Last fall, when Uptown organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier got an email from the Justice Democrats—the group that helped power Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Washington in 2018—saying they wanted her to run for Congress, at first she wondered if it was a prank.
The then-31-year-old Muslim convert was working as an investigator at a Harlem legal services organization, and going for her Ph.D. in sociology at CUNY. As an organizer, she was also working to free New Yorkers from immigration detention—including her friend Mahmoud Khalil—and leading pro-Palestine protests at her alma mater, Columbia University. (Hell Gate interviewed her during protests at Columbia in 2024). While her maternal grandfather was a member of the resistance movement against Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and was eventually forced to flee the country due to his activism, she told Hell Gate that, before Justice Democrats reached out, she never had designs on running for office.
Nevertheless, she met with the political organization, who said that she'd been nominated by members of the NY-13 community who wanted her to run against the nine-year incumbent, Congressman Adriano Espaillat. Avila Chevalier, a Democratic Socialists of America member, took a month to mull the prospect over, but by November she was on board. "We're in a time of rising fascism, and as an organizer, I've always believed that it's going to take every single one of us to be just a little bit braver," she said. "I knew that if my community was asking me to take this step, I couldn't ask others to be brave if I wasn't willing to do that myself. So I said yes."
Six months later, NY-13 is one of the closest-watched races in the June primary. While the 71-year-old Espaillat has held a firm grip on the district for almost a decade, the area could be ripe for change. (Commie Corridor Jr.?) Last November, Zohran Mamdani annihilated Andrew Cuomo in the district, which comprises parts of Upper Manhattan and the West Bronx, by up to 73 points in some areas. Last quarter, Avila Chevalier outraised Espaillat, pulling in $270,000 to his $230,000. And on Thursday, Mayor Mamdani endorsed Avila Chevalier, adding to a small roster of endorsements that, if successful, would mean he'd have three DSA allies (including Claire Valdez and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, plus DSA-friendly Brad Lander) in Congress. And, in cosigning Avila Chevalier, the mayor reportedly broke his promise to back Espaillat, a battle-worn fighter commonly referred to as the "dean of Dominican elected officials"—signaling that he expects she can win.
"It feels like a full circle moment," Avila Chevalier told Hell Gate Friday. "I was a volunteer field lead for the mayor in February 2025, back when he was still polling at one percent and people were brushing his campaign off as a longshot. That’s something I can relate to." Addressing the assertion that Mamdani reneged on endorsing Espaillat, Avila Chevalier pointed out that, in the mayoral primary, Espaillat backed Cuomo, "the candidate this district rejected by 19 points in the primary—and then switched to Mamdani the moment the votes came in."
But as Avila Chevalier's star rises, so does the opposition. Last week, a pro-Espaillat political flier of unknown origin circulated using an image of a random woman to depict Avila Chevalier. On Friday, Politico dredged up tweets of Avila Chevalier's from 2020 that called President Joe Biden "a rapist" and "a war criminal"—a follow-up to a New York Post piece about posts she made in 2019 that it alleged were racist against white women.
On Friday, Avila Chevalier told Hell Gate she was disappointed to see Politico "take a page out of the New York Post’s playbook and focus on re-litigating tweets from over half a decade ago while continuing to champion an outdated politics that does not serve our people."
"That’s why I’m running," she added. "Because I know our community is sick and tired of being ‘represented’ by a Congressmember who has done nothing but spout empty messaging while taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from AIPAC, corporate PACs, and the very same real estate lobbies pricing us out of our homes."
Hell Gate met Avila Chevalier, now 32, on a balmy afternoon in McCarren Park, where she sat in her socks on a blue sheet spread out over fallen acorns. Just two days before Mamdani's endorsement, we spoke with her about what's changed since those tweets, as well as her vision for NY-13 and the race ahead.