Meet the Mini-Mamdanis: Budding Crop of Extreme Left-Wing, 9/11-Justifying, Israel-Hating Socialists Win Primary Nods for New York State Legislature Seats

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani didn’t just sweep the Big Apple’s congressional races.

Down ballot, members of his Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) dominated contests for seats in the New York State Legislature, ensuring the state capital in Albany, N.Y., will be getting pinker.

With most of New York City deep, deep blue, Democratic primaries typically offer the true election fight, with Election Day in November usually a formality. That is the case with some notable state legislative primary wins by Mamdani’s democratic socialists on Tuesday.

New York’s state legislature—which produced both Mamdani and newly nominated socialist congressional nominee Claire Valdez—is becoming a farm team for Mamdani’s merry band of Israel-hating socialists.

Aber Kawas, a hijab-clad Palestinian "Muslim Civil rights activist," was elected to the state’s 12th senate district, a winding area stretching through Brooklyn and Queens.

Kawas has in past remarks made excuses for 9/11, blamed it on the evils of the West, and said Muslims have nothing to apologize for.

"The system of capitalism and racism and white supremacy et cetera—and Islamophobia—have all been used to colonize lands, to take resources from other people, and so this is a long trajectory, and we're just seeing the manifestations of that continuation with 9/11," she offered during a 2017 panel.

"The idea we have to apologize for a terror attack that a couple of people did and then there is no apology or reparations for genocides and for slavery, et cetera—is something I find reprehensible," Kawas added.

Kawas, who was endorsed by Mamdani, is a Brooklyn native who holds a master's degree in "Islamic Liberation Theology" from a South African university and moved to the district last year, the Washington Free Beacon previously reported.

Kawas has also praised terrorists like Syed Fahad Hashmi, convicted of providing support to al Qaeda, and the Hamas fundraisers known as the Holy Land Five as "imprisoned heroes" and "living martyrs," according to FrontPage Magazine.

Footage from 2016 shows Kawas attending a pro-Hamas rally while holding a headband worn by its fighters (though she has disputed that characterization).

Her father, Abdelkareem Kawas, is a Jordanian national who was deported in 2008 after a felony conviction regarding real estate fraud, the New York Post reported. On her campaign website, Kawas prominently states that her father was "detained by ICE and deported from the US by the same cruel immigration system that is harming the people of Queens today," without mentioning his criminal history that has nothing to do with immigration.

Illapa Sairitupac, another Mamdani-endorsed DSA activist, won an assembly seat on the Lower East Side. Sairitupac opted for a career in politics after contemplating, then deciding against, a career as "an openly queer reverend," he told Jacobin, a communist magazine.

"In this world, under capitalism, we’re made to forget that we’re all connected. We’re indoctrinated to believe that it’s every man for himself, pull yourself up by your bootstraps — all those lies that cause division and disharmony," Sairitupac mused.

"My ecosocialist comrades saw me as a potential candidate and broached it with me over a year ago … the idea of fighting together against the capitalist class. Yes, Lower Manhattan is full of different people and communities, but ultimately, we have the same enemies: the bosses and the billionaires."

Sairitupac, a 39-year-old social worker and "anti-ICE activist and tenant organizer," won the crowded race with just 36 percent of the vote after coming up short in a similar effort in 2023.

Socialist Eon Huntley knocked out incumbent assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman with roughly 58 percent of the vote, taking New York’s 56th State Assembly District in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Huntley had tried and failed to take the same seat against Zinerman in 2024.

During the campaign Huntley raised eyebrows for hosting an informational event called "know your enemy"—which he later clarified meant AIPAC, charter schools, real estate, and other socialist boogeymen.

Huntley also does not technically live in the district, something Team Zinerman attempted to make hay of. Huntley in fact lives in a posh Brooklyn condo built with the help of a property tax exemption he opposes, the New York Post reported in 2024.

"District lines are arbitrary," Huntley said at the time—dismissing the concern. "Community and neighborhood are another thing."

David Orkin, "a Jewish anti-Zionist" attorney, ousted incumbent assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar in the state’s 38th district in Queens. Rajkumar had been a close ally of former New York City mayor Eric Adams.

"Palestine was on the ballot - and won. David will be a champion for Palestinian freedom in Albany," the far-left Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) crowed after the victory. Orkin has been a member of JVP for more than a decade and credits the anti-Israel organization with shaping his Jewish identity.

"It’s so incredibly meaningful to me to be running this race as an anti-Zionist Jew, to be one of the few anti-Zionist Jewish voices that is in an elected seat in the state government," Orkin said in an Instagram reel.

Christian Celeste Tate, an "impact consultant," knocked out Assemblyman Erik Martin Dilan in the state’s 54th district—which covers Bushwick, Cypress Hills, and East New York.

Like many socialists, Tate had a privileged upbringing, with his website casually noting his father was a small business owner who sent him and his sister to private school. Tate also, however, asserted that "financial security was always out of reach" for his family.

Like other DSA members, Tate made "Palestine" a central tenet of his campaign, calling it a "local issue" for his district. He has vowed to pass the Not on Our Dime Act—first sponsored by Mamdani—which places restrictions on what kind of work nonprofits in New York state could do with Israel. The proposed state law is also a pet project of Kawas’s. It is fiercely opposed by Jewish groups who say it would demonize Jewish charities.

Tate says he was inspired to dedicate his life to social justice by New York’s Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, according to his website.

Samantha Kattan, "a socialist and a tenant organizer" claimed victory in the state’s 37th district in Queens—replacing fellow socialist Valdez who is moving onto Congress.

Kattan was backed by Mayor Mamdani and Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I.). She is the daughter of a Syrian father and Mexican mother.

Another socialist, Diana Moreno, who replaced Mamdani in Queens's 36th district in a special election, was returned to office this week as well.

Moreno is a veteran of the pro-Hamas campus organizing world, with her militant advocacy for the cause at New York University and Columbia University earning her a profile on Canary Mission, a pro-Israel watchdog group.

Moreno was arrested at a pro-Hamas rally in Oct 2023—just days after its deadly massacre in Israel.

"Joined hundreds of New Yorkers in support of @sjp.columbia students facing repression for standing up for Palestine," she said in an Instagram post from April 2024—an event she proudly attended while pregnant.

"My baby is learning more from these students than they ever would from Ivy Leagues like @columbia," she added.

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