New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed the democratic socialist challenging Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair and the first formerly undocumented person elected to Congress, for his seat in New York’s 13th Congressional District.
Mamdani endorsed Darializa Avila Chevalier on Thursday during a joint interview on MS NOW’S “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Mamdani praised Avila Chevalier, 32, as a “champion” who will be on the “front lines” of showing what the Democratic Party should model going forward.
“We have to be fighting for a vision that reckons with the fact that working people were not left behind just four years ago or 16 years ago. They were left behind a long time before that,” Mamdani said. “It will take a new generation of leadership to ensure that the heartbeat of this party is once again the struggles of the working class, and in electing a champion like Darializa to represent Uptown Manhattan and the Bronx, we could have exactly that in Congress.”
Mamdani had previously committed to supporting Espaillat, 71, in his reelection bid but changed course after Avila Chevalier’s campaign gained momentum, The New York Times reported Thursday, citing three people familiar with the decision.
Espaillat has represented New York’s 13th District since 2017. During last year’s mayoral race, he initially endorsed Mamdani’s opponent, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but later backed Mamdani after he won the Democratic primary.
In response to the endorsement, Espaillat said that Mamdani “is entitled to support the candidate of his choice.”
“But one endorsement does not make a race. Voters do,” the congressman said in a statement.
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Espaillat also noted that he has earned support from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Avila Chevalier works as an investigator in a public defender’s office in Harlem. She announced her challenge to Espaillat’s seat in November, shortly after Mamdani won the mayoral race. Avila Chevalier told HuffPost at the time that she was building on Mamdani’s momentum.
“Zohran winning is that first step,” she told the progressive news outlet. “To not build on that, it would be deeply irresponsible for us to not continue with that momentum.”
Speaking to Psaki Thursday night, Avila Chevalier said she has felt “deeply abandoned by the establishment politics that far too often see my community as merely a statistic.”
“This is a fight to make sure we are representing working-class New Yorkers who have been left behind by a politics that only serves the interests of corporations, of corporate landlords, of special interest groups that are making life in New York deeply unaffordable for so many, while we watch atrocities being committed with our tax dollars,” she said.
New York’s primary elections will take place on June 23.
Carla Herreria is an editor for MS NOW’s breaking news and liveblog team. She was previously a senior assignment editor at HuffPost.