A wave of progressive candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani won big in New York last night. DSA members Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated two Democratic Party establishment picks for Congress, Antonio Reynoso and five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat. Other DSA candidates, including Palestinian American Aber Kawas, running for New York state Senate, notched wins further downballot. And Mamdani-backed candidate Brad Lander defeated Dan Goldman, another congressional incumbent.
Darializa Avila Chevalier joins Democracy Now! in her first live broadcast interview since her upset win. After weathering a vicious and often racist campaign conducted by her AIPAC-funded opponent Espaillat, Avila Chevalier is projected to become the first Dominican American woman to serve in the U.S. Congress, representing New York’s 13th Congressional District.
“Americans are tired of this politics of death, politics of cynicism, and want to make sure that our resources are coming back to our communities and investing in the life and the needs of the people here,” says Avila Chevalier, a former student organizer at Columbia University who has been active in the pro-Palestine and immigrant rights movements for over a decade. She credits part of her decision to run to her experience advocating for fellow student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s release from federal ICE detention last year. “When I was first considering whether or not this was a race that I wanted to throw my hat in, I just kept thinking about Mahmoud and the millions of people like him and [Khalil’s wife] Noor, who are so fearful right now, and what it would have meant to them to have a representative who was actually fighting for them.”
