New York was structural. Mamdani won the mayor's office earlier this year. Now his candidates are winning congressional seats. The Democratic Socialists of America in New York aren't a fringe protest movement anymore. They're a functioning political machine — and they're beating the actual Democratic machine at its own game.

The establishment candidates believed they could survive by tacking left on Israel, distancing themselves from their own donors, and performing progressive credentials. Tuesday told them otherwise. In a purity contest, there is always someone more pure. Goldman criticized AIPAC from a debate stage. Espaillat had the endorsements, the seniority, and a decade of community relationships in his own district. Neither was enough.

What was enough: DSA membership, a Mamdani endorsement, and willingness to call the war a genocide.

These are deep-blue districts. All three nominees will almost certainly win their general elections in November. Which means the next Congress will include at minimum two new democratic socialist members — one of whom refused on camera to condemn the deadliest attack on Jewish civilians since the Holocaust. She will sit on committees. She will cast votes. She will have a congressional office, a staff, and a microphone.

She is going to Congress.

The Democratic establishment spent years telling its progressive activists to work within the system. They did.

Now they own it.