We’re seeing more and more signs that the populist left is poised for a historic breakthrough in the 2026 midterms. Zohran Mamdani’s victorious mayoral campaign was the first signal flare. In Maine’s closely watched Senate race, Bernie-backed oysterman Graham Platner holds a large lead over two-term governor Janet Mills in the Democratic primary race and is leading GOP incumbent Susan Collins as well. In Texas a union local leader who campaigned on worker rights and fully funded public schools flipped a Republican State Senate seat Trump won by 17 points. And within the past week, Analilia Mejia, a Bernie Sanders ally, won a special election for New Jersey-11, a congressional seat in an affluent suburban district where the left has never before been competitive. 

With both the Trumpublicans and the Democratic Party establishment discredited in the eyes of voters, the left finds itself in a uniquely promising political moment where it has the potential to win all kinds of races that were previously unimaginable. One of them — New York’s 13th congressional district — is a district that I have lived in or near my whole life. It encompasses all of Manhattan north of 100th Street plus some West Bronx neighborhoods and its incumbent congressmember, Adriano Espaillat, is facing a formidable challenge from DSA-backed Darializa Avila Chevalier. 

Who Is Adriano Espaillat?

Espaillat, 71, is a career politician who worked his way up the ladder and became the first Dominican American elected to Congress in 2016 when he marshalled the support of a growing Latino population to win the district. He’s a thoroughly conventional Democrat in his policy positions and in the wealthy special interests — big real estate, AIPAC, etc — that he has taken money from. He supported the Gaza genocide until recently and over the years he has had little to say about ICE despite the large number of immigrants in his district. 

In lieu of a substantive ideological vision to sell the district he’s carefully cultivated a brand around his supposed mastery of relational politics. He aggressively sells himself as being The Guy for the district’s Latino and Dominican voters, a community warrior with profoundly deep ties to local institutions and an unstoppable local machine. Politicians and national media types who don’t live in NY-13 or know anything about it have bought this narrative hook, line and sinker, and constantly refer to him as a local titan without pointing to any substantive evidence, simply because he’s proclaimed himself to be one.

In reality, Espaillat and his machine are a paper tiger. He ascended to Congress in 2016 with just 36 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary in a brutal contest that pitted the district’s Black and Latino voters against each other as Espaillat took the place of the district’s longtime congressmember, Charlie Rangel. In 2020, he won just 58 percent of the Democratic primary vote against two unknown challengers. In 2024, a significant number of Latino voters in the district flipped from Kamala Harris to Trump. And Espaillat only marginally outperformed Harris that year despite his decades-long presence in the community. He backed failed state legislative candidates within the district in 2022 and 2024. And then there’s Espaillat’s most futile endorsement of all — his early backing of Andrew Cuomo in last year’s mayoral primary.

For years, NY-13 was a stronghold for the Democratic establishment, solidly voting for the likes of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Eric Adams and Cuomo in his gubernatorial primaries over leftist alternatives. But in last year’s mayoral primary, this trend saw an extraordinary reversal. Despite Espaillat’s endorsement and the lack of significant left-wing infrastructure or political leadership in the district, NY-13 voted for Zohran and did so decisively. He won by 13 points in the first round and by almost 20 points after ranked choice voting. And while Cuomo swept the district’s Bronx neighborhoods, Zohran ran the table in Upper Manhattan, winning every single neighborhood with ease. This speaks to the effectiveness of Zohran’s campaign and the surge in support for anti-system politics with Latino voters, but it also speaks to the fact that his campaign generated an explosion of left-wing energy in Upper Manhattan from progressive residents who had never experienced a DSA race in their neighborhoods before. 

A Stark Contrast Between Candidates

Darializa Avila Chevalier stands in stark contrast to Espaillat. Where he is old and tired, she is young and energetic. Where he is cautious and clings to Democratic orthodoxies, she is bold and unapologetically pro-working class. Where he takes money from a raft of wealthy special interests, she is funded by small-dollar donors. Where he has unconditionally supported Israel, she was one of the organizers of the 2024 Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia as a former student at that university. 

I live a few blocks south of the district and participated in dozens of canvasses in NY-13 for Zohran’s mayoral campaign and know from experience the growing anti-system sentiments in the district. One of the most enticing upsides of a Darializa campaign is that it has the potential to permanently consolidate those new activists into the ranks of socialist organizing by offering them another big challenge.

That said, there’s no waving away the many challenges Darializa will face as the challenger in this race. As a five-term incumbent, Espaillat starts with a large advantage in name recognition. He will receive unlimited support from wealthy special interests including the Israel lobby. He will get most of the endorsements in the race from elected officials, labor unions and community-based organizations that have pre-existing patronage relationships with Espaillat. Darializa, on the other hand, cannot count on an endorsement from Zohran Mamdani who Espaillat quickly endorsed after Andrew Cuomo’s primary defeat. And it’s almost certain that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez will honor the toxic unwritten rule of House Democrats — that incumbents don’t campaign against other incumbents — and will instead sit out the race. 

Despite all of that, I’m confident that the fundamentals of this race — a weak incumbent, a Democratic voter base in open revolt against a decrepit party establishment and a challenger who is more in step with the mood of the district — all point in Darializa’s direction. I look forward to doing door-to-door canvassing from one end of the district to the other along with hundreds of other volunteers in the coming months to turn this dream into a reality. 

Cole Sandick is an organizer with New York City DSA. All opinions expressed in this article are his own. 

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