In the wake of a trifecta of victories by far-left candidates in New York City primaries on Tuesday — in addition to several other radical insurgents expected to join the House next year — Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), a leading moderate Democrat, said that moderate Democrats need to stand firm and push back.

Gottheimer told Jewish Insider on Wednesday that he’s concerned the incoming Democratic Socialists of America-aligned lawmakers will be coming to Washington to “wreak havoc in Congress,” rather than focusing on affordability and protecting national security, and warned they will try to “hold the party hostage” to their socialist views.

“Common-sense Democrats will fight back … when they try to push some part of their socialist agenda, whether that’s anti-cop, anti-American, we’ll stand up and block it. I’m not going to allow the party to be hijacked by a bunch of socialist agenda,” Gottheimer said.

Right-wing Republicans have repeatedly leveraged the narrow House majority held by their own party in the past two congressional sessions to hijack the House floor and force concessions out of House leadership, and some fear that the growing far-left bloc will emerge as a similar phenomenon — akin to a  Democratic version of the Freedom Caucus.

“It will lead to more gridlock and dysfunction, and hard-working families will pay the price for this,” Gottheimer said. “The socialists have put their own personal hatred above our national security and our promises to our allies. And I think we’ve got to call out hate when we see it, we’ve got to fight to keep our party from being hijacked by socialists.”

He argued that the socialist wing is not the majority of the party, but it does represent a growing faction.

“It’s a growing cancer, and we can’t let it spread, and we cannot ignore it,” Gottheimer said. One part of that, he continued, is rejecting efforts to make Israel policy and antisemitism a litmus test on the campaign trail.

Gottheimer said he was particularly disturbed by an incident in the final days of the New York primary campaign in which a Brooklyn coffee shop told Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) he was unwelcome and publicly attacked Goldman on social media over his views on Israel. He said that there is clearly antisemitism at play in the broader movement that helped drive the far-left primary victories in New York.

“When no one says anything after a member of Congress is told by a small business you’re not welcome here because you’re Jewish … that speaks to a larger problem,” Gottheimer said.

Gottheimer said the Tuesday primaries were a win for those who “hate America and hate the U.S.-Israel [relationship].”

“This was a night where bomb throwers won, and problem solvers lost,” Gottheimer said. “Those who believe deeply in supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship, but beyond that, believe deeply in fighting antisemitism — your candidates didn’t win.”

Other moderate Democrats, such as Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), are also calling for the moderate wing of the party to get organized and mobilize in the face of increasing successes by socialists, arguing that centrists have been caught flat-footed and complacent by an increasingly coordinated far left.

Suozzi and Rep. Adam Gray (D-CA) recently launched a new effort, The Promise to America, to bring together moderates.

The effort is built around a pledge to embrace capitalism and reject socialism, support moderation and reject extremism, support security locally and internationally, work toward fiscal discipline, support government competence and solutions and embrace patriotism.

On Thursday, the group announced that Gottheimer and Reps. Laura Gillen (D-NY), Don Davis (D-NC), Kristin McDonald Rivet (D-MI), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Janelle Bynum (D-OR), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) and Susie Lee (D-NV) had also signed the pledge, joined by Democratic House candidates Jessica Killin, Jamie Ager, Bobby Pulido, Marlene Galán Woods and Paul Barringer.