Darializa Avila Chevalier
American political candidate (born 1990s)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Darializa Avila Chevalier (born 1993/1994)[1] is an American politician and activist. A democratic socialist who is a member of both the Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratic Party, she is latter's nominee for New York's 13th congressional district in 2026.
City University of New York (MPhil)
Darializa Avila Chevalier | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1993 or 1994 (age 32–33) Florida, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic |
| Education | Columbia University (BA) City University of New York (MPhil) |
Born and raised in Florida, Avila Chevalier moved to New York City in 2012 to study at Columbia College, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Middle Eastern studies. She is a doctoral student in sociology at the City University of New York, studying "the ways Black immigrants from Latin America are impacted by the US criminal system and deportation".[2]
Avila Chevalier is the Democratic nominee for New York's 13th congressional district in 2026, having defeated incumbent Adriano Espaillat in the Democratic primary.
Early life and education
Avila Chevalier was born and raised in Florida by Dominican immigrant parents.[3] She also lived in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela[4] and speaks fluent Spanish.[5] Her maternal grandfather was a member of the resistance movement against Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and his successor Joaquín Balaguer, leading them to emigrate to America.[6][7]
Avila Chevalier moved to New York City to study at Columbia College,[3][8] where she was an illustrator for the Columbia Daily Spectator.[9] She graduated in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts in Middle Eastern studies.[10] Avila Chevalier is currently a doctoral student in sociology at the City University of New York,[11] studying "the ways Black immigrants from Latin America are impacted by the US criminal system and deportation".[12]
Student organizing
As a student at Columbia College, Avila Chevalier organized with Students for Justice in Palestine and Mobilized African Diaspora.[10] In summer 2014, at 20 years old, Avila Chevalier lived in the Palestinian city of Nablus while interning for Tomorrow's Youth Organization to teach English to Palestinian toddlers and children.[5] Upon her return from Palestine, she saw similarities between "systems of policing, of deportation, of the controlling of our movement" in the US and Israel. The 2014 Gaza War began days later.[5]
After graduation, she organized with BYP100.[13] In 2018, the group protested for removal of a Central Park statue of J. Marion Sims, a 19th-century gynecologist who experimented with painful surgical techniques on enslaved women without consent or anesthesia, despite later administering anesthesia to his white patients.[14] Avila Chevalier and three other Black women protested in front of the statue dressed in blood-stained hospital gowns, reading passages from Sims's autobiography, medical journals, and other historical material which highlighted his dehumanization of enslaved women.[15] The statue was relocated later that year.[16] In 2019, as an organizer for Families for Freedom, she protested to free Abdikadir Mohamed Felt, a Somali immigrant affected by President Donald Trump's "Muslim ban", from ICE detention.[17] Avila Chevalier later published an analysis of the convergence of US counterterrorism policy and immigration enforcement with Abdikadir Mohamed's encounter with CBP's Tactical Terrorism Response Team as a case study.[18]
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As an alumna, Avila Chevalier participated in the protests at Columbia University for a ceasefire and against the Gaza war,[19][20][21][8][22] for which she was targeted by Canary Mission, a pro-Israel doxing website.[13] On October 8th, 2023, Chevalier attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation that was condemned by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Brad Lander, who is now Chevalier's fellow congressional candidate and campaign partner.[23][24][25] In November 2023, when Columbia suspended its chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, she said the university should "protect speech and protect the right of faculty and students to address these issues in an open and frank way".[26] On April 30, 2024, riot police forcibly removed Avila Chevalier and other protesters from their position at the entrance to Hamilton Hall, bruising her and other protesters.[27]
Career
Avila Chevalier works as an investigator at the public defender legal organization Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem,[14] where she is a member of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys – United Auto Workers Local 2325.[28][29] Her work has investigated cases of police brutality.[4]
Political career
Avila Chevalier is a member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA),[13][7] which she joined in 2025.[5] She has described her political views as having been informed by the Black radical tradition, specifically the writings of Angela Davis and Asata Shakur,[13] as well as her 2014 experience in Palestine.[5] In the 2025 New York City mayoral election, Avila Chevalier was an organizing lead on DSA member Zohran Mamdani's campaign for Mayor of New York City.[3][13][28][29] She ranked Brad Lander fifth on her ballot out of protest.[30]
On April 13, 2026, Avila Chevalier joined a protest by Jewish Voice for Peace asking Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to vote against selling weapons to Israel. Police arrested protesters, including Avila Chevalier, whose shirt read "fund people not bombs".[8][31][32] In March 2026, she participated in a Columbia University rally calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil and Leqaa Kordia.[33][34]
