Tonight’s Democratic primary in New York’s Seventh Congressional District, which spans parts of Brooklyn and Queens, will test the influence of the area’s longtime Hispanic voters and that of the younger white voters who have moved into the district in recent years.
Both of the leading candidates — Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president, and Claire Valdez, a New York State Assembly member — are expected to legislate as progressives if elected. But the race has produced a split in high profile progressive endorsements.
Mr. Reynoso, who grew up in Brooklyn, is the chosen successor of the retiring incumbent, Nydia Velázquez, and is the pick of the Working Families Party. Ms. Valdez has been endorsed by Mr. Mamdani, who was endorsed by the Working Families Party last year, as well as Senator Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America. Julie Won, a New York City councilwoman, joined the race in February, saying she would emphasize life experience over factional politics.
Ms. Velázquez, the nation’s first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress, has represented the area since 1993, when it was part of the 12th Congressional District. When district lines were redrawn in 2012, she won the new Seventh District easily despite a primary challenge. If the current boundaries had existed that year — the Seventh no longer includes parts of Manhattan and has gained more areas in Queens — the district would have been nearly majority Hispanic, with one in four residents speaking Spanish at home. A child of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Mr. Reynoso was raised in the South Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and would most likely have had an advantage over Ms. Valdez, who is Latina and Native American and grew up in Texas.
As he went to vote on Tuesday, Jose Ramos, 46, was thinking about Ms. Velázquez’s legacy in the district. “My entire life, it’s an obvious vote for her,” Mr. Ramos said. “I need to vote for Antonio, too, but I’m torn.”
Like Mr. Reynoso, Mr. Ramos grew up in South Williamsburg. As a sheet metal worker, he values Ms. Valdez’s labor organizing background. He said the endorsement from Mr. Mamdani was the only reason he was considering Ms. Valdez, “and it probably makes me a traitor.”
Mr. Ramos mentioned Mr. Reynoso’s similar childhood experiences in the neighborhood. “I see people coming into Williamsburg and it’s now their home,” he said. “But they didn’t experience all of the abandoned buildings, all the drugs, all the stray dogs and cats.”
Walking out of his poll site at Junior High School 50 — the middle school that Mr. Reynoso graduated from in 1996 — Mr. Ramos said he had ended up voting for Mr. Reynoso.
“I was split until the bitter end,” he yelled. “I had to do it for the loyalty.”
Today, non-Hispanic white residents are the Seventh District’s largest racial group, while Hispanic residents account for roughly one-third of the population. Average income (adjusted for inflation) among the district’s residents has risen from about $30,000 to roughly $50,000, and the district remains one of the youngest in New York, with a median age of 43 — around seven years younger than the state’s.
Those changes have reshaped the district’s politics. In the 2025 mayoral election, the Seventh District, which was part of what some called the Commie Corridor, was a strong area of support for Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, who topped former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo there by more than 40 percentage points. (He beat Mr. Cuomo, who ran as an independent, by nine percentage points citywide.)
Alykhan Pirani, 24, a faculty coordinator for Lina Khan, the former Federal Trade Commission chair, has lived in the district for a year. He said he had voted for Ms. Valdez, citing Mr. Mamdani’s endorsement and the leftist agenda she has embraced, including abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
“I’m thinking anti-establishment,” Mr. Pirani said. “I want to vote for people who will represent me in a real, tangible way, and not corporations.”
Outside a community center in South Williamsburg, Ignacio Mardones, a software developer, expressed frustration with moderate Democrats who he said had been “failing us for 40 years.” Mr. Mardones, 50, voted for Ms. Valdez, with hopes that her progressive policy platform will create change in the city. He believes Mr. Reynoso “is more of the same.”
Murat Alpa, a 27-year-old who works in human resources, said the candidates had similar policy plans to combat his key concerns about inflation and affordable housing. But Mr. Reynoso’s experience as borough president, and his history in the neighborhood, ultimately won Mr. Alpa’s vote.
“My family’s from Brooklyn,” Mr. Alpa said. “Him being from here, I think he had a sense of the issues more.”
Allison Prein, a 29-year-old events coordinator, voted for Mr. Mamdani in the 2025 mayoral election. She was on the lookout for candidates who spoke often about affordability and housing, which meant the choice between Mr. Reynoso and Ms. Valdez was “the one that I was struggling with for the longest.”
“When I voted for Mamdani, I had made a choice for a more socialist New York City, which I am definitely fond of,” Ms. Prein said. “But I had hesitations about how much can actually be done.” She believes that Mr. Reynoso can get more done by working slightly closer to the middle ideologically than Ms. Valdez.
While both candidates worked to appeal to various coalitions in the district, the biggest question on Tuesday is which of them is able to inspire more turnout: the candidate who appeals to the district’s former political base, or the one who represents its newer, more progressive electorate?
Alex Lemonides contributed reporting.
The post Demographic Fault Lines Fuel a Competitive House Race in New York appeared first on New York Times.
