Five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat holds a narrow eight-point lead over Democratic Socialists of America, backed challenger Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York's 13th Congressional District, with 38 percent of likely Democratic primary voters still undecided barely a week before Election Day.
The margin, 35 percent to 27 percent, sits inside striking distance for a well-organized insurgent campaign. And it raises an uncomfortable question for the Democratic establishment: Can a 71-year-old incumbent, the first Dominican-American ever to serve in Congress and chairman of the Hispanic Caucus, survive a hard-left challenge powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the DSA machine?
The New York Post reported the poll results as early voting opened across the district, which stretches through Morningside Heights, Harlem, East Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, and the western Bronx. Election Day is June 23.
Mercury Public Affairs conducted the survey of 468 likely Democratic primary voters from June 9 through June 11 on behalf of the National Black Empowerment Action Fund, a pro-Espaillat group. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, meaning the eight-point gap could be as small as three points or as wide as thirteen.
The racial breakdown tells a sharper story. Espaillat led among black voters 36 percent to 21 percent and among Latinos 42 percent to 30 percent. Chevalier, a 32-year-old doctoral candidate and immigration activist, led among white voters 35 percent to 25 percent.
That pattern matters. The DSA's coalition in New York City has drawn heavily from younger, whiter, more affluent neighborhoods, a dynamic that Espaillat's allies are already weaponizing.
The National Black Empowerment Action Fund plans to spend at least $750,000 during the campaign's final week to reach black voters with Espaillat's record. The group has launched a digital ad calling Espaillat a "real Democrat" and labeling his opponents "extremists" who would "gentrify your neighborhood."
Darius Jones, a senior advisor to NBEAF, framed the race in blunt terms:
"This is about making sure the public knows Congressman Espaillat is fighting hard for black and Hispanic New Yorkers and standing up to outside forces that want to take advantage of our communities for their own purposes."
Jones went further, directly targeting the DSA's policy platform and its foothold in a historically black and Latino district:
"Abolishing the police and releasing every prisoner, even rapists and murderers, isn't progressive. It's nuts. It isn't people with a doorman who have the most to lose; we know it's us, people of color, who are going to suffer most from the DSA's reckless agenda."
That language, from a Democratic-aligned operative, not a Republican, captures a fault line that the national party would rather not discuss. When black community leaders in Harlem describe the DSA as a gentrifying force, it is not Fox News talking. It is the Democratic coalition arguing with itself.
Chevalier's most prominent backer is Mayor Mamdani, who defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the 2025 mayoral race. Mamdani has stumped with Chevalier in the district and is scheduled to appear at a Brooklyn rally alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday to support both Chevalier and Claire Valdez, a DSA candidate running in the open 7th District to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez.
Mamdani's 2025 victory rattled the state's Democratic establishment. He drew higher-than-projected turnout from younger voters, the same cohort the DSA needs to turn out in NY-13. If that energy transfers into a low-turnout congressional primary, Espaillat's eight-point cushion could evaporate fast.
Jones acknowledged the threat, saying community members "don't like the trick the DSA is trying to pull in Harlem, using the forces of gentrification to try to supplant our agenda and subvert our priorities."
The incumbent is not standing still. House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has backed Espaillat. So has Rep. Yvette Clarke, the Brooklyn congresswoman who heads the Congressional Black Caucus. Over the weekend, Espaillat picked up endorsements from State Sen. Cordell Cleare and Assembly members Al Taylor and Jordan Wright, the son of Manhattan Democratic leader Keith Wright, all of whom represent the Harlem portion of the district.
That lineup represents the traditional power structure of upper Manhattan Democratic politics. Whether it can hold against a well-funded insurgency backed by the city's sitting mayor is the open question.
Beyond the horse-race numbers, the Mercury Public Affairs survey tested policy attitudes. Seventy-two percent of respondents said they support school choice and charter schools. Nearly as many oppose defunding the police.
The accompanying polling memo drew a direct conclusion from those findings:
"Taken together, the findings suggest that Democratic primary voters in NY-13 remain more aligned with public safety, educational opportunity, and community stability than with the DSA's most controversial policy positions."
Those numbers deserve a caveat. The poll was commissioned by a pro-Espaillat group. But even with that grain of salt, a district where nearly three-quarters of Democratic primary voters back charter schools is not a district begging for the DSA's education agenda.
The most important number in the poll may be 38 percent. That is the share of likely voters who remain undecided with Election Day barely a week away. In a primary where turnout is typically low and name recognition can shift overnight with a single rally or ad buy, that undecided bloc is enormous.
Espaillat has the institutional endorsements, the incumbency, and the ethnic coalition advantages in a majority-minority district. Chevalier has the DSA's ground operation, the mayor's personal involvement, and a Brooklyn rally with Bernie Sanders designed to generate media coverage and volunteer energy in the final stretch.
This race is, at its core, an intra-Democratic brawl. But it matters beyond the primary ballot. The DSA's strategy of challenging incumbents in safe blue seats has reshaped the Democratic caucus over the past several cycles. If Chevalier closes the gap and wins, it sends a signal that even senior members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are not safe from their party's left flank, particularly when a DSA-aligned mayor is willing to spend political capital on the effort.
If Espaillat holds, it suggests that the DSA's appeal has a ceiling in districts where black and Latino voters set the terms. Jones put it plainly: "We know crazy when we see it."
Either way, the spectacle of a pro-Espaillat group spending three-quarters of a million dollars to warn black voters about the DSA's police and criminal-justice positions tells you everything about where the real tension in the Democratic Party lives. It is not between Democrats and Republicans. It is between the party's working-class base and the activist class that keeps trying to speak for it.
When your own allies have to run ads calling your opponents "extremists" who want to defund the police, the problem is not messaging. The problem is the policy.