For more than three decades, the same name has anchored the ballot for the congressional district that runs through Bushwick, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Fort Greene, and across into Ridgewood, Sunnyside, and Long Island City: Nydia Velázquez. She was first elected in 1992. She is not running again. That means on Tuesday, June 23, the seat is open for the first time in a generation, and most of your neighbors do not know it is happening.
In a district this blue, the Democratic primary is the whole election. Velázquez won her last race with about 78 percent of the vote, according to the race’s official tally, so whoever wins Tuesday’s Democratic primary is, barring a genuine shock, the next member of Congress. November will be a formality.
Four major candidates have declared. Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn Borough President, is the establishment pick and has Velázquez’s own endorsement, per City & State. Claire Valdez, a state assemblymember elected just in 2024, is running as the insurgent and launched her campaign with the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, City & State reported. Julie Won, a City Councilmember from western Queens, is the third option, having filed to run in February. And Vichal Kumar, a public defender who launched his campaign with an event in Bushwick, is running as the outsider.
Roughly a dozen people filed paperwork for this seat, News India Times reported, so the field can look bigger than it is. Those four are the serious, declared candidates with real money and ground operations.
Behind the names, this is a fight over which way Brooklyn-Queens politics goes next. Reynoso, carrying the retiring incumbent’s blessing, is the continuity candidate. Valdez, backed by the mayor who just remade city politics, is the left’s bid to send one of its own to Washington. Won is betting a Queens base and a big war chest beats both. In a low-turnout June primary, turnout matters more than fundraising totals.
The primary is Tuesday, June 23, and early voting is already underway. If you are a registered Democrat in the district, this is the vote that picks your representative in Congress for years, maybe for decades, the way it just did for the last 30. Look up your poll site, read where these four stand on housing, immigration, and the issues you care about, and go. This seat sat settled for a generation. Tuesday, you settle it again.
Featured image: Photo: Jack Delaney)