2026 congressional campaign
Avila Chevalier ran in the Democratic primary for New York's 13th congressional district, challenging incumbent Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who has represented the district since 2017.[22][35][36][37] NY-13 encompasses Harlem and the Bronx and is one of the most Democratic districts in the country.[22] At 32 years old, she would be one of the youngest members of Congress.[38] Avila Chevalier was the only challenger to outraise an incumbent in New York City during the first quarter of 2026.[39] An April 2026 internal campaign poll showed her trailing Espaillat by 18 percentage points after voters were read biographical statements about both candidates.[40]
Avila Chevalier was recruited to run by Justice Democrats,[28][39][41][7] who had previously helped Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez win her 2018 election against an incumbent.[42] Avila Chevalier has been endorsed by New York mayor Zohran Mamdani,[42][43][44][45][46][47] United Auto Workers Region 9A,[48] the New York City Democratic Socialists of America,[6][49] and Jewish Voice for Peace Action.[3] She also has the support of former US representative Jamaal Bowman[3] and political commentator Hasan Piker.[50]
Outside groups spent heavily in the race. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus's political arm spent to support Espaillat,[51][52] while AIPAC directly spent at least $650,000 opposing Avila Chevalier.[53] AIPAC-associated donors also spent to support Espaillat.[54][55]
Espaillat retained support from several progressive Democrats, including Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Greg Casar,[56] and the Congressional Black Caucus also backed him in the primary.[57]
The race highlighted tensions within the Democratic Party between its "establishment" wing and democratic socialists.[58] Espaillat called Avila Chevalier's democratic socialism a "failed ideology".[59]
During the campaign, deleted social media posts that Avila Chevalier made from 2018 to 2022 became an issue in the race. The posts criticized Democrats, advocated for police abolition, abolishing borders, and seizing private property, criticized interracial relationships, questioned the view that Israel has a right to exist, criticized Joe Biden leading up to the 2020 United States presidential election (although she said she still voted for him against Donald Trump), and cursed at Kamala Harris in 2021.[60][61][62][63] She responded by saying "I was young, yes, and I was a millennial with internet access" and suggested that the attention indicated that "we are still focusing on litigating the politics of the past instead of the politics of the future and the present."[60] New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani reiterated his endorsement of her campaign following the report, citing her ongoing advocacy for immigrants and working-class New Yorkers.[61]
Avila Chevalier has been "unequivocal in condemning Israel as an apartheid state committing genocide".[64] In March 2026, during a forum with the Broadway Democrats political club, Avila Chevalier, when asked directly if she condemned Hamas for the October 7 attacks, responded: "The premise of that question, to me, ignores the 75 years of occupation that the Palestinian people have been subjected to and the conditions that folks were living under before this genocide began."[64] When asked about condemning Hamas again in June, she said she condemns Hamas while noting "As far as I know, the U.S. does not send a single dime to Hamas. What we fund is the Israeli military."[65]
Avila Chevalier defeated Espaillat in the Democratic primary in an upset.[66]
Political positions
Avila Chevalier is running on a platform of affordable housing, opposition to the genocide in Gaza, opposition and resistance to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation and detention.[13][67][68][69] She has also supported universal housing, fully funded schools, and expanded pathways to citizenship for immigrants.[44]
Avila Chevalier has strongly criticized Espaillat's support of Israel, and for accepting campaign funds from AIPAC.[19][70][71] In an interview with Jewish Currents, she said that "Espaillat has used his time in Congress to give ICE billions, fund the Israeli military, and vote for Trump's crypto corruption – while being bankrolled by AIPAC and the real estate lobby".[72]
Avila Chevalier supports affordable housing. In an interview with Ryan Grim for the podcast Breaking Points, she agreed with Fran Lebowitz's suggestion that billionaires threatening to leave New York City should do so.[50] Espaillat characterized some Avila Chevalier voters as "the gentrifiers" raising rents, while Avila Chevalier said she supported federal funding to build more social housing to lower rent.[73]
Avila Chevalier wants to abolish ICE.[74] Avila Chevalier told NPR that ICE is younger than she is, and that "we can all go back to a world where ICE doesn't exist and never exists again".[75] In 2025, she wrote an op-ed in USA Today calling for the freedom of Mahmoud Khalil, whose ICE detention she called an "an authoritarian power grab" by Trump.[11]
Avila Chevalier said she would vote in favor of the Block the Bombs Act.[32] In June, American Priorities, a super PAC established to oppose AIPAC, pledged funding to support pro-Palestine candidates Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez, Brad Lander.[76]
Avila Chevalier supported prison abolition and police abolition in the past but she has since deleted tweets supporting those beliefs.[61]