2026-08-24T09:00:30.209Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/politics/darializa-avila-chevalier-democrats-congress
纽约——
今年八月在格雷西大厦举办的多米尼加遗产招待会，来宾阵容与往年不同。
数十名多米尼加裔美国人，包括习惯抗议而非出席这类活动的活动家，在一盘盘芝士肉馅饼和桑科浓汤间交流。纽约市市长佐赫兰·曼达尼身着奶油黄色瓜亚贝拉衬衫，特意向人群中几位知名社区成员致意。最长久、最响亮的掌声献给了达里亚利萨·阿维拉·谢瓦利埃——这位32岁的民主社会主义者在六月的民主党初选中击败了国会西班牙裔核心小组主席。
她清楚，随着准备履职国会，这类友好的受众可能会变得罕见。
随着民主党人的社会主义夏日落下帷幕，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃已成为这场党内反叛最具争议、也可能最具影响力的面孔之一。这场反叛已击败多名国会在任议员，令民主党陷入十字路口。
中期选举在即，如果民主党能在11月夺回众议院，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃以及至少其他四名民主社会主义提名候选人的影响力将不容忽视。若众议院民主党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯仅以微弱多数获胜，新一届议员及其左翼盟友将能极大左右他的议长任期，并要求在一系列进步优先事项上做出让步。
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃与盟友已在讨论他们希望如何履职，以及计划如何携手合作。
“我们的运动付出了太多努力，我不能让自己分心，”阿维拉·谢瓦利埃告诉CNN，“我们一直在讨论如何在履职首日就拿出强劲表现，真正有意义地构建一种共同治理模式，将权力交还给工薪阶层。”
阿维拉·谢瓦利尔是一名社区组织者和博士生，她的竞选核心是坚定不移支持巴勒斯坦人并废除移民海关执法局（ICE）。她早已习惯了围绕自己的争议声浪。
在与众议员阿德里亚诺·埃斯皮利亚特的初选最后几周，人们大肆抨击她已注销账号的旧推文——这些推文批评民主党领导人、支持极左翼政策，以及她在2023年10月7日哈马斯袭击以色列次日出席支持巴勒斯坦人的有争议集会。此后，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃频繁出现在福克斯新闻上，成为唐纳德·特朗普总统集会的攻击目标，也让众议院民主党人忧心忡忡，担心会被共和党贴上社会主义者或共产主义者的标签。
进步派敦促党内领导层不要落入他们所说的常见陷阱。
“共和党总是怂恿我们内部分裂，”宾夕法尼亚州民主党众议员萨默·李说，“我也看到很多人试图将她塑造成怪物，将她排斥在外，我正在努力，并且真心想要反击这种本能。”
类似的局面在2018年中期选举后上演过，当时后来被称为“小队”的成员击败了长期在任的议员，并迅速加入国会山抗议活动。
其中一些成员，如纽约州众议员亚历山德里亚·奥卡西奥-科特兹——她并未背书阿维拉·谢瓦利埃——已展现出在核心小组内部以及跨党派合作解决关键议题的能力。另一些人，如密苏里州前众议员科里·布什和纽约州前众议员贾马尔·鲍曼，则更多因立法程序之外的行动为人熟知，这让他们在初选中易受到挑战。
“哗众取宠是一回事，有目标、有意义、能够兑现承诺则是另一回事，”民主党战略家、南卡罗来纳州众议员吉姆·克莱伯恩的长期顾问安特万·西奥赖特说。
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃辩称，自己是一名专注于将竞选纲领付诸实践的组织者。她现在面临的挑战是，重新向她刚刚击败的党内建制派介绍自己。
“我非常看重履职成效，”她说，“我希望，人们会惊喜地发现，没错，我真的愿意和任何人交谈， literally anyone，只要真正愿意为工薪阶层办实事。”
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃在佛罗里达州长大，曾短暂在纽约和委内瑞拉生活。尽管她的外祖父曾参与反对多米尼加独裁者拉斐尔·特鲁希略的抵抗运动，但她家谈论政治时更多围绕汽油价格或福利削减。不过，她很早就对社会正义表现出兴趣。
玛丽安赫利·阿布鲁是她的远房表妹，两人一起长大。阿布鲁说，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃会鼓励他们从街角小贩而非超市买花，还会在花钱的其他方面做出深思熟虑的选择。
