Within the 30-plus years since she was first elected to Congress, Rep. Nydia Velázquez has had twin missions, representing New York’s seventh District and her native Puerto Rico — pushing laws for the island’s self-determination and protesting the U.S. Navy’s presence there.
With the U.S. territory’s lopsided relationship with Washington — it has a single non-voting member within the Home, and its residents can not vote in presidential elections regardless of being U.S. residents — Velázquez is Puerto Rico’s unofficial ambassador, talking out for the island’s 3.3 million residents.
The overarching theme of the race to succeed “La Luchadora,” who’s retiring on the finish of the 12 months, has been a proxy battle between the Democratic get together’s rebel left flank — led by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — and institution progressives. However Puerto Rico is taking heart stage — despite the fact that not one of the three main candidates are Puerto Rican.
On Monday, Velázquez’ chosen successor, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, plans to unveil an in depth six-page coverage platform tackling a few of the most urgent points in Puerto Rico, from supporting a referendum on the island’s standing to repealing century-old federal commerce legal guidelines that drive up the prices of products and providers there.
He additionally helps abolishing the fiscal oversight board, approved underneath a 2016 federal regulation, that has primarily run the territory’s funds and plenty of of its day-to-day operations for the final decade.
“We have to transfer Puerto Rico to a spot the place we might see it thrive versus what’s occurring now, with the deterioration of the island due to imperialism,” stated Reynoso.
Velázquez, who labored with Reynoso to craft his Puerto Rico platform, stated she has the “assurance that he has an excellent grasp of the problems which can be essential to us and that we have to deal with in Congress.”
“Puerto Rico is a colony of the US,” Velázquez informed THE CITY. “Congress has whole jurisdiction over Puerto Rico, so it’s the duty — the ethical obligation — of any member of Congress to additionally deal with the problems of Puerto Rico, as a result of we, the Congress, personal Puerto Rico.”
In a telephone interview with THE CITY, Reynoso stated it was the Puerto Rican group in Williamsburg’s Los Sures part that embraced his dad and mom once they immigrated within the 1970’s from the Dominican Republic, serving to them and different Latino immigrants modify to lNew York. He stated he doesn’t take frivolously the “duty” of carrying on the world’s Puerto Rican legacy.
Reynoso and his chief rival, Assemblymember Claire Valdez of Queens, have highlighted Puerto Rico of their marketing campaign platforms since launching their bids to exchange Velázquez, the primary Puerto Rican lady elected to the Home of Representatives.
One other candidate, Queens Councilmember Julie Gained, intends to roll out a full overseas coverage platform this week that may embody Puerto Rico points, her marketing campaign stated.
The Puerto Rican seat?
However neither candidate has Puerto Rican roots — Reynoso was born in Brooklyn to Dominican dad and mom and Valdez is of Mexican and Native American descent — a mirrored image of the state of the district in 2026. For many years, New York’s seventh congressional district was thought of solidly Puerto Rican, however forces starting from redistricting to gentrification and time-worn demographic shifts have minimize up the district and diluted Puerto Ricans’ presence in it.
The district “is now not a Puerto Rican district, and it hasn’t been for fairly a little bit of time,” stated Eli Valentin, an knowledgeable on Latino politics in New York, including that it has skilled “extra demographic modifications than maybe wherever else within the metropolis within the final 15 or 20 years.”
The three main candidates’ close to an identical ideological overlap — they each assist abolishing ICE, common healthcare and common childcare, for instance — additionally extends to Puerto Rico.
Like Reynoso, Valdez and Gained assist self-determination for Puerto Rico. In an interview with THE CITY, Valdez described Velázquez’s retirement as a “actual loss” for the Puerto Rican group and stated it is vital for them to have a voice in Congress — on points past its political standing, too.
“We have to guarantee that individuals on the island have actual dignity and fairness, actual Medicaid parity, and that the vitality grid is dependable and the vitality is inexpensive,” she stated.
