Zohran Mamdani made a deal. After Representative Adriano Espaillat, the 71-year-old chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, backed Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race, the mayor committed to returning the favor and supporting Espaillat’s reelection, a pledge three people described to The New York Times, per amNewYork. Then, on May 28, Mamdani went on MS NOW’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki” and endorsed the other guy: Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old Democratic Socialists of America organizer running to take Espaillat’s seat. If you live in Washington Heights, Inwood, East Harlem, or Kingsbridge in the Bronx, that broken handshake is the fight on your ballot right now.
NY-13 covers nearly half a million voters and is, by Avila Chevalier’s framing, Manhattan’s poorest congressional district. Espaillat has held it for nine years, succeeding Charlie Rangel to become the first Dominican American and first formerly undocumented immigrant elected to Congress, as Hellgate NYC documented in its interview with him. He has helped fund the Second Avenue subway, fought Con Edison over a blackout, and secured roughly $38 million for a Dominican arts and culture center in Inwood. Before he backed Mamdani in the general election, he had first endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the mayoral primary. His own line about his challenger: “I think people that run for office should have a track record.”
The broken handshake might cost Espaillat the seat. An internal poll conducted June 3 through 9 by Data for Progress for Justice Democrats put Avila Chevalier ahead of Espaillat 39 to 35 among 319 likely primary voters, according to Semafor. An incumbent who chairs a national caucus is, by his own challenger’s internal numbers, trailing a first-time candidate.
Avila Chevalier is the daughter of Dominican immigrants, raised in Florida. She moved to New York for college and is now pursuing a sociology doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center while working as an investigator at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, per City & State New York. She is also one of the most prominent pro-Palestinian organizers in the race: before she graduated from Columbia in 2016 she was part of the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine group and the 2016 formation of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, and in 2024 she helped organize the university’s Gaza encampment as an alumna, reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which also noted she was arrested in April protesting weapons sales to Israel outside the offices of Senators Schumer and Gillibrand.
The establishment is also going after her past. When old social media posts of Avila Chevalier’s resurfaced, Mamdani told reporters on June 10 that her “views have evolved” and called her “an incredible champion for that district,” per amNewYork. Avila Chevalier acknowledged it herself the same day: “I used language and terms that I shouldn’t have and that I certainly wouldn’t use today.” Even Brad Lander, a fellow Mamdani congressional endorsee who appears beside her in a joint ad, declined to actually endorse her, telling Jewish Insider, “I’m not supporting any other congressional candidates in New York City.”
Pro-Israel money landed on Espaillat’s campaign on June 4: just under $112,000 from 69 donors, of whom 67 are connected to AIPAC or AIPAC-adjacent groups and not one lives in the district, according to Drop Site News. AIPAC has sent his campaign more than $676,000 since 2016, and three super PACs have spent about $3.3 million boosting him since early May. Avila Chevalier’s side has drawn roughly $1.3 million in super PAC support from Justice Democrats and a group called American Priorities, per the same Drop Site News accounting. The two have spent the closing weeks accusing each other of being bought: at a June 4 debate on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, Espaillat said his challenger “got over a million dollars coming from a millionaire in Texas,” while Avila Chevalier hit him on AIPAC and real estate money, framing donations as “accountability,” per amNewYork.
Mamdani has made this bigger than one district. He put Avila Chevalier on a coordinated slate of three insurgents, alongside Claire Valdez and Brad Lander, and aired the trio in an ad that ran amid Knicks frenzy during the team’s Game 1 win in the NBA Finals. In it, the mayor appears with his picks and says, “This is the team. This is our year,” reported the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The new mayor is spending his political capital trying to remake who represents New York in Washington, and NY-13 is the seat where he chose a stranger over a man who helped get him elected.
The party did not take it quietly. On Saturday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries formally endorsed Espaillat at a rally at the Edison Ballroom in Midtown, per THE CITY, putting the most senior House Democrat in the city squarely against the mayor’s pick. As of the second day of early voting, 31,419 New Yorkers had already cast ballots citywide. The lines are drawn. A mayor’s handshake on one side, his own party’s leadership on the other, and a four-point internal poll lead that says the voters may not care which power broker is owed a favor.
Early voting in the June 23 primary runs through June 21, and your early-voting site is often not your Election Day site. Find where to vote, check your registration, and see the full schedule at the NYC Board of Elections: vote.nyc, or call 1-866-VOTE-NYC. If you live in Washington Heights, Inwood, East Harlem, or the Kingsbridge stretch of the Bronx, this is the ballot line where you, not Zohran Mamdani and not Hakeem Jeffries, get the last word.
Featured image: Bingjiefu He / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