“我的表妹可以说是——我说这话时充满爱意——固执得烦人，”阿布鲁说，“她不会只说‘哦，好吧，事情本来就是这样’。”
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃申请哥伦比亚大学是为了能留在纽约。这所学校的吸引力之一在于它是“激进主义常春藤”，她很快加入了黑人学生组织，开始组织活动反对校园性侵。
大二那年，她看到一则暑期实习招聘，教授生活在约旦河西岸难民营的巴勒斯坦人英语。她在当地的经历以及亲眼所见的处境，塑造了后来定义她成年生活的组织工作，并促使她皈依伊斯兰教。
“这让我真正明确了自己的价值观，明确了即使在政治上有阻力，即使有太多因素迫使你对某些事情保持沉默，也要为人类尊严发声意味着什么，”她说。
她竞选活动的一些高潮与低谷都源于那次旅行以及她此后参与的工作。阿维拉·谢瓦利埃成为“支持巴勒斯坦学生”的活跃成员，并在2024年作为校友返回哥伦比亚大学，支持学生占领校园部分区域抗议以色列在加沙的军事行动。在那里，她与后来被特朗普政府拘留三个多月的活动家马哈茂德·哈利勒并肩工作。
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃以自己在约旦河西岸的经历为自己出席10月8日集会辩护。该集会在哈马斯袭击以色列次日举行，声援加沙，现场有言论赞扬此次袭击——此次袭击造成1200名以色列人死亡、250多人被绑架。据报道，支持巴勒斯坦的抗议者高呼“从河到海，巴勒斯坦将获得自由”和“被殖民时，抵抗是正当的”。
2014年她返回美国后不久，哈马斯武装分子绑架并杀害了三名以色列青少年，引发以色列军事反击，造成约2251名巴勒斯坦人死亡。阿维拉·谢瓦利埃说，她担心2023年会发生类似的大规模反击。10月7日之后的加沙战争中，已有约7万人死亡。
当被问及对于此次集会她是否有需要道歉之处时，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃说：“在这类场合，总会有人发表你并不总是认同的观点。”但她表示，希望那些出席支持以色列集会、且部分与会者发表过煽动性言论的人，也能拒绝那些言论。
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃在移民问题上的组织和学术工作，让她坚信必须废除ICE，所有驱逐行动都是错误的。在参选国会议员之前，她与“自由家庭”组织合作，试图阻止驱逐行动，并在纽约城市大学攻读社会学博士学位期间，花了三年时间出席驱逐听证会、采访陷入该程序的人们。
去年年底，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃打电话给她的导师大卫·布拉瑟顿教授，说自己受邀挑战埃斯皮利亚特，如果决定参选，可能无法按时完成论文。
“我当时说，‘不，我觉得你应该参选’，”他回忆道，“如果要在创造历史和写论文之间做选择，我会选择前者。”
去年年初，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃联系了正义民主党——这个曾招募奥卡西奥-科特兹的进步派组织，询问是否有机会挑战埃斯皮利亚特。
埃斯皮利亚特在国会已连任五届，此前数十年担任州议员和地方政治领袖，在该选区建立了强大的政治影响力，包括他培养的被称为“埃斯皮利亚特小队”的地方官员。阿维拉·谢瓦利埃和埃斯皮利亚特的批评者认为，这位议员缺席选区事务。
埃斯皮利亚特的发言人反驳了这一说法，指出他在移民案件、疫情复苏和经济适用房方面的工作。“竞选活动和口号迟早要让位于治理和领导，”该发言人在一份声明中说。
最初的参选尝试不了了之，直到民主社会主义者曼达尼在去年的市长初选中赢得该选区席位。
去年八月，在当地组织者推荐后，正义民主党政治行动委员会主任杰夫·辛普森发邮件邀请她参选。他说，花了两个半月的时间说服她参选。
“人们往往只在最后阶段参与，比如投放电视广告和制作宣传信息，”辛普森说，“但如果候选人招募环节出了问题，这一切都毫无意义。”
参选启动前，该组织锁定了两个关键且大胆的背书：首次涉足国会选举的纽约市民主党社会主义者组织（NYC-DSA），以及曾在市长大选普通选举中获得埃斯皮利亚特背书的曼达尼。
今年早些时候的一次背书会议上，NYC-DSA联合主席古斯塔沃·戈尔迪略担心该组织无法同时兼顾挑战埃斯皮利亚特和在开放的第七国会选区背书州议员克莱尔·巴尔德斯。
“我不确定我们能否应对这个时刻，我真的很高兴成员们证明我错了，我们做到了，”他告诉CNN。
