New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is defending his endorsement of congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier after CNN's KFile unearthed thousands of now-deleted social media posts in which she called for abolishing police, prisons, and national borders and questioned whether Israel has a right to exist.

What the Deleted Posts Said

Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old investigator at a New York City public defender's office and doctoral student, is challenging incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York's 13th Congressional District. She emerged as a leading far-left contender after Mamdani, himself a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, threw his weight behind her campaign.

The posts, which Avila Chevalier had deleted from a previous Twitter account, included calls to:

Abolish the police and all prisons

Eliminate national borders entirely

Seize private property from landlords

Nationalize major sectors of the economy

She also reportedly posted content claiming that Israel "doesn't exist", a position that places her outside even the left wing of mainstream Democratic politics and aligns her more closely with fringe anti-Zionist movements. The posts were deleted before her campaign launched, an action that critics say signals an awareness that such views are disqualifying to most voters.

Mamdani Stands Firm

Despite the wave of scrutiny, Mayor Mamdani is not distancing himself from Chevalier. In a pattern that has become familiar among the city's socialist political circle, Mamdani framed the controversy as an establishment attempt to derail progressive candidates and dismissed the resurfaced posts as misrepresentation.

Mamdani has been making aggressive political moves since taking office as the 112th mayor of New York City in January 2026. Beyond endorsing Chevalier, he has also backed primary challenges against incumbent Democrats he considers insufficiently left wing, including former city Comptroller Brad Lander in a race against Rep. Dan Goldman. Political observers have described these endorsements as high stakes gambles that could cement or shatter his growing socialist coalition's influence over the city's congressional delegation.

A Window Into the Hard Left's Agenda

The episode is instructive not merely as a political story but as a window into the governing ambitions of the democratic socialist movement now controlling New York City's mayoralty. Avila Chevalier's positions, abolishing police, eliminating borders, seizing private property, are not fringe views within the DSA; they are standard platform planks. What is notable is that she felt the need to delete them before running, suggesting even her own team understood they would alarm general election voters.

Republicans have seized on the controversy to highlight the radicalism at the heart of the Mamdani political project. The 13th district race is being watched nationally as a bellwether for whether the DSA's momentum in New York can translate into congressional power, or whether the extremism of its candidates becomes an electoral liability.

For conservative voters and policymakers watching from outside New York, the Avila Chevalier episode is a reminder of what one wing of the Democratic Party actually believes, and what it would enact if given the chance.