He lost to Mauricio Funes of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), making him the first ARENA candidate to lose a presidential election since Roberto D'Aubuisson in 1984.

He is the youngest of four children; his father is Roberto Ávila Moreira, a local medical doctor, and Thelma Avilez, a homemaker originally from Nicaragua.

Ávila has also studied mathematics and administration at Gainesville State College and police science at Texas A&M University and the FBI National Academy.

After his return to El Salvador from college, Ávila worked briefly for the local Shell subsidiary as Regional Sales Manager for lubrication products.

Ávila himself was not substantially involved in partisan politics until he was asked by the ARENA leadership to run as mayor of Santa Tecla, a small suburb of San Salvador.