五月，曼达尼背书阿维拉·谢瓦利埃。
他的支持让这场竞选以及她的过往记录受到关注。
包括CNN在内的新闻媒体报道了阿维拉·谢瓦利埃在2018年至2022年间使用现已注销的账号发布或转发的推文。其中一些推文——包括呼吁人们“成为坏女孩”、“夺取生产资料”——以极左翼网络发帖者偏爱的轻率、讽刺语气写成。但也有一些推文明确呼吁撤资并废除警察，批评以色列和民主党政客。在前副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯发表演讲警告中美洲移民“不要来”美国后，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃发推文：“去他妈的卡玛拉·哈里斯。”
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃表示，她已经从使用这类语言的阶段成长起来，并为自己的过往推文感到后悔。回顾那个账号，她说自己是在网络时代长大的一代人。
“我们是第一代真正在如此公开的环境中形成自我认知、政治身份和政治世界观的人，这不可避免地意味着我们会说出一些最终自己不会认同、会感到尴尬或后悔的话，”她说。
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃说，看到自己已删除的推文分散了人们对她想突出的议题的注意力，这让她感到痛苦。与此同时，她说她也意识到，一个没有政治权力的20多岁年轻人的言论被细致剖析，而“那些掌权近半辈子甚至更久的人，他们通过的政策却夺走了人们的生命”。
“这就是我们长期以来面临的问题的核心：在我们的政治体系中，问责似乎遥不可及，”她说。
目前尚不清楚众议院民主党核心小组将如何回应阿维拉·谢瓦利埃以及其他在本届选举中赢得蓝区初选的正义民主党和DSA结盟候选人，但早期迹象显示出混合态度：警惕、抗拒，在某些情况下还有谨慎的乐观。
公开场合，党领袖已向他们表示祝贺。但温和派民主党人也刻意拒绝社会主义，以减轻共和党攻击的影响。
杰弗里斯本月早些时候在NBC的《与媒体见面》节目中表示，他反对全国民主党社会主义者组织的纲领，希望改革但不废除ICE，并且在之前共同赞助相关法案后，不再支持《全民医保法案》。但他承认，一月份的民主党核心小组将是“一个广泛的群体”。
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃面临的挑战是，目前外界认为她更像是一名活动家而非联盟构建者。
区别在于，活动家是呼吁人们关注某个议题，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃的竞选经理伊洛娜·杜维尔说，“组织者”则会思考“需要采取哪些步骤，需要开辟什么样的道路才能实现目标？”
阿维拉·谢瓦利埃有三大优先事项，她在竞选活动中称之为“全民住房”、“婴儿而非炸弹”以及废除ICE。她承诺在履职国会首日就共同发起13项法案，其中包括伊利诺伊州众议员德利娅·拉米雷斯提出的《阻止炸弹法案》，该法案将停止向以色列无条件转移攻击性军事武器。她还将支持《绿色新政》、《全民医保法案》以及促进工会和提高联邦最低工资的立法。
拉米雷斯表示，她已多次向领导层表明，要确保阿维拉·谢瓦利埃以及其他左翼初选获胜者在华盛顿受到欢迎。她将这位纽约候选人描述为一个会提问的人，“真心想要成长、想要学习”，并希望为选区奋斗。
“她也明白，不能在这里待上20年才能拿出成果，”拉米雷斯说。
潜在的新一届议员们也仍在摸索如何在可能极其微弱的众议院民主党多数席位中发挥影响力。
“最重要的是，我们要养成有疑问就互相沟通的习惯，”第七选区民主党提名候选人巴尔德斯说，她同样得到曼达尼、DSA和正义民主党的背书，“我们仍在明确我们的诉求。”
与此同时，提名候选人一直在本选区巩固支持基础。对阿维拉·谢瓦利埃来说，这意味着举办见面会和社区活动。
本月早些时候，她与纽约州参议员古斯塔沃·里维拉一起，在南布朗克斯的一个公园内向排队领取背包和学习用品的家庭分发物资。该区域是选区的一部分，此前曾大力支持现任议员。里维拉在活动中用西班牙语将这位民主党提名人介绍给排队的选民，他并未在初选中背书，但表示自己投了阿维拉·谢瓦利埃的票。
“该选区的很多选民以及民选官员，都与埃斯皮利亚特众议员有着长期的关系，”里维拉在活动现场接受CNN采访时说，“但时代已经变了。她确实赢得了席位。现在轮到她来做这类工作了。”
有时，这迫使她直面与自己观点相去甚远的选民。在接受CNN采访时，一群坐在马库斯·加维公园的选民拦住了阿维拉·谢瓦利埃。这位民主党提名人与在哈勒姆长大的餐厅员工、小企业主莫妮克·威奇展开了交谈。
