A progressive Democrat challenging a veteran congressman to represent the party in a closely watched New York race for US Congress has claimed the city has deteriorated on his watch.

Darializa Avila Chevalier, one of three allies that New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has endorsed in competitive congressional Democratic primaries in the city on Tuesday, is seeking to unseat incumbent Adriano Espaillat in the state’s 13th congressional district.

During a recent candidate forum held by WNYC, Espaillat – the five-term Democrat who chairs the influential Congressional Hispanic caucus – claimed Avila Chevalier was not experienced enough. “Getting results in Congress is not a PhD program,” he declared, referencing her studies at the City University of New York.

But in an interview with the Guardian, Avila Chevalier argued Espaillat had failed to produce such results since taking office.

“You just have to look around our district and ask: have things gotten any better in the nine years that he’s been in office?” she said. “I would argue the answer is no, because we’ve seen an exodus of over 200,000 Black New Yorkers leave the city in the last two decades.”

Espaillat has represented the 13th congressional district since 2017, when he became the first Dominican American and first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress. Encompassing much of upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx, the diverse, deep-blue 13th district is home to a large Afro-Latino population rooted in historic neighborhoods including Harlem and Washington Heights.

“He has been in office in some capacity for 30 years, and it’s time for a change,” Avila Chevalier said. “It’s time for a politics that actually puts the working people of our communities first and is responsive to them and includes them in that process.”

Mamdani has also endorsed Claire Valdez, who is vying for Nydia Velázquez’s vacant seat in New York’s seventh congressional district, and Brad Lander, who is challenging Dan Goldman for his seat in the 10th. He appeared with the trio in a basketball-themed political ad that first aired during postgame coverage of Game 1 of the New York Knicks’ championship run in the NBA finals.

On Thursday, Mamdani and the US senator Bernie Sanders held a rally for the mayor’s three endorsed candidates ahead of their primaries.

Avila Chevalier, 32, served as the Mamdani mayoral campaign’s organizing lead for her district’s region, where he won by nearly 60% to 40% against former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Espaillat endorsed Cuomo in the party’s mayoral primary, before he was beaten by Mamdani. Like many prominent New York Democrats, Espaillat pivoted in the general election, endorsing Mamdani over Cuomo.

Avila Chevalier, who has lived in New York for about 14 years, felt “deeply abandoned by the establishment politics that we’ve had to live with for so long”, she said. “In a community that is so often spoken of as though we’re merely statistics, as though the problems we face day in and day out aren’t the direct results of the policy choices that our leadership makes, I think it’s time for a change.”

As a student at Columbia University, Avila Chevalier organized to end sexual violence on campus, working with the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and the Black Student Organization to support Black students, and organized around issues including ending mass incarceration and immigration justice.

She currently works as a public defense investigator while completing her PhD. At Cuny, she is also a union member of the United Auto Workers Local 2325. UAW Region 9A has endorsed her campaign.

“That really changed the course of my education and my PhD program, to be able to be part of a union that fought for me my work conditions, my wage and made it possible for me to continue my program,” she said. “I was able to teach at a pace that was manageable, right, with a workload that was manageable, but also be paid enough to actually lead a dignified life.”

The poverty level for New York City residents in 2024 climbed to 26%, according to an annual poverty-level tracker conducted by Robin Hood and Columbia University. About 35% of children in the city’s 13th congressional district live in poverty.

“I think it’s time that we have a politics that actually invests in life, not just as rhetoric, that we put our money where our mouth is, that our budget reflects those values, and that we see our resources come back to our communities to fund our schools to fund housing for all, to make sure that we are investing in all the social safety net programs that allow us to lead dignified lives,” said Avila Chevalier, who has been endorsed by New York City Democratic Socialists and Justice Democrats, the progressive political group that recruited New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Among her policy platform’s priorities include universal healthcare, greater protection for renters, funding programs for children over war, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), banning big-money Super Pacs from election campaigns and prohibiting members of Congress from trading stocks.

Avila Chevalier has claimed that her opponent, Espaillat, “comes with a price tag” as a establishment politician beholden to wealthy donors, including the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). Espaillat’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Avila Chevalier has been targeted by the pro-Israel doxing site Canary Mission for her pro-Palestine activism while a student at Columbia University. The website was used by the Department of Homeland Security in 2025 to target Palestinian activists for deportation.

Prior to Mamdani’s endorsement, an internal poll from Avila Chevalier’s campaign conducted in March found Espaillat led among voters 42% to 28%. A more recent internal poll, conducted in early June 2026 by Data for Progress, found Avila Chevalier leading Espaillat 39% to 35%.