politics
New York Socialist Candidate Won Democratic Primary for 13th Congressional District
Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated an incumbent representative in Tuesday's Democratic primary. She previously helped launch a group that organized campus protests at Columbia University.
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Darializa Avila Chevalier won the Democratic primary for New York's 13th Congressional District on Tuesday. She defeated Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Adriano Espaillat. The candidate helped launch a group at Columbia University in 2016 that later organized protests on campus. The group led an encampment in 2024 and a building takeover at a Columbia-affiliated college in 2025.
The organization posted messages calling for the total eradication of Western civilization and described a 2023 attack in Israel as a crowning achievement. It also posted "death to America" in Farsi after military actions involving the United States and Israel.
The university does not recognize the group as an official student organization. Avila Chevalier previously described her experience during a campus encampment in a 2024 interview.
Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
She has described herself as a prison abolitionist and avoided answering questions about whether she supports imprisonment for convicted murderers. The candidate was one of three candidates backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani who won Democratic primaries on Tuesday.
