Bill Maher says Democrats are “well on their way” to blowing the 2028 presidential election after left-wing Democratic Socialists swept three congressional primaries in New York City last week.
The HBO “Real Time” host made the comments in Washington on the red carpet before accepting the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center on Sunday, according to Fox News.
“The Democrats just elected three very far-left Democratic Socialists in New York, who are crazy — like outright, really crazy,” Mr. Maher said, according to Fox News. “So, how are they going to blow it? I don’t know, but they seem to be well on their way.”
Mr. Maher’s remarks marked a reversal from two months earlier, when he had said Democrats “couldn’t help but win” the 2026 midterms, Fox News reported. He attributed the shift partly to an April Supreme Court ruling on redistricting and to last week’s primary results.
The three candidates Mr. Maher referenced — New York state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez, community organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier and former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander — all won Democratic primaries for New York City congressional seats, defeating establishment-backed candidates. Ms. Valdez won the 7th Congressional District over Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Ms. Avila Chevalier won the 13th District over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, and Mr. Lander won the 10th District over Rep. Dan Goldman, according to Fox News.
All three were endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a self-described Democratic Socialist, and two of them — Ms. Valdez and Ms. Avila Chevalier — are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, according to Mediaite.
Ms. Avila Chevalier has drawn scrutiny over now-deleted social media posts. She called black and Arab men “fetishizing ugly colonizer women” and, in one post, described the United States as “a f—-ing disgrace,” Fox News reported, citing her past X account. In another deleted post, she wrote that she “forgot to get napkins” and instead “wiped my hand on the American flag behind me,” according to Fox News.
Ms. Valdez has called for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which she described as a “fascist agency,” accusing the agency of “terrorizing” and “kidnapping” people in social media posts, Fox News reported.
Mr. Lander was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America from his college years until 2023, when he left the organization over its response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. He has since said his first priority in Congress will be to “vanquish Trump’s fascism” and abolish ICE, according to Fox News.
As a city councilman in June 2020, amid nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd, he said “it is time to defund the police” and pushed to cut $1 billion from the NYPD’s budget; he later called the defund movement a “failed political strategy.” In a 2022 candidate questionnaire, he suggested he could bear responsibility for “white supremacy” because of his race, saying, “As a white man, that work starts by listening as honestly as I can to black people about the anger and pain they are feeling,” according to Fox News.
Mr. Lander was arrested by ICE agents in June 2025 while escorting a man out of federal immigration court in Manhattan; the Department of Homeland Security accused him of assaulting an officer, but the charges were later dropped, according to CBS News New York. He was arrested again in September 2025 alongside roughly a dozen other elected officials during a sit-in aimed at inspecting a federal immigration holding facility on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, according to amNewYork.
The primary results have unsettled some establishment Democrats. Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville said he does not believe congressional Democrats should seat Ms. Avila Chevalier under the party’s banner, citing her self-identification as a democratic socialist, Fox News reported. Sen. John Fetterman, Pennsylvania Democrat, also criticized the newly nominated candidates on social media, writing that he was “the only Democrat in the U.S. Senate that refuses to excuse this or defend any of those self-identified communists,” according to Fox News.
President Trump also weighed in, sardonically congratulating Mr. Mamdani on securing “3 solid Communists” in the primaries, before later writing that “the game is on” as the “Communists” made “their move” in the U.S., according to Mediaite.
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