Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, right, warned of the rise of socialist leaders like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, left. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images; Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
By Randy DeSoto June 25, 2026 at 5:35pm
The sweep of socialist candidates in New York’s primary election on Tuesday fulfills a warning Charlie Kirk gave in 2020.
Candidates backed by socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept their Democratic primary elections on Tuesday night, winning congressional races against incumbent Reps. Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat.
A third Mamdani-backed candidate won the primary for a seat in which the incumbent congresswoman is not seeking re-election, CNBC reported.
And at the state level, Democratic socialist Aber Kawas, who has blamed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on “capitalism and racism, and white supremacy,” also prevailed in her New York state senate primary.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, who defeated Espaillat, wants to abolish prisons, legalize prostitution and drug use, abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and end any U.S. military support to Israel. She also called the U.S. “a f***ing disgrace,” according to the New York Post.
I am proud to endorse a slate of candidates who will champion our affordability agenda in Albany. These leaders represent the very best of public service: a commitment to tackling challenges both large and small and a belief that government should work for everyone—not just the… pic.twitter.com/uen8mDSVmH
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) May 30, 2026
The Post also reported that Tuesday’s socialist surge in New York was fueled in large part by younger voters.
How just 7% of voters, mostly young and white, led Mamdani’s NYC socialist election surge. Read today’s cover here: https://t.co/U8R2r2Y57X pic.twitter.com/uqEIz4EFa8
— New York Post (@nypost) June 25, 2026
In January 2020, I interviewed Kirk after a YouGov/Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation poll found that 70 percent of millennials said they were either “extremely likely” or “somewhat likely” to vote for a socialist candidate.
Do you think the Democrats’ 2028 nominee will be a socialist?
He said in response, “I’ve been signaling this alarm bell for years. And in fact, I’ve been wrongly accused of being an alarmist when I say that many young people are advocating for socialism. And it’s growing quickly.”
“And now I don’t think people are challenging me on that anymore. But it’s because I’ve been seeing it brewing up on college campuses, and I’ve seen kind of the clueless coalition of professors and students build an alliance to advocate for these horrendous ideas that will really wreak havoc on our country,” Kirk added.
He also predicted regarding socialist New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “I’ve told people she’s going to multiply in Congress. There are hyper-entitled, clueless millennials that are ready to undo every piece of true progress that our country has made over the last 200 years, just because they think a professor has told them something different. And it’s a very scary direction our country could take if we embrace people like that.”
The three Democratic socialists’ wins in New York City on Tuesday prove Kirk’s prediction true. All three, from deep-blue districts, are almost certain to prevail in November.
Kirk told me that two questions help dispel young people of the idea that they really want socialism in America.
“You ask the question to a student, ‘Do you trust the government?’ Traditionally, their answer will be, ‘No, I don’t trust the government. The government’s horrible,’” Kirk said.
“You ask the next question, ‘Then why do you want to make government bigger?’ ‘Well, I don’t want to make government bigger,’” would be the normal response.
“Then you’re not a socialist,” Kirk would inform the person. It twould take him about 15 seconds for the entire back-and-forth. “The entire premise should be about trust of government,” Kirk emphasized. “Students don’t like government. They don’t like politicians.”
“Students think they’re advocating for freedom when they advocate for socialism. I know that might sound bizarre, but that’s the messaging campaign that the Marxists have undertaken,” he said.
I go into more depth about Kirk’s views on socialism and how he saw Christianity as kryptonite to it in the newly released 2026 edition of my book, “We Hold These Truths: The Two Beliefs That Still Hold the Power to Transform the Nation and the World.”
My new book, “We Hold These Truths: The Two Beliefs That Still Hold the Power to Transform the Nation and the World,” is out, and it could not be more timely with #America250 and the rise of socialism. The book hits key moments in US history from the founding to today!… pic.twitter.com/Ot0pWyKcag
— Randy DeSoto (@RandyDeSoto) June 25, 2026
I argue in the book that Kirk would certainly have had a heyday with Mamdani’s push to entice Americans to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
The 2020 YouGov poll also found that only 57 percent of millennials said they believe the Declaration of Independence better guarantees freedom and equality than the Communist Manifesto. That’s compared to 94 percent of the Silent Generation, who, of course, lived through some of the darkest days of the Cold War.
Kirk responded to that statistic by saying, “We don’t teach history. This is all because of our schools. Schools are the number one reason why this is all screwed up. My parents’ generation — and they’ll be the first to admit it — totally screwed this up.
“They sent my generation to leftist indoctrination factories that teach kids to hate our country, and they are wondering why this is going in the wrong direction.”
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