Representative Adriano Espaillat often talks about being the first Dominican American elected to Congress, a source of pride in a New York City district that is home to the largest Dominican community in the country.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist challenging Mr. Espaillat in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, is also a child of Dominican immigrants. Yet in the final days of the campaign, Ms. Avila Chevalier has faced attacks questioning her allegiance to her ethnic heritage.
Allies and former associates of Mr. Espaillat have falsely accused Ms. Avila Chevalier of being Haitian in origin, and have amplified her reluctance in 2022 to display the Dominican flag on her bio.
In one example, Rusking Pimentel, an adviser to Mr. Espaillat who is currently on leave, accused Ms. Avila Chevalier and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has endorsed her candidacy, of trying to replace Dominicans in Washington Heights with Haitians who are Muslim, City and State first reported. Ms. Avila Chevalier and the mayor are Muslim.
In another example, Pelegrin Castillo, a former public official in the Dominican Republic, warned earlier this month on social media that Dominicans who are registered to vote should “stay highly alert” because Mr. Mamdani was focused on “downplaying the political influence” of Dominicans by running Ms. Avila Chevalier against Mr. Espaillat in an effort to “reconfigure” the district and give Haitians more power.
Mr. Espaillat, after voting Tuesday morning at Public School 152 in Washington Heights, did not respond to questions about some of his supporters falsely asserting that Ms. Avila Chevalier is Haitian, but he did boast of his own heritage.
“I am the first Dominican American to be elected to the House of Representatives,” Mr. Espaillat said. “I think I bring a different perspective to the table that’s never been heard before.”
Later, in a statement, Mr. Espaillat called for all to “lower the temperature of this campaign,” he said. “I completely disavow and condemn any personal attacks on my opponent or her identity,” he added, but said that he and his staff had also been harassed.
The Dominican Republic and Haiti, which share the island of Hispaniola, have a long history of animosity and war, including an occupation of the entire island by the Haitians and a massacre of Haitians by Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator. The Dominican Republic is in the midst of a mass deportation of Haitians. Mr. Espaillat has faced criticism for supporting a Dominican law that stripped some Haitians of their Dominican citizenship.
Ms. Avila Chevalier said that she had recently been the target of racially offensive language and that people have contacted her family demanding to see her birth certificate.
“For weeks, I’ve been the target of disinformation campaigns and racist attacks in which the word ‘Haitian’ has been used as a slur against me,” Ms. Avila Chevalier said, “meant to question my Dominican identity and fan the flames of division to distract from the issues our community faces and on which Espaillat has failed to take action, such as rising rent prices and the affordability crisis.”
Ms. Avila Chevalier has faced intense scrutiny over past social media posts where she has called for abolishing the police, political borders and prisons and called veterans “war criminals.” She called President Biden a “rapist,” and responded to a suggestion by Kamala Harris, then the vice president, that migrants not cross the U.S.-Mexico border by writing: “I have no nuance to add. [Expletive] Kamala Harris.”
In 2022, Ms. Avila Chevalier condemned Dominican nationalism and said it was the reason she didn’t put the flag in her bio, calling such nationalism “violent.” Her campaign did not immediately respond to a request to explain what Ms. Avila Chevalier’s post had meant.
On Tuesday, Ms. Avila Chevalier walked away during an appearance on La Mega 97.9, a popular Spanish language radio station in New York City, after the hosts accused her of insulting the Dominican flag, and offered her a chance to apologize to Dominicans upset by a past social media post that some believed showed disrespect to the Dominican flag.
Ms. Avila Chevalier denied that she had ever insulted the flag, and said that the accusation was “disinformation” being spread by Mr. Espaillat. “I am Dominican,” she said in Spanish.
On Monday, Mr. Mamdani had come to Ms. Avila Chevalier’s defense, decrying anti-Blackness in the race and saying voters should decide who would represent them based on what they had seen, “not on the race of the candidates or on what communities they are alleged to belong to.”
“One thing I do want to make clear that I find unacceptable in our city is the attempt to use the term ‘Haitian’ as a slur,” Mr. Mamdani said.
Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
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