当威奇提到伊朗战争时，阿维拉·谢瓦利埃辩称，花在战争上的钱本可以用于普及托儿服务。当话题转向移民问题时，威奇说，虽然ICE的行为“令人发指”，但她担心移民不纳税——阿维拉·谢瓦利埃迅速反驳了这一说法。
“事实上，他们确实纳税了，”阿维拉·谢瓦利埃说，“我认为这种说法实际上有利于企业，他们根本不纳税。”
两人来回争论了近10分钟，威奇呼吁阿维拉·谢瓦利埃与共和党人和民主党人都合作，同时在国会走出自己的道路。
这正是阿维拉·谢瓦利埃所说的她参与其中的意义——与人们进行艰难对话，理解世界，弥合现状与可能之间的鸿沟——也是她希望明年带到国会的东西。
“组织工作就是要站在人们的立场上，”她说，“这是非常乏味的工作。”
This democratic socialist has upset the party establishment. Here’s her strategy for Congress
2026-08-24T09:00:30.209Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/politics/darializa-avila-chevalier-democrats-congress
New York—
This August’s Dominican Heritage Reception at Gracie Mansion brought in a different crowd from years past.
Dozens of Dominican Americans, including activists more used to protesting than attending the event, mingled over trays of cheese empanadas and sancocho. Dressed in a butter yellow guayabera, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took a moment to shout out the notable community members in the crowd. The longest, loudest applause went to Darializa Avila Chevalier, the 32-year-old democratic socialist who defeated the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in June’s Democratic primary.
Such friendly audiences, she knows, may become a rarity as she braces for Congress.
As the Democratic Party’s socialist summer comes to a close, Avila Chevalier has become one of the most polarizing — and potentially most influential — faces of an insurgency that has bested several congressional incumbents and left the party at a crossroads.
Ahead of the midterms, the party is now grappling with the power Avila Chevalier and at least four other democratic socialist nominees could have if Democrats take back the House in November. If House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries wins a single-digit majority, the incoming cohort and its allies on the left could have huge sway over his potential speakership and demand concessions on a host of progressive priorities.
