Josh Shapiro says he has ‘profound’ differences with Mamdani-backed candidate

By David Wright, CNN

(CNN) — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview Thursday that he had “profound differences” with one of the candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in Tuesday’s primary elections, underscoring Democratic Party fractures heading into the midterms.

Shapiro was asked about Darializa Avila Chevalier, the 32-year-old democratic socialist who defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, this week. Their primary, like many of Tuesday’s contests in New York, focused on the US-Israel relationship.

CNN’s KFile uncovered a deleted X account belonging to Avila Chevalier 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 also attended a pro-Palestinian rally the day after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel – where militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages. The rally was widely condemned by politicians, including Brad Lander, another Mamdani-backed candidate who defeated Rep. Dan Goldman and said in a recent debate that the rally “spoke about Hamas in ways that I just thought were vile.”

“Her district voted for her. But I have profound differences from that particular candidate based on the citations that you read there,” Shapiro told Bash. “She’s not someone who seemingly I would agree with on many things or that we share similar values. She ran on the Democratic ticket, I guess, as a socialist. Voters in that district determined that she was the one they wanted representing her.”

CNN has reached out to Avila Chevalier’s campaign for comment.

Avila Chevalier helped lead campus protests at Columbia University over Israel and its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, where more than 70,000 have died since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

“I’ve seen a lot of similarities not just in the way things are done, but also in the very institutions that are enacting that violence. The tear gas that was being dropped on Palestinians in Gaza in 2014 was the same tear gas that was being dropped on Black protesters in Ferguson in 2014,” Avila Chevalier said in a debate against Espaillat.

Avila Chevalier said she would “never celebrate the death of any human being,” arguing that she attended the October 8 rally to protest against an “outsized reaction” to Hamas’ attack, which she feared would “cause the death of thousands upon thousands of people” in Gaza.

Shapiro, who is running for reelection this fall and a potential 2028 presidential contender, argued that Democrats were ready to “have a battle over what we believe in,” something that he said hadn’t occurred for the party since the 1992 election, when the party nominated then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who went on to defeat President George H.W. Bush.

“I get that there are some candidates that just say a lot of words and attract a lot of attention,” Shapiro said. “But what we need to do as a party is drill down on how we can take those words, turn them into action to make people’s lives better.”

Shapiro has backed his own slate of Pennsylvania Democrats in seeking to flip up to four Republican-held US House seats this fall. One of the most prominent Jewish politicians in the country, Shapiro is a defender of Israel but an advocate for a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians.

He was asked Tuesday if he believed a Jewish politician could win a national Democratic primary.

“I’m not going to focus on what happens in 2028,” Shapiro said. “But what I can tell you that as when I ran for governor in 2022 and now as I’m running for reelection as Pennsylvania governor, I’ve been very open about how faith and family guide me in this life of service. I’m very open about who I am and what motivates me to serve. And what I’ve received back from the people of Pennsylvania is goodness.”

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