The Cavalier Daily is an independent, student-run daily news organization at the University of Virginia. Founded in 1890, under the name College Topics, The Cavalier Daily is Virginia's oldest collegiate daily and the oldest daily newspaper in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Since the summer of 1996, The Cavalier Daily has been the only daily newspaper at the university, with a print circulation of 7,500 distributed on Grounds and in the surrounding Charlottesville area. The Cavalier Daily also publishes content online and on social media daily with expanded and enhanced content.

The Cavalier Daily printed its first issue under the name College Topics on January 15, 1890. In 1924, the newspaper increased its publication schedule from twice a week to six times a week, making the paper a daily. However, the following year, the paper's off-campus printer suffered a catastrophic fire, and the newspaper alternated between two and three publication days a week until 1940.

During World War II College Topics struggled for survival as the University of Virginia student population was greatly reduced due to the war effort. By 1943, the paper had become a four-page weekly that featured only bulletins. After the war, the paper increased its circulation and content, and was renamed The Cavalier Daily on May 4, 1948.

The admission of women and African-American students to the University of Virginia beginning in the early 1970s changed the face of the paper as well as the university community. The increased diversity of the community challenged what is often characterized as the preexisting "good old boy" attitude at both the school and The Cavalier Daily, resulting in a staff that became more motivated and ambitious. The first woman member of the Managing Board, Mary Love, was elected business manager in 1973, and the first woman editor-in-chief, Marjorie Leedy, followed in 1976. During this time, Managing Board races became highly competitive, and the paper adopted more professional journalistic standards. In 1973, a staff split resulted in several unsuccessful candidates for the Managing Board leaving to form The Declaration, a weekly tabloid-format publication that continues to publish.

In 1979, the university saw the creation of another student-run newspaper, the University Journal, which originally formed in opposition to what many saw as the left-wing editorial stances of The Cavalier Daily. An intense rivalry between the two newspapers for news and advertising grew as the University Journal published three times weekly in the 1980s and then four times weekly beginning in 1991. Amid significant debt, the University Journal cut back production starting in 1996 and ceased to exist by 1998. Since that time, The Cavalier Daily has been one of two physical newspapers at the University of Virginia, alongside The Declaration, a bi-weekly tabloid-format newsmagazine.

In 1995, The Cavalier Daily Online Edition was launched, and in 1998, The Cavalier Daily began to pay rent for its offices in Newcomb Hall, the last step in the path toward complete independence from the university that began in earlier decades. The Digitization Project, completed in 2001, made all aspects of production computer-based. In May 2020, The Cavalier Daily launched a redesigned website.

In 2006 and 2007, The Cavalier Daily comics section came under fire for controversial cartoons. In August 2006, the comics were considered insensitive to Christians, involving the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The controversy received national attention and was featured on Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor. In September 2007, the same cartoonist caused outcry with a comic entitled "Ethiopian Food Fight", which portrayed malnourished ethnic Ethiopians fighting each other with various objects including boots, twigs, pillows and chairs. The ambiguity of the term "food fight" carried over to the cartoon itself, creating controversy over whether it a) caricatured victims of the Ethiopian famine as being forced to eat non-food items, which they then would throw at each other in a "food fight" in the usual sense, or instead b) depicted Ethiopians so impoverished that they could afford neither food nor weapons, such that they were forced to improvise weapons to use in their fight over scarce food resources, a type of dispute to which news sources including CNN and the Washington Post have applied the term "food fight". Some readers from each respective side joined in claiming that the artist's characterization of the disputants dehumanized Ethiopians, as did some readers who were not sure which meaning was intended but found either alternative objectionable. The controversy led the managing board of the paper to fire the artist despite a lack of clear justification concerning editorial oversight and ultimate responsibility for publication of the controversial comic; the artist was also the senior graphics editor at the time, a position subordinate to all members of the managing board. Four other comic artists, including another graphics editor, voluntarily resigned from the paper, prompting an unprecedented mid-year replacement of comics staff. A complete comics strike was staged during a week of attempted negotiations, but the managing board covered up the strike by rerunning strips. The episode earned the 2007 managing board of the paper a Jefferson Muzzle award from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.