Already, Avila Chevalier and her allies are discussing how they want to lead and how they plan to work together.
“Our movement has worked too hard for me to allow myself to be distracted,” Avila Chevalier told CNN. “We’ve been talking about how do we come in strong on day one, and really, meaningfully build a model of co-governance that gives power back to working people.”
Avila Chevalier, a community organizer and doctoral student who centered her campaign on uncompromising support for Palestinians and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has grown used to the noise surrounding her.
In the final weeks of her primary against Rep. Adriano Espaillat, much was made of her old tweets from a now-deleted account criticizing Democratic leaders and embracing far-left policies, as well as her attendance at a controversial rally in support of Palestinians the day after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Avila Chevalier has since become a fixture on Fox News, a target of President Donald Trump’s rallies, and a source of anxiety for House Democrats worried about being painted as socialists or communists by the GOP.
Progressives have urged party leadership to not fall into what they say is a familiar trap.
“Republicans are always encouraging us to divide ourselves,” said Rep. Summer Lee, a progressive Pennsylvania Democrat. “I also see a lot of people who are trying to make her a boogeyman, who are trying to make her a pariah, and I am trying, and I really want to fight back against that instinct.”
Similar dynamics played out after the 2018 midterms, when members of what became the “Squad” defeated longtime incumbents and quickly joined protests on Capitol Hill.
Some of those members, such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who did not endorse Avila Chevalier — have shown an ability to work within the caucus and across the aisle on key issues. Others, such as former Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York, became better known for what they did outside the legislative process, leaving them vulnerable to successful primary challenges.
“It’s one thing to be noisy, it’s another thing to be intentional, and meaningful, and being able to deliver on the things you promise,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist and longtime advisor to South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn.
Avila Chevalier is making the case that she’s an organizer who is focused on making her platform a reality. Her challenge now is reintroducing herself to the party establishment she just took on.
“I am very concerned with delivering,” she said. “I think folks will be, hopefully, pleasantly surprised about the fact that yes, I am really willing to talk to anybody, literally anybody, who wants to actually deliver for working people.”
Avila Chevalier grew up in Florida, with brief stints in New York and Venezuela. Though her maternal grandfather was part of the resistance against dictator Rafael Trujillo back in the Dominican Republic, her family talked about politics in terms of the cost of gas or cuts to benefits. She, however, showed an interest in social justice early on.
Mariangelly Abreu, a distant relative she calls a cousin and who grew up alongside her, said Avila Chevalier would encourage them to buy flowers from the sellers on street corners instead of the supermarket and make other intentional choices about where they spent their money.
“My cousin can be — and I say this with so much love — annoyingly persistent,” Abreu said. “She’s not someone who will just say, ‘Oh, well, that’s just how things are.’”
Avila Chevalier applied to Columbia University to find a way to New York. Part of the school’s appeal was that it was the “activist Ivy” and she soon joined the Black Student Organization and started organizing to end sexual assault on campus.
In her sophomore year, she came across a posting for a summer internship to teach English to Palestinians living in refugee camps in the West Bank. Her experience there, and the conditions she witnessed, helped shape the organizing work that would define her adult life and inspired her to convert to Islam.
“It was an opportunity for me to really get clear on what my values are, on what it means to advocate for human dignity even when it’s politically hard, even when there is so much that is pushing you to stay silent on things,” she said.
Some of the highs and lows of her campaign trace back to that trip and the work in which she subsequently engaged. Avila Chevalier became an active member of Students for Justice in Palestine, and returned to Columbia as an alumna to support students as they took over part of the campus in 2024 to protest Israel’s military actions in Gaza. There she worked alongside Mahmoud Khalil, a fellow organizer who was later detained by the Trump administration for more than three months.
Avila Chevalier pointed to her West Bank experience to justify her presence at the October 8th rally, held in support of Gaza the day after Hamas attacked Israel, that featured speech and rhetoric praising the attack, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 more kidnapped. According to reports, pro-Palestinian protesters chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “resistance is justified, when people are colonized.”
