Two progressive women of color and democratic socialists are vying to win New York City-based seats on Tuesday in hotly contested races that progressive Democrats are looking toward to shape the trajectory of their party.
Their bids come eight years after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to Congress in a shocking upset victory over a sitting Democrat in her Queens-based district and one year after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s victory.
Darializa Avila Chevalier is challenging a fifth-term incumbent in a seat that includes parts of the Bronx, Upper Manhattan and Harlem, and Assembly Member Claire Valdez is running in a newly open Brooklyn and Queens-based seat. Both are backed by Mamdani, the New York City Democratic Socialists of America and Sen. Bernie Sanders. The two are largely aligned on ideology and policy, though Chevalier has spent time over the past few weeks apologizing for now-deleted tweets, including one from 2021 in which she said, “Fuck Kamala Harris.” Those two races are among several on Tuesday that have the potential to reshape New York’s congressional delegation.
Chevalier is primarying Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in New York’s 13th District, while Valdez is running a competitive primary in the 7th District to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican member of Congress.
The two races, which have divided factions of the Democratic Party, are also a major test for Mamdani, who has appeared in television ads and campaigned with both women. He has endorsed a slate of congressional candidates, including Chevalier, Valdez and former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is challenging Rep. Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th District. The winners of the Democratic primaries will be all but assured to win the general election in these safe blue seats.
Both Chevalier and Valdez have backgrounds in organizing and are running economic populist campaigns: Chevalier is a community organizer and doctoral student, while Valdez was a clerical workers union organizer at Columbia University and a labor organizer at the United Auto Workers before getting elected to the state Assembly. Both are staunchly pro-Palestinian and support abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Chevalier has also said that she does not believe in deportation.
In the majority non-White and working-class 13th District, Chevalier has mounted a primary challenge against Espaillat largely rooted in generational change: Espaillat, 71, was elected to Congress a decade ago, the first Dominican-American and first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress. Chevalier has hit Espaillat on what she says are his ties to pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC, which is spending money in the race to benefit Espaillat.
Espaillat has, in turn, attacked Chevalier for not committing to supporting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a fellow New York Democrat, as House speaker. She has also spent the last stretch of her campaign apologizing for past remarks on social media, including those insulting other prominent Democrats like former President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
In remarks over the weekend to the prominent civil rights organization the National Action Network, Mamdani urged attendees to take a chance on Chevalier the way New York voters took a chance on his upstart candidacy last year.
“Another person that many will dismiss because she is too young, because she is not of a political machine or a guardian of the status quo,” Mamdani said of Chevalier. “Another person who some will underestimate because she hasn’t climbed a political ladder. She has not practiced caution but has practiced her principles. She has taken on fights against powerful interests. Another person that some will disdain because she hasn’t paid her dues, while too many New Yorkers can’t pay their bills.”
The race in the 7th District, meanwhile, has become somewhat of a proxy battle between two camps within the progressive left.
The district comprises several young, left-leaning neighborhoods in northern Brooklyn and Queens dubbed the “Commie Corridor” that helped power Mamdani’s victory in 2025, as well as some Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic pockets. Mamdani’s endorsement of Valdez put him on the opposite side of Velázquez, who has backed Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, a progressive and early backer of Mamdani. Reynoso has the support of several major labor unions and the influential Working Families Party. New York City Council Member Julie Won is also in the race.
Ocasio-Cortez, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has been selective in the 2026 midterm races she’s chosen to wade into and has not endorsed candidates in New York’s most hotly contested House races. She has, however, endorsed a slate of democratic socialist state legislative candidates down the ballot.
Elsewhere in the state, candidates including state Assembly Members Micah Lasher and Alex Bores and Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of former President John F. Kennedy, are running to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler in the affluent Manhattan-based 12th District.
And in the Hudson Valley, Army veteran and former national security official Cait Conley and Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson are the main Democratic candidates running in a crowded primary to face GOP Rep. Mike Lawler in New York’s 17th District, one of the most competitive in the country. Lawler is one of just three House Republicans representing a district carried by Harris in 2024.
