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Reason Editor Penned a Brutal Takedown of Darializa Avila Chevalier, the Most Insane of the Mamdani Trio

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  June 26, 2026 3:30 PM

Her name reflects her politics: Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, on Tuesday. She was endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who achieved a clean sweep that night—his three candidates won. Chevalier is now set to represent the 13th district, and she’s completely unhinged. I know we say that about the Left overall, but this is a watershed moment for the Democratic Party, one where communists are now electable in these deep blue enclaves. 

Chevalier is someone who would have Marxism flowing through her veins; she hates all deportations, wants to destroy Western civilization, and is a noted anti-Israel lunatic whose organization penned eulogies for terrorists. It’s not just our crowd saying these things. Reason’s Robby Soave penned a brutal takedown of Chevalier. Soave is neither a liberal nor a MAGA supporter, but he noted that if elected, she will be the first of the campus radical mold to be ushered into power. It’s a terrifying prospect. 

“Darializa Avila Chevalier seems to be one of the most utterly unacceptable candidates I can possibly imagine,” he wrote on Twitter. Check out the rap sheet:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) is a democratic socialist and a progressive activist, but she was not a central figure in those movements until well after she graduated from Boston University. Avila Chevalier, on the other hand, was a prominent far-left activist at Columbia University throughout the 2010s and remained involved with the pro-Palestinian campus protests there in 2023 following Israel's attacks on Hamas in Gaza.

She co-founded Columbia University Apartheid and Divest (CUAD), an organization that did not merely oppose the state of Israel but also celebrated terrorism outright. After the death of Yahya Sinwar, CUAD's Substack published a glowing eulogy of the Hamas terrorist who masterminded the October 7 attack on Israelis. CUAD hailed him as a "hero of the revolution" guided by "pragmatic optimism." The group called on its followers to "reflect on how we can make ourselves more like him."

Avila Chevalier was also involved with the related group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which explicitly celebrated the October 7th terrorist attack as a "historic win."

It's characteristic of these activists that they do not see the Israel/Palestine issue as distinct from any other issue they may care about, but rather part of a broad and interconnected battle with the United States. Intersectionality is a key facet of this tradition, and so it is not enough to merely express concern for the plight of the innocent Palestinians; to be in good standing with the movement requires fervent denunciations of every other -ism known to man. In fact, one of the defining features of modern campus radicals is that their own mundane feuds with university administrators are cast as manifestations of a global struggle against colonialism, capitalism, and U.S.-led imperialism.

[…]

She is part of an activist movement that favors "the total eradication of Western civilization," a goal that—somehow—is not viewed as in tension with the movement's stated desire to prevent genocide. (One wonders how Avila Chevalier plans to ake Western civilization go extinct without anybody getting hurt.) In keeping with her stated desire to eliminate the U.S.-led West, Avila Chevalier has previously commented in favor of Russia's invasion of Ukraine; i.e., she is not merely opposed to American involvement in the conflict (a defensible position) but affirmatively on the side of the attackers.

[…]

Indeed, Avila Chevalier's past statements on X—Twitter at the time—are a veritable gold mine of 2010-era radicalism. For instance: She wants to abolish not just the police but the very concept of policing entirely. For good measure, she views interracial relationships with suspicion, thought COVID-19 originated in France, and thinks white people are not hygienic.

In an interview with The New York Editorial Board from earlier this month, Avila Chevalier declined to walk back her most controversial statements. She refused to say, for instance, that murderers belong in prison.

She’s one hot woke mess, folks. And she’ll be in Congress next session.