Julia Salazar overcomes controversy to notch another victory for democratic socialists
The latest win for the insurgent progressive movement within the Democratic Party is in a New York State Senate district: Julia Salazar, the 27-year-old Jewish democratic socialist whose campaign drew national attention, won her primary Thursday to be the Democratic candidate on the ballot in November. Salazar defeated Democratic state Sen. Martin Dilan, who was running for his ninth term in the 18th District.
Its rare for a state Senate race, even one in a section of Brooklyn home to many reporters, to get much notice. But Salazars campaign was unusual, featuring national media attention, comparisons to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and a high degree of scrutiny of her background her brother publicly said that she was lying about her past, claiming to be from a working-class family when her mother made a middle-class salary and claiming to be an immigrant when she and her mother were both born in the US. A piece in Tablet, an online Jewish publication, also raised questions about her Judaism, calling her Jewish identity largely self-created.
The reporting about her past continued as the race went on. Several publications called attention to a lawsuit involving Salazar and Kai Hernandez, the ex-wife of famous Mets player Keith Hernandez. The conservative Daily Caller ran a story identifying her as an anonymous woman who had accused David Keyes, the spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister, of sexual harassment in 2016. (Eleven more women have since come forward to accuse Keyes, and he has temporarily stepped down to defend himself full-time).
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