Mamdani-backed congressional candidate deleted posts calling to seize private property, abolish police, borders, prisons
Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivers his 100 Days Address
By Andrew Kaczynski, Em Steck, CNN
(CNN) — Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist congressional candidate endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, deleted a previous Twitter account that included thousands of posts and reposts expressing support for abolishing police, prisons and borders, as well as seizing private property and nationalizing major industries and calling into question Israel’s right to exist.
Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old investigator at a public defender’s office in New York City and doctoral student, has emerged as one of the most prominent left-wing challengers in the country after Mamdani endorsed her bid to unseat longtime Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th Congressional District.
But the posts from her since-deleted account from over the last decade have drawn scrutiny amid her high-profile challenge of Espaillat, a five-term incumbent and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. That primary, scheduled for June 23, has become a closely watched proxy battle between the Democratic Party’s establishment and its ascendant democratic-socialist wing, with Mamdani’s endorsement last week elevating the race’s national profile.
While reports in the New York Post and Politico previously highlighted several deleted social media posts in which Avila Chevalier criticized police, Israel and Democratic politicians, a CNN KFile review of hundreds of deleted posts and reposts found ones that called for abolishing police, prisons and borders; tweets about communism; calls for open borders and zero deportations; and expletive-laden attacks on Democrats.
In a statement to CNN, Avila Chevalier said the posts did not reflect who she is today and accused Espaillat of trying to distract from issues facing the district.
“My opponent wants to live in the past. He is re-litigating social media posts from half a decade ago, and continuing to champion an outdated politics that fails to serve our people,” Avila Chevalier said. “I have grown considerably since in the years since these tweets, and I am focused on our community and our community’s future.”
In another statement provided to CNN, Mayor Mamdani reiterated his support for Avila Chevalier’s citing her work advocating for immigrants and working-class New Yorkers.
“In Congress, she’ll take on corporate greed, bad landlords, and D.C.’s broken political system. At a time when power is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, Darializa will fight in Congress for New York City’s working families. She’s the champion we need for a city New Yorkers can actually afford.”
The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine saved more than 3,600 tweets from Avila Chevalier’s account between 2018–2022. It’s unclear when the account was deleted but the last archived tweet is from May 2022.
In August 2020, Avila Chevalier reposted a tweet responding to a social media prompt that asked, “Israel suddenly disappears, your third emoji is your reaction.” The reposted tweet replied, “Trick question – Israel doesn’t exist!”
“A world without borders—just like a world without prisons or police—is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward,” read one deleted repost from September 2021.
During a three-day period in September 2021, Avila Chevalier also reposted now-deleted messages declaring, “Yes, literally, abolish the border” and that “all deportation is wrong.”
Her Twitter profile biography also at one point included the phrase “how communist of you,” the hashtags “#BlackLivesMatter” and “#FreePalestine,” and described her location as “Occupied Lenape Land” and later “Lenapehoking (NYC)” — an acknowledgment to Indigenous claims to New York City.
Her current campaign account lists “Manhattan, NY.”
During the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Avila Chevalier reposted a message calling for a sweeping government takeover of large parts of the economy. The repost advocated nationalizing utilities, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies; suspending rent and mortgage payments; dissolving private health insurance companies; and “seiz[ing] all properties from landlords.”
Other deleted posts and reposts included references to communism and anti-capitalist politics. In one April 2020 post, Avila Chevalier wrote that while most of the political theory she had read was communist, “the pyromania associated with anarchism is very intriguing to me,” adding a laughing emoji.
“Seize the means of production,” she wrote in a since-deleted 2019 post, the phrase commonly associated with Marxism.
The deleted posts also included repeated calls for abolishing police.
During the nationwide protests in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd, Avila Chevalier responded to a user asking what a better slogan would be than “defund the police,” by posting, “F**k you. We’re gonna defund and abolish. You don’t get to water down our movements.”
Two days later, Avila Chevalier rejected an argument that abolishing police meant ending policing only “as we know it.”
“No. It means ending policing full stop. Period. No more police at all ever,” she replied, adding several clap emojis.
In another deleted post, she captioned a selfie showing her wearing a face mask with the slogan “Defund Police.”
“Felt cute. F**k 12,” she wrote, referring to a slang word for the police.
She also reposted a message stating, “In New York they don’t say ‘I love you,’ they say ‘NYPD suck my dick’ and I think that’s beautiful.”
In another repost from 2021 she shared a message declaring that “ALL PIGS EVERYWHERE ARE HARAM,” an Arabic term used in Islam to describe something that is forbidden. Avila Chevalier is a Muslim-convert.
The deleted posts also reflected hostility toward prominent Democrats couched in profane terms after Bernie Sanders ended his 2020 presidential campaign.
“This is for 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐍𝐂 u big 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 white nasty 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐨 bitch why u took 𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐞 off the muhfuckin 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 with ur trifflin dirty 𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 ass u 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐝𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐜 ass bitc,” read an April 2020 repost.
“I have no nuance to add. Fuck Kamala Harris,” she posted after Harris told Guatemalan migrants in September 2021 not to come to the United States illegally.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
