Darializa Avila Chevalier, an activist and democratic socialist, stunned Representative Adriano Espaillat in the Democratic primary for New York’s 13th Congressional District, according to The Associated Press.
The victory by Ms. Avila Chevalier unseats a five-term congressman in arguably the biggest upset in a New York House primary since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley in 2018, and hands yet another resounding victory to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who backed her.
In endorsing her in late May, Mr. Mamdani broke a promise to support Mr. Espaillat after the congressman endorsed him during the mayoral election in 2025 — a political gamble that alienated New York’s Democratic old guard and the Latino political establishment.
Her ascendance also reflects a shift in both the demographics and priorities of the district’s voters, who opted for a millennial first-time candidate over a veteran politician nearly 40 years her senior who built a machine over decades in elected office. The 13th District is heavily Democratic, making it almost certain that Ms. Avila Chevalier will win the seat in November.
Ms. Avila Chevalier’s online presence was a flashpoint of the race in its final weeks, as her old posts on X, then known as Twitter, became fodder for negative advertising and news coverage. For years she posted, often in crass or profane terms, her opinions about topics ranging from politics to interracial relationships. She elevated a conspiracy theory about the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and sharply criticized Vice President Kamala Harris, using an expletive. She deactivated her account in 2022.
Mr. Espaillat and his allies poured millions into digital and cable advertisements that highlighted her now-deleted posts as they sought to paint her as lacking the judgment and experience to serve in Congress. One seven-figure spot highlighting one of Ms. Avila Chevalier’s posts that seemed to refer to ex-servicemen as “war criminals” ran during Game 5 of the N.B.A. Finals, where New York viewership soared well into the millions.
In the ad, a Black military veteran says: “Darializa calling us ‘war criminals’ is wrong. The men and women I served with are not war criminals. They are heroes.’”
Ms. Avila Chevalier is likely to bring a far-left approach to policymaking. In the past, she has embraced abolishing the police, borders and prisons and seizing property from landlords.
Mr. Mamdani was repeatedly asked about the posts after he endorsed Ms. Avila Chevalier, but he did not criticize her publicly. He instead emphasized their shared campaign principles of making New York more affordable, uniting disengaged factions of the Democratic Party and curbing the presence of federal immigration agents in the city.
In the waning days of the race, some of Mr. Espaillat’s supporters repeatedly questioned Ms. Avila Chevalier’s Dominican roots and falsely described her as Haitian. Ms. Avila Chevalier identifies as Afro-Latina. A former government official from the Dominican Republic who is supporting Mr. Espaillat suggested that Mr. Mamdani was supporting her only because both of them are Muslim. (Ms. Avila Chevalier is a recent convert to Islam.) Her allies blamed Mr. Espaillat’s campaign for the attacks; he denied involvement.
The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America was a key organizing force in Ms. Avila Chevalier’s challenge, as the group sought to expand its presence further uptown and into the Bronx, where leaders said they saw their biggest membership growth. She also started her campaign with the support of Justice Democrats, the group that powered Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 campaign. It spent nearly $300,000 on Ms. Avila Chevalier’s advertisements and campaign infrastructure.
Both candidates were powered by significant cash infusions from outside groups. The group American Priorities, which was founded to counter the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in politics, spent more than $1 million on advertisements supporting Ms. Avila Chevalier. A handful of groups supporting Mr. Espaillat, including the Latino Victory Fund and BOLD PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s campaign arm, shelled out more than $5 million to boost him.
But Mr. Espaillat’s campaign struggled to cobble together a strategy that could outrun his challenger’s ground game and the changing demographics of the district, which has shifted younger and whiter. His support from the real estate lobby and American Israel Public Affairs Committee soured his image with voters, as did his tenuous relationship with Harlem’s longtime Black power brokers.
The 13th District includes Morningside Heights and East Harlem and stretches into Washington Heights and the Bronx. It is one of the poorest congressional districts in the country and home to the city’s largest Dominican population — a fact that Mr. Espaillat, a Dominican American who was the first formerly undocumented immigrant elected to Congress, made the crux of his campaign message.
In a speech to the National Action Network during the weekend before the election, Ms. Avila Chevalier cast her views of the race through the lens of her own identity. Powerful lobbies and leaders, she said, “have told us that we have to choose — that dignity for one community must come at the expense of another. That this community, where so many of us carry many identities that you could stack them like dominoes, has to pick a side.”
“I am Black and Dominican,” she said. “And I will not apologize for it.”
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