In a stark development for the future of New York’s political landscape, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a radical socialist backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, won Tuesday’s Democratic primary in New York’s 13th Congressional District. Avila Chevalier’s political rise has sparked deep alarm due to her foundational ties to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), an extremist student-founded group that has openly advocated for the complete destruction of Western values and institutions.

Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old political activist who was born in Florida to Dominican immigrants and recently converted to Islam, has built her career around radical community organizing. She previously detailed her deep involvement with the extremist organization in a biographical note for the anti-Israel outlet The Electronic Intifada, boasting that she "helped launch the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign Columbia University Apartheid Divest."

Public concern surrounding her candidacy intensified following exposure of CUAD’s official rhetoric. In a deleted 2024 Instagram post, the group she co-founded declared: "We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization." The post went on to align the group with militant regional movements, stating, "We stand in full solidarity with every movement for liberation in the Global South. Our Intifada is an internationalist one — we are fighting for nothing less than the liberation of all people."

Rather than distancing herself from these subversive views, Avila Chevalier has actively maintained her ties to the group. In May 2024, eight years after graduating from Columbia in 2016, she returned to campus to join the illegal, anti-Israel encampment that disrupted academic life and was ultimately dismantled by police. Wearing a keffiyeh and a CUAD t-shirt, she advocated alongside the radical elements on campus and was interviewed by the Associated Press as a representative voice of the demonstration.

In response to the growing public outcry, Columbia University has roundly denounced CUAD, taking steps to clarify that the extremist group has no official affiliation with the university. However, the candidate's radical background has prompted sharp criticism from within her own party, highlighting a growing civil war among Democrats over the rise of far-left extremism.

Senator John Fetterman, D-Pa., issued a scathing condemnation of Avila Chevalier and her supporters on social media, writing: "Anti-Israel. Anti-America. Anti-Western Civilization. Why am I the only Democrat in the U.S. Senate that refuses to excuse this or defend any of those self-identified communists?"