Fresh off Zohran Mamdani’s seismic victory in the mayoral election, the Democratic Socialists of America is drawing more attention than ever, as a growing number of candidates attempt to seize on populist and youth-fueled energy to reshape New York in next year’s midterm elections.
But there’s another left-leaning, politically charged organization with a three-letter acronym whose rank-and-file members are eager to build on recent progressive electoral successes.
Darializa Avila Chevalier, who last week announced her run against Rep. Adriano Espaillat, and Dalourny Nemorin, who is challenging Rep. Ritchie Torres, are members of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys – UAW Local 2325, which represents legal services workers.
The United Auto Workers has emerged as a political force locally and nationally. Its international president had a prominent speaker spot at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, and the union’s regional body in New York was the first to back Mamdani’s bid for mayor last December, months before other unions weighed in.
In New York City, the UAW is better known for representing legal workers, museum staff and graduate students — a membership that is young, highly educated and skews left, with a bent for social justice issues. Its members in the region routinely rally against ICE, and it was the first union in the country to call for a Gaza ceasefire in 2023.
Avila Chevalier, a researcher at a Harlem-based legal services nonprofit and prominent pro-Palestine organizer, on Thursday launched her bid to unseat Espaillat, whose 13th district spans Upper Manhattan and The Bronx. And Nemorin, a public defender and chair of the Bronx Community Board 1 policy and legislation committee, is challenging Torres, whose 15th district is in The Bronx.
Espaillat has held his seat for nearly a decade with the support of the Bronx and Manhattan Democratic parties. Torres, elected in 2020, has become one of Israel’s staunchest Democratic defenders in Congress — making him a target for multiple challengers this year seizing on backlash against the Gaza war.
UAW Region 9A, which declined to comment for this story, has not yet endorsed congressional candidates in New York. In recent years, the union has focused on boosting candidates in local and state races: it was a major backer of one of its own, Claire Valdez, recruiting her for a successful campaign for the state Assembly last year. (Valdez, for her part, is one of many DSA-backed candidates eligible to run for New York’s 7th Congressional District after Rep. Nydia Velázquez announced she would retire next year.)
Though Avila Chevalier is better known for her organizing efforts at the pro-Palestine Columbia University encampment and on Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, she said she “love[s] being a UAW member” and that the experience of being a union member has helped inform her political organizing.
Nemorin described her union work as a formative experience. She was part of the team that in 2018 unionized Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, where she started her legal career three years earlier and where Avila Chevalier now works. At the Legal Aid Society, Nemorin served as a union delegate in the Criminal Appeals Bureau from 2021 to 2023 and as an alternate vice president for the Water Street unit from 2022 to 2023.
“I do think the union world does increase the quality of workers across the board. That is the job of the union,” she said. “And UAW does that every single day, making sure that workers are seen and workers are cared for.”
‘His Constituent Needed Him’
Both women are running to the left of the incumbents, calling out what they describe as their corporate ties.
Nemorin has also focused on the perception that Torres — the first openly gay Afro-Latino elected to Congress who rose from the City Council to Washington as a progressive figure — has veered to the right in recent years. The 15th district he represents is the poorest in the country, and the only congressional district located entirely within The Bronx. It includes Riverdale, a Jewish stronghold in the borough’s northwest.
Torres has raised $3.9 million in contributions since the beginning of the 2025-2026 cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data, including $360,730 from AIPAC, the leading pro-Israel lobby group. Nemorin, who filed her campaign paperwork on Oct. 1, has not yet submitted disclosure statements.
“A lot of candidates in the race might be talking about who he’s pandering to,” Nemorin said, referring to Torres’s relationship with AIPAC, which has directed nearly $1 million in contributions to him since his first congressional run. “But there are so many people he’s neglecting.”
“The donors who represent him make him feel like he’s bulletproof.”
Nemorin is up against three other candidates so far in the primary, including former Assemblyman Michael Blake, activist Jose Vega and public school teacher Jon LaTona.
Nemorin contends that her campaign will galvanize voters who do not feel represented by Torres’ track record in Washington, citing the Congressman’s vote in favor of the Laken Riley Act — which expanded federal authority to detain and deport noncitizens — while representing a district with 36% foreign-born population.
“Ritchie is really exploiting the fact that he represents the poorest congressional district, exploiting the fact that there’s some of the lowest voter turnout, and therefore creating an agenda that serves himself and not the people,” Nemorin said.