Soon after she returned to the US in 2014, Hamas militants kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers, triggering a military response from Israel that killed an estimated 2,251 Palestinians. Avila Chevalier said she feared a similar large-scale counter-response in 2023. An estimated 70,000 people have died in Gaza in the war after October 7th.
Asked if there’s anything she feels she needs to apologize for regarding the rally, Avila Chevalier said, “There are people who’ve expressed views in spaces like this who you don’t always agree with.” But she said she hoped those who attended pro-Israel rallies where some attendees have made inflammatory remarks would also reject those comments.
Avila Chevalier’s organizing and academic work on immigration has fueled her belief that ICE must be abolished and that all deportations are wrong. Before running for Congress, she worked with Families for Freedom to try to block deportations and spent three years attending deportation hearings and interviewing people caught up in the process as part of her PhD in sociology at the City University of New York.
Late last year, Avila Chevalier called her adviser, Professor David Brotherton, to say she was being recruited to challenge Espaillat and would be unlikely to complete her dissertation on time if she decided to run.
“I said, ‘No, I don’t think you probably are,’” he recalled telling her. “If it’s a question of making history or writing a dissertation, I would choose the former.”
Early last year, Avila Chevalier reached out to Justice Democrats, the same progressive group that recruited Ocasio-Cortez, to see if there was a window for someone to primary Espaillat.
Over his five terms in Congress — and several decades as a state legislator and local political leader — Espaillat had built up a formidable political presence in the district, including local officials he’d mentored known as the “Squadriano.” Avila Chevalier and other Espaillat critics argued the congressman was absent from the district.
A spokesperson for Espaillat pushed back on that assessment, noting his work on immigration cases, pandemic recovery and affordable housing. “Soon, campaigning and slogans have to give way to governing and leading,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Those early talks of a challenge lapsed until Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won the district in last year’s mayoral primary.
Last August, Geoff Simpson, Justice Democrats’ PAC director emailed her about running after local organizers recommended her. It took two and a half months of conversations to convince her to run, he said.
“People like to get plugged in at the end with like the TV ads and the messaging,” Simpson said. “But if you get the candidate recruitment piece wrong, none of that ends up mattering.”
Ahead of her launch, the group targeted two key and ambitious endorsements: the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, which was wading into congressional races for the first time, and Mamdani, who had been endorsed by Espaillat in the mayoral general election.
During an endorsement meeting earlier this year, NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo worried the group wouldn’t be able to both challenge Espaillat and back Assemblymember Claire Valdez in the open 7th Congressional District.
“I wasn’t sure if we would be able to meet the moment, and I’m really glad that members proved me wrong, and we did,” he told CNN.
In May, Mamdani backed Avila Chevalier.
His support drew attention to the race, as well as her record.
News outlets, including CNN, reported on tweets Avila Chevalier either personally wrote or reposted between 2018 and 2022 on a since-deleted account. Some — including a post that called on people to “become bad bitches” and “seize the means of production” — were written in the flippant, ironic tone favored by far-left online posters. But several made serious calls for defunding and abolishing the police and criticized Israel and Democratic politicians. After former Vice President Kamala Harris made a speech telling Central American migrants “do not come” to the United States, Avila Chevalier tweeted, “F**k Kamala Harris.”
Avila Chevalier said she’s grown since using that language and regrets her post history. In reflecting on the account, she said she was part of a generation that came of age online.
“We are the first generation to really be forming our sense of self and our political identities and our political worldviews in such a public way, and that inevitably means that we’re going to say things that we’ll eventually not agree with or feel cringe about or regret,” she said.
Avila Chevalier said it was painful to see her deleted tweets become a distraction from the issues she wanted to highlight. At the same time, she said it wasn’t lost on her that the words of a 20-something with no political power were being dissected while “we have folks who have been in political power for almost as long as I’ve been alive, or longer, who have passed policy that have cost people their lives.”
