Nicholas Fandos

And a year ago this week, he did in remarkable fashion.

He beat Andrew Cuomo, this titan of Democratic politics.

So from the start, it's important to remember that Mamdani is an insurgent politician and he's a movement politician.

By the time last fall comes around and it's clear he's going to be elected mayor in the general election, he's already looking ahead to this year's races to figure out how can I expand that movement.

The first candidate he identifies is Brad Lander.

Now, Lander was actually a fellow mayoral candidate who Mamdani had beat, but then they locked arms to take on the Democratic establishment.

And Mamdani said to him, as the election is coming to a close, you know where we could use you most would be running for Congress.

Why don't you run in the Brooklyn and lower Manhattan seat where you're from against Dan Goldman?

who was a Democratic incumbent, a former federal prosecutor, but crucially did not endorse Mamdani in last year's election and historically has pretty close ties to Israel, which has become one of the animating issues, obviously, of the mayor's political movement.

Absolutely.

But in this case, Lander had a long track record in this district.

And I think both of them knew that he had a very good shot of beating Goldman and flipping this.

And crucially, Lander was willing to do something that Goldman never was.

Which was?

Good evening.

Welcome to New York One's debate for the 10th Congressional District.

Both these guys consider themselves liberal Zionists.

They're both Jewish.

And Goldman has been critical of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government.

But he's drawn a line at calling what's happened in Gaza a genocide.