In response to Nemorin, Torres spokesperson Benny Stanislawski said in a statement, “Bronx voters trust Ritchie Torres to be their fighter in Washington because he is one of them: a lifelong Bronxite who has delivered real results for the community.”
He added, “Whether it is cracking down on the open-air drug market in the Hub or exposing ConEd’s price-gouging against the Bronx or standing up to Donald Trump during the shutdown, Ritchie has been laser-focused on the issues that matter most: affordability, safety, and democracy. That’s why he’s going to win in 2026 and it won’t be close.”
Though she told THE CITY that the majority of the district’s constituents “do not support a genocide” in Gaza, she has so far resisted addressing the Israel-Palestine conflict as head-on on the campaign trail as Avila Chevalier has in her own campaign in the neighboring 13th district.
Avila Chevalier is an outspoken supporter of the Palestinian cause and was a prominent organizer long before encampments sprang up on Columbia University, which is in Espaillat’s district, and across the country. She is a friend and organizing partner of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia alum who was arrested by federal agents in March in his Harlem building despite his status as a legal permanent resident and detained until a federal judge ordered his release in June.
In a phone interview with THE CITY, she accused Espaillat of not doing more to compel the release of Khalil, a constituent. In a video announcing her campaign, she noted AIPAC is the congressman’s top donor.
“When my friend Mahmoud was taken, he issued a two-sentence statement about how he expects the Department of Justice to follow the rule of law,” she said. “His constituent needed him at that time, and that was all he could give.”
Eduardo Castell, a spokesperson for Espaillat’s re-election campaign, pushed back on Avila Chevalier’s criticisms and said the congressman did “much more than provide comfort” in the aftermath of Khalil’s arrest.
“Congressman Espaillat spoke out against Mr. Khalil’s illegal arrest,” said Castell. “This issue is personal for him because he was undocumented himself.”
He pointed to Espaillat’s current work helping more than 700 people in the district navigate urgent immigration cases, and the legal action he filed against the Trump administration, alongside 11 members of Congress, to secure access to detention facilities for oversight. Under Espaillat’s leadership, Castell noted, the Hispanic caucus won a court ruling barring the IRS from sharing data with ICE.
Espaillat is a prolific fundraiser and considered the dean of Dominican elected officials in New York, building to accumulate the community’s power in Manhattan and The Bronx’s Democratic political clubs. He has represented the heavily Dominican Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods for decades, first as a state senator and in Washington since his election to Congress in 2016.
In spite of his popularity and name recognition in the district, progressives have long seen an opening in the 13th District. The last time Espaillat faced a spirited primary, in 2020, he was re-elected with less than 60% of the vote, and growing pockets of the district have been trending towards the left.
He endorsed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in this year’s Democratic primary, but Mamdani won the district by double-digit margins. Espaillat then backed Mamdani in the general election, where he again resoundingly beat Cuomo.
Avila Chevalier is backed by Justice Democrats, the group that propelled U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens/The Bronx) to victory in 2018 as well as several members of her left-leaning “squad” including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
The group has not won an election in New York City since it helped elect the now former-Rep. Jamaal Bowman in 2020, the same year Torres was elected — but that could change soon, said political analyst Michael Lange.
Avila Chevalier would need to seize on the same coalition of working tenants to the district’s north and progressive upper middle class voters alongside Morningside and Hamilton Heights that catapulted Mamdani to victory, in an area Lange has dubbed “Commie Corridor Jr.” (Commie Corridor proper, a term coined by Lange, is in Mamdani’s home turf of western Queens and northern Brooklyn.)
“This has all the makings of an upset,” said Lange. “Adriano should not take this challenge lightly.”
Castell, Espaillat’s campaign spokesperson, said the congressman will “welcome a full and robust primary and look forward to making the case for his continued leadership in our community and across the country.”
Avila Chevalier said Mamdani’s election and popularity in the district are proof that his constituents are eager for someone “who they can trust to fight for them.” Like Mamdani, she is focused on affordability and delivering relief for tenants, NYCHA residents in particular.
“I think it’s time that we build on the wins that we’ve already managed with this year: addressing affordability for New Yorkers, advocating for things like housing for all — and investing in our babies, not bombs.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that Torres’ campaign had received more than $2 million from AIPAC since his first congressional run and $729,960 in the 2026 election cycle.