“That is at the heart of the problem that we’ve had for so long, is that accountability feels unreachable in our political system,” she said.
It’s not clear how the House Democratic Caucus will respond to Avila Chevalier or the other Justice Democrats and DSA-aligned candidates who won blue district primaries this cycle, but early indicators suggest a mix of wariness, defiance and, in some cases, cautious optimism.
Publicly, party leadership has congratulated them. But moderate Democrats are also making a point of spurning socialism to reduce the sting of Republican attacks.
Jeffries said earlier this month on NBC’s Meet the Press that he rejects the national Democratic Socialists of America agenda, wants to reform but not abolish ICE and no longer supports Medicare for All after previously co-sponsoring the bill. But he acknowledged the party will have a “broad caucus” in January.
The challenge for Avila Chevalier is that, as of now, there is a perception that she is more of an activist than a coalition builder.
The difference is activism is about calling attention to an issue, said Ilona Duverge, Avila Chevalier’s campaign manager. “An organizer,” she said, “is going to think of ‘What are the steps, what is the path that I need to forge in order to actually meet my goal?’”
Avila Chevalier has three top priorities, what she described on the campaign trail as housing for all, “babies not bombs,” and abolishing ICE. Among the 13 bills she’s promised to cosponsor on her first day of Congress is Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez’s Block the Bombs Act, which would stop the unconditional transfer of offensive military weapons to Israel. She’ll also back the Green New Deal, Medicare for All Act, and legislation to boost unions and raise the federal minimum wage.
Ramirez said she’s been vocal with leadership about making sure Avila Chevalier as well as the other far-left primary winners feel welcome in DC. She described the New York candidate as someone who asks questions, “genuinely wants to grow, wants to learn” and wants to fight for the district.
“She also understands she can’t come here and spend 20 years here before she can deliver,” Ramirez said.
The likely incoming members are also still figuring out how they’ll wield their influence in what could be a very narrow House Democratic majority.
“The most important thing is that we’re getting into the habit of calling each other when we have questions,” said Valdez, the Democratic nominee for the 7th District who is also backed by Mamdani, the DSA and Justice Democrats. “We’re still figuring out what the demands will be.”
In the meantime, the nominees have been focused on building up their support in their districts. For Avila Chevalier, that’s meant meet-and-greets and community events.
Earlier this month she joined New York state Sen. Gustavo Rivera to hand out backpacks and school supplies to a long line of families that wrapped around a park in the South Bronx, a part of the district that heavily favored the incumbent. Rivera, who didn’t endorse in the primary but said he voted for Avila Chevalier, introduced the Democratic nominee to constituents as they went through the line, often in Spanish.
“There’s many people, many voters as well as electeds in this part of the district, that had a longstanding relationship with Congressmember Espaillat,” Rivera told CNN in an interview at the event. “That ship has sailed. She actually won the seat. Now it’s her job to actually do this type of work.”
Sometimes that has forced her to confront voters whose views are far from her own. During her interview with CNN, Avila Chevalier was flagged down by a group of voters sitting in Marcus Garvey Park. The Democratic nominee struck up a conversation with Monique Wyche, a restaurant employee and small business owner who grew up in Harlem.
When Wyche brought up the Iran War, Avila Chevalier argued that the money spent on it could have gone towards universal childcare. When the topic turned to immigration, Wyche said that while ICE’s actions were “sick,” she was concerned about migrants not paying taxes, a claim Avila Chevalier quickly refuted.
“Actually, they do get taxed,” Avila Chevalier said. “I think that narrative actually benefits corporations, and so they don’t pay taxes.”
The two went back and forth for nearly 10 minutes, with Wyche calling on Avila Chevalier to work with both Republicans and Democrats while also charting her own path in Congress.
That is what Avila Chevalier says she signed up for — having hard conversations with people to make sense of the world and bridge the gap between what exists and what could be – and what she hopes to bring to Congress next year.
“Organizing is about meeting people where they’re at,” she said. “It is deeply unsexy work.”