Democratic socialists, emboldened by Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory, are coalescing around their next big target in New York City: the Brooklyn and Queens House seat being vacated by Representative Nydia M. Velázquez.
Their most likely candidate, Assemblywoman Claire Valdez of Queens, jumped into the race on Thursday at Mr. Mamdani’s urging. The mayor and the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America are widely expected to formally endorse her soon.
In her first interview as a candidate, Ms. Valdez, 36, a former labor organizer, said the mayor would need allies in Washington to advance his economic populist agenda and fight what she described as “this new Gilded Age.”
“We’ve got to keep going,” she said.
She added that as important as it was for Democrats to win back the House majority, their approach if they succeed will be equally significant.
“Will we return to the status quo?” she asked. “Or be a real opposition party that takes on the oligarchy, fights fascism and advances an agenda for working people?”
But to actually get to Washington herself, Ms. Valdez will first have to contend with a formidable opponent, Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president who entered the Democratic primary for the seat late last year.
Unlike other Democratic primaries proliferating across New York City that pit moderates against progressives, the June contest pits left against lefter. It promises to be a high-stakes test of Mr. Mamdani’s political sway after taking office and of voters’ appetite for true democratic socialism.
Ms. Valdez and Mr. Reynoso, a former city councilman who himself worked as a labor organizer, have relatively few major policy differences. Both supported Mr. Mamdani for mayor, have called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide (though Ms. Valdez was more vocal and did so earlier) and have praised Ms. Velázquez’s record fighting for Puerto Rican self-determination.
But Mr. Reynoso, 42, is a more traditional progressive in the model of Letitia James, the state attorney general, or Ms. Velázquez. He has spent years working within the machinery of city government, striking compromises along the way.
Ms. Valdez, on the other hand, is a movement socialist with little government experience. She speaks in more confrontational terms about wealth, corporate power and workers’ rights and has referred to fellow D.S.A. members as “comrades.”
The assemblywoman, a Latina and a member of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Nation, grew up in Lubbock, Texas. She moved to New York in 2015, where she eventually found work as an administrative assistant at Columbia University and became an organizer for her union there, a local chapter of the United Auto Workers.
“I didn’t come to my politics through party machines or electoral ambition,” she said in the interview. “I learned how the system works by working low-wage customer service jobs at Taco Bell, Trader Joe’s, Pizza Hut.”
She added, “I found my power by organizing with my union.”
The district, New York’s Seventh, stretches north and east from Downtown Brooklyn, toward Astoria and Woodhaven in Queens. It contains Brooklyn neighborhoods like Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bushwick, which delivered Mr. Mamdani some of his largest margins citywide, as well as a sizable Orthodox Jewish enclave. About a third of the district’s residents are Latino.
Factions are already forming behind both candidates.
Mr. Reynoso has the support of a handful of progressive Council members who represent parts of the district, and he appears to be headed toward securing the support of Ms. Velázquez, 72, who is retiring after 16 terms in the House.
Reached by telephone this week, the congresswoman would not offer an endorsement, but she said she wanted her successor to be someone whom she had helped mentor for years. Mr. Reynoso would fit that description.
“My goal was to build a bench,” she said. “And with much confidence, I can tell you today that I was proud of the young leaders that I nurtured. I’m looking forward to one of those leaders within my district getting elected to that office.”
On the other side, the D.S.A. is moving toward lining up behind Ms. Valdez, and its members will begin considering a formal endorsement this month. While other local elected officials who are democratic socialists, including Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán, considered running, none have taken steps to form a campaign.
Mr. Mamdani has yet to officially endorse Ms. Valdez. But behind the scenes, he has actively encouraged her to run and used his standing to keep other potential candidates out of the race, according to two people familiar with the maneuvers.
Ms. Valdez is also being advised by top political aides to Mr. Mamdani, including Morris Katz and Andrew Epstein. The advertising firm the mayor used during his campaign, Fight Agency, made her launch video.
The stakes are considerable for the mayor and the movement that helped put him in office, whose members are seeking to show they can build durable political power. The D.S.A. has expanded its foothold in city and state government in New York in recent years, but Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of only three democratic socialists in the House and the only New Yorker.
The group may ultimately back congressional candidates in other races across the city, but with more residents who are D.S.A. members than any other district, the Seventh is its top target for now.
Ms. Valdez first won her seat in the State Assembly, representing the district next to Mr. Mamdani’s, in 2024, ousting a Democratic incumbent who had been accused of sexual misconduct.
She was the only elected official to show up at the start of Mr. Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, then viewed as a long-shot effort. She has since joined him at protests against the war in Gaza and on picket lines of striking workers.
But she will face her own unique challenges. She may have difficulty drawing the sharp age and ideological contrasts with Mr. Reynoso that Mr. Mamdani and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez did with their opponents.
Nicholas Fandos is a Times reporter covering New York politics and government.
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