Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s retirement has opened up a competitive primary in a New York City Congressional district. The race to replace her is a proxy battle about the future of the Democratic Party.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Early voting is underway for New York’s primary. While Democrats are expected to win easily in the five boroughs, the city’s voters may signal how far to the left they want the Democratic Party to go. One congressional race has become a proxy battle between Democratic Socialists led by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the institutional progressive wing. Reporter Steve Kastenbaum has been following the race.
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STEVE KASTENBAUM: Within weeks of each other, two very different political worlds – both important to Democrats – put their muscle on display just a few miles apart.
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NYDIA VELAZQUEZ: Character and credibility matters in this election.
KASTENBAUM: Representative Nydia Velazquez – known to her supporters as la luchadora, the fighter – rallied a crowd of union members in Queens behind Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. After representing New York’s seventh congressional district for 33 years, the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress is retiring, and she wants Reynoso to take her place.
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VELAZQUEZ: You know how we win? Not by chanting, but by knocking on doors.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Right.
VELAZQUEZ: Knocking on doors.
KASTENBAUM: In Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, a different kind of energy was taking hold.
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ZOHRAN MAMDANI: And so I ask you, are you ready to knock on doors?
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KASTENBAUM: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani – whose own landslide victory over the Democratic establishment last year sent shock waves through the party – is stumping for state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez.
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MAMDANI: Are you ready to do everything you can to get Claire Valdez to Congress?
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KASTENBAUM: Valdez is the Democratic Socialist candidate in this Democratic primary, running in a district that’s a patchwork of immigrant communities, working-class neighborhoods and the kind of hipster enclaves where young college-educated transplants formed the backbone of Mamdani’s door-knocking army last year. Reynoso, the son of Dominican immigrants, believes he’s the rightful heir to Representative Velazquez’s legacy.
ANTONIO REYNOSO: There’s a progressive that has already been doing it. There’s a progressive that has the battle scars. There’s a progressive that has the receipts of where I stood with every single one of these unions.
KASTENBAUM: His opponent argues that in today’s political landscape, institutional progressivism isn’t enough. Claire Valdez grew up in Texas. After moving to New York, she became a union organizer with the United Auto Workers Union and spent seven years building Democratic Socialists of America from the inside, knocking on doors for candidates. In 2024, she won a seat in the state assembly.
CLAIRE VALDEZ: This is exactly how I got involved in politics, is having those connections with my neighbors and talking about campaigns and different issues.
KASTENBAUM: The DSA sees this race as its best shot at sending another Democratic Socialist to Congress, building on Mamdani’s mayoral win in a district that voted overwhelmingly for him. Valdez frames this not as a contest against Reynoso personally.
VALDEZ: This district is one of the most progressive in the country. It should be leading on so many of these fights.
KASTENBAUM: The DSA is pulling out all the stops. On Thursday, Mayor Mamdani appeared at a rally in Brooklyn alongside Senator Bernie Sanders and several DSA candidates, including Valdez. Reynoso, though, isn’t backing down.
REYNOSO: The progressive movement wasn’t born with Zohran in this district. It was born with Nydia Velazquez and that it built up and then made it so that when he ran, we would do well here.
KASTENBAUM: With the primary just days away, the race remains extraordinarily close. In an Emerson College poll conducted last month, Valdez and Reynoso were virtually neck and neck, and more than half of voters were still undecided or backing a third candidate.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting in non-English language).
KASTENBAUM: In this district, the Democratic primary is the whole ballgame. Whoever wins next Tuesday almost certainly goes to Washington. For NPR News, I’m Steve Kastenbaum in New York.
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