Velázquez was elected in an upset in 1992, after the district was controversially redrawn with the intention to create a brand new majority Latino district bringing collectively Puerto Ricans from decrease Manhattan and in Brooklyn, from Williamsburg to Sundown Park; the district was referred to as the “bullwinkle” as a result of its uncommon form.
On the time, Puerto Ricans had been underrepresented in New York and in Congress, stated Juan Cartagena, a lecturer at Columbia Legislation College who was concerned within the battle to create and protect the district.
Because the district’s Puerto Rican inhabitants waned within the following many years, Velázquez continued pushing on Puerto Rican points — alongside former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez of Chicago — whereas embracing different hot-button points, immigration specifically.
The ultimate blow to the district’s Puerto Rican bonafides got here earlier this decade, when Manhattan’s Decrease East Aspect and the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crimson Hook and Sundown Park had been swallowed up by the tenth district, represented by Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman.
Velázquez’s retirement leaves two extra New York Home members with Puerto Rican roots — Ritchie Torres and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, each of The Bronx.
Torres’ fifteenth district holds a historic and demographic edge over Ocasio-Cortez, although he and Velázquez are far aside on the difficulty of Puerto Rican self-determination. As a younger lady, Velázquez supported independence, however she moderated her place as she entered public service, and in 2021 launched laws with Ocasio-Cortez to put the groundwork for a binding referendum to permit Puerto Ricans to vote for independence, statehood or persevering with as a U.S. territory. (Torres, in the meantime, is bullish on Puerto Rico changing into the 51st state.)
There are round 670,000 Puerto Ricans throughout New York Metropolis, in accordance with a 2025 evaluation of the 2020 American Neighborhood Survey by THE CITY and Puerto Rico’s Middle for Investigative Journalism. The South Bronx and sure neighborhoods alongside the borough’s northeast, from Fortress Hill to Throggs Neck in Ocasio-Cortez’s district, are a few of the most densely populated by Puerto Ricans at present.
Velázquez has taken Ocasio-Cortez underneath her wing since her election in 2018, pushing the progressive star to get extra concerned on points affecting the island. In 2024, they each endorsed Juan Dalmau, who ran with the island’s pro-independence get together, for governor.
After Velázquez retires, solely time will inform whether or not Torres, Ocasio-Cortez, or whomever prevails within the seventh district will carry her mantle on Puerto Rico points. However having a pacesetter who builds lasting relationships with the diaspora group and leaders on the island issues far more than token illustration, stated Councilmember Alexa Avilés, who represents Sundown Park.
The Reynoso-Valdez race is without doubt one of the most closely-watched of this heated midterm cycle, presenting a uncommon open seat after Velázquez introduced in November that she would retire after 17 phrases within the Home. Together with Rep. Jerrold Nadler of Manhattan, who can also be retiring, Velázquez is without doubt one of the longest-serving members of Congress in New York Metropolis at present.
Ideological Twins
Velázquez’s district sits on the epicenter of what some political observers have dubbed the “Commie Hall” — a Democratic Socialists of America stronghold that, if Valdez is elected, would give the motion a coveted trifecta of democratic socialist officers on the native, state and federal degree.
That proxy battle has been on the coronary heart of a race the place the main candidates are, ideologically, virtually an identical.
Velázquez, an early supporter of Mamdani’s 2025 bid for mayor, publicly rebuked him after he endorsed Valdez earlier than Velázquez had chosen a successor; she shortly endorsed Reynoso and has been a number one pressure in his race ever since.
Reynoso, a two-term Council member earlier than his election as Brooklyn borough president in 2021, held the lead in a January ballot — the one public ballot of the race to this point — and is endorsed by main unions and the Working Households Get together.
Valdez, in the meantime, is backed by the identical left-leaning coalition, led by the DSA and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, that propelled Mamdani to victory. And although Reynoso has more money available than Valdez or Gained, he was outraised by each of them within the first quarter of the 12 months.
