Darializa Avila Chevalier’s shocking upset of Representative Adriano Espaillat in a Democratic primary in New York on Tuesday underscored the perils of incumbency and the turbulence surrounding Israel and federal immigration enforcement.
It also hit upon a theme that has emerged in other high-profile races across the country: Political baggage simply doesn’t matter the way it used to.
Whether voters are fed up with establishment politics or just more empathetic to social media indiscretions, they seem more willing to overlook what once would have been deemed unacceptable beliefs and behavior.
In the waning weeks of the race, Ms. Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist, called for the abolition of prisons, open borders and an end to deportations — even for people convicted of violent crimes. And earlier in the campaign, she was confronted with a litany of social media posts where she disparaged Kamala Harris, the American flag, interracial relationships and Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Now Republicans, who are worried about losing control over the House and Senate in November, are likely to try to define their Democratic rivals as extremists, using positions that Ms. Avila Chevalier espouses.
“The Democratic Party, the socialists, the Marxists, have nominated some of the most radical candidates to ever run for office, and they’re running for Congress,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday, referring to Ms. Avila Chevalier and two other candidates who were supported by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “The insurgent left is on the rise.”
Ms. Avila Chevalier’s primary win all but ensures she will head to Washington; the district is overwhelmingly Democratic, and she’s unlikely to have a meaningful challenge in November.
She will immediately become one of the most left-leaning members in the chamber, a 32-year-old activist and doctoral student who organized protests against Israel at Columbia University and strenuously pushed for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who was then a Columbia graduate student, after he was detained by the Trump administration.
Howard Wolfson, a Democrat who advises former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, expressed concern about the views of Ms. Avila Chevalier and other far-left candidates.
“Republicans will seek to tie Democrats in competitive districts both in New York and around the country to our most extreme voices,” Mr. Wolfson said in an interview before the election. “Every Democrat in a competitive race will have to answer for our most extreme voices, and it will make the party as a whole seem extreme and out of touch.”
In this cycle, Ms. Avila Chevalier appears destined to be portrayed as an extreme candidate. Her years of provocative posts included directing an expletive toward Ms. Harris, calling Mr. Biden a rapist and repurposing a theory that Covid began in France, not China.
Super PACs spent million of dollars in ads against her, Mr. Espaillat attacked her at every turn, and his supporters even questioned her Dominican roots in a district with a large Latino population. And yet she bested Mr. Espaillat, who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and had the support of virtually every establishment player in New York, by four points as of Wednesday evening, with nearly 90 percent of all votes counted.
“So much of what they tried to attack Darializa for was her anger at the Democratic establishment; they tried to make it seem like a dirty thing,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman for the Justice Democrats, a leftist group that recruited Ms. Avila Chevalier to run.
It turns out, many voters in New York City appeared to share the dissatisfaction with Democratic leadership.
Mr. Espaillat was not the only Democratic incumbent to fall; Representative Dan Goldman was defeated by Brad Lander, the former city comptroller. Voters also unseated five Democratic incumbents from the State Legislature, with three losing to democratic socialists.
“There is an anti-incumbency and anti-establishment feeling among Democratic base voters who Democrats need if they ever want to take back the House, the Senate and the White House,” Mr. Andrabi added.
Israel was another strong factor driving votes in some of the House races in New York; the three candidates backed by Mr. Mamdani all had sharply critical views of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians.
Ms. Chevalier hammered Mr. Espaillat for receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars over his time in office from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; he had said the money had no effect on his governing decisions.
A person who worked on Mr. Espaillat’s race, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the election, said internal research of voter opinions showed that the AIPAC donations had hurt Mr. Espaillat and ultimately factored into his loss.
But success for Ms. Avila Chevalier did not come easily.
Even some of her supporters were concerned with how voters would react to revelations of her deleted social media history, as well as some of the more fringe positions she took during an interview with a local group of journalists who recently joined forces to interview candidates, according to one person close to her campaign who was granted anonymity.
In the end, voters decided to take a chance on the political novice, leaving some people who supported Mr. Espaillat to emerge from the night with a somewhat nihilistic takeaway.
“Nothing matters,” said Chris Coffey, a political consultant who works with Representative Ritchie Torres and supported Mr. Espaillat.
“People are very angry at the establishment, they’re angry at incumbents and they’re angry at AIPAC and Israel, and that trumps any tweets, any past positions,” Mr. Coffey said. “I think we saw that in her race, arguably Graham Platner’s race.”
Mr. Platner, the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, had volatile relationships with women, some ex-girlfriends said; exchanged sexual messages with other women during his marriage; and tattooed a Nazi symbol on his chest. He remains competitive in one of the country’s marquee Senate races.
But Ms. Avila Chevalier’s win seems destined to cause more consternation among Democratic establishment leaders, especially Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who hopes to become the next speaker of the House. He was very invested in re-electing Mr. Espaillat.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Jeffries called Mr. Espaillat “a tremendous public servant who will be missed,” and said they had spoken the night before. He did not say whether he had talked with Ms. Avila Chevalier, and a spokesman for Mr. Jeffries would not say whether he had connected with her since the results were called, or if he planned to do so.
Ms. Avila Chevalier has repeatedly declined to say whether she would support Mr. Jeffries for speaker if she were elected, and she remained noncommittal when asked again on Wednesday on NBC’s “Meet the Press Now.”
Her stunning upset makes it clear just how much New Yorkers want new leadership, a sentiment expressed by another democratic socialist who recently upset the city’s political establishment.
“New Yorkers are hungry for a new kind of politics,” Mr. Mamdani said on Wednesday. “What we saw last night was a hunger for leaders who will be there on the front lines, looking to make it easier for working people to afford life in the greatest city in the world.”
Annie Karni contributed reporting.
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