Primary night is bringing a reckoning for sitting House members who have built shaky footholds in competitive districts. Four incumbents have already fallen to primary challengers this cycle, and a cluster of vulnerable lawmakers will be tested again tonight in New York, Maryland, and Utah.
The most dire situation belongs to Rep. Dan Goldman of New York's 10th District. The two-term Democrat has never commanded strong primary support. He won his first nomination in 2022 with just 26% of the vote in a fragmented field, then scraped past low-profile challengers last cycle with barely two-thirds support. Tonight he faces Brad Lander, a former New York City comptroller who won two citywide elections and finished third in last year's mayoral race. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who dominated the mayoral primary in Goldman's district by a 2-to-1 margin, has thrown his backing behind Lander and positioned him as the liberal choice on Israel. An Emerson poll released last month showed Lander crushing Goldman by more than 30 points. A tight race would surprise observers. A Goldman victory would rank as a shocking upset.
The second New York incumbent in peril is Rep. Adriano Espaillat of the 13th District, which spans Harlem, northern Manhattan, and the Bronx. Mamdani is again flexing his influence, endorsing progressive activist Darializa Avila Chevalier, who is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. The district is roughly 50% Hispanic and 25% Black. Espaillat's path to Congress a decade ago hinged on mobilizing Hispanic voters, sometimes creating tension with Black leaders. Now he faces a demographic wildcard: gentrification has brought college-educated progressive newcomers into the area. In a low-turnout election, those voters could wield outsized power, much as they did when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upended longtime Rep. Joe Crowley in a nearby district in 2018. Black voter turnout from Harlem could prove decisive for Espaillat's survival.
Maryland's 6th District presents a different dynamic. Rep. April McClain Delaney took the seat two years ago when David Trone ran for Senate and lost to Angela Alsobrooks. McClain Delaney won the nomination with 40% and then beat her Republican opponent by 6 points. Now Trone wants his old seat back and is spending $25 million of his own fortune to reclaim it. McClain Delaney, however, has her own financial firepower: her husband, John Delaney, is a wealthy businessman who represented the district before her and self-funded his campaigns. The district covers the outer Washington suburbs and exurbs in Montgomery and Frederick counties. Without sharp ideological differences between the candidates, McClain Delaney's incumbency may be her shield, giving voters little reason to boot her out. But Trone's name recognition and spending power pose a genuine threat.
Out West, two Utah Republicans face their own troubles. Rep. Celeste Maloy won her seat in a 2023 special election and has never enjoyed solid support from the GOP base. She survived her first full-term bid in 2024 by a razor-thin 176 votes against a right-wing challenger. The congressional map was then redrawn by court order, placing her in new terrain against Phil Lyman, a former state legislator whose fights with the federal Bureau of Land Management have built him populist credentials on the right. Trump's endorsement of Maloy is a major asset, though Trump's backing may prove most potent when directed against candidates he deems disloyal. Lyman portrays himself as staunchly pro-Trump and has raised little money, but grassroots unrest with the incumbent could work to his advantage.
Rep. Blake Moore, chairman of the House Republican Conference and a Trump endorsee, holds an entirely different vulnerability. He commands little trust from the party's activist base and has lost at the Utah GOP convention for the third consecutive election cycle. This year's challenger is state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, who has hammered Moore over his past support for redistricting reform, claiming it enabled the court-ordered map that will likely hand a seat to Democrats. Moore lost the convention vote but petitioned onto the primary ballot anyway. He won easily in his previous two primaries despite the convention defeats, and he appears positioned to survive this one as well. Yet his fractured relationship with the base ensures some uncertainty remains.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "These races show that incumbency matters less when activists smell blood, but money and Trump backing still move dials in Republican country."
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