In the final days of the heated primary race between Rep. Adriano Espaillat and Darializa Avila Chevalier, I kept feeling a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. The media, the campaigns and the voters in the district were beginning to have a conversation about what it would mean to elect a Muslim representative, and the conversation was ugly.<\/p>\n
An Espaillat surrogate \u2013 whom Espaillat distanced himself from \u2013 was talking<\/a> in Spanish-language press about how Avila Chevalier and Mayor Zohran Mamdani were trying to replace the Dominican community with Haitians and Muslims. While campaigning in the district, Avila Chevalier was repeatedly followed<\/a> by an aggressive heckler who yelled \u201cJew hater!\u201d<\/p>\n This all felt familiar. The eleventh hour pivot to identity- and fear-based rhetoric echoed the final gasps of Andrew Cuomo\u2019s mayoral campaign(s) last year. A super PAC supporting Cuomo edited a photo of Mamdani\u2019s face to make his beard appear<\/a> darker and thicker. In a radio interview, Cuomo seemed to agree<\/a> that Mamdani would celebrate another 9\/11. \u201cNew York can\u2019t be Europe, folks,\u201d then-Mayor Eric Adams said<\/a>, standing with Cuomo. \u201cI don\u2019t know what is wrong with people, you see what\u2019s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism.\u201d<\/p>\n The narrative bled into media coverage too. Just as Avila Chevalier was repeatedly asked why she chose to attend a rally in support of Palestinians on Oct. 8, 2023, Mamdani was asked in nearly every interview whether he would condemn the phrase \u201cglobalize the intifada.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, neither Cuomo nor Espaillat was successful. Perhaps the pivot to divisive tactics is itself a symptom of a failing campaign, a canary in the coal mine for a coming insurgent victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the final days of the heated primary race between Rep. Adriano Espaillat and Darializa Avila Chevalier, I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[875,80,1414,95434,6492,9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":["post-280906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-adriano-espaillat","tag-andrew-cuomo","tag-campaigns-elections","tag-darializa-avila-chevalier","tag-editors-note","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}