Rep. Ritchie Torres faces four challengers in the Bronx's 15th Congressional District on Tuesday, and Darializa Avila Chevalier, who unseated Rep. Adriano Espaillat in the June Democratic primary, faces one in the 13th.
The 13th District, which covers Marble Hill, Kingsbridge, Kingsbridge Heights, parts of the west Bronx, Upper Manhattan and Harlem, will have a new member of Congress in January either way: Espaillat is not on the ballot, and Avila Chevalier, on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines, faces Republican Jomo M. Williams, according to the Board of Elections' contest list. The Riverdale Press interviewed the candidates in both districts about housing, public safety, healthcare and the cost of living.
Chevalier, a Democratic Socialist, is a community organizer and public defender’s office investigator whose campaign focuses on affordable housing, immigrant rights and expanded access to healthcare, according to her campaign website as reported by The Riverdale Press. Raised in a working-class Dominican family, she spent portions of her childhood in the Dominican Republic, Florida and Venezuela before moving to upper Manhattan about 14 years ago to attend Columbia University, the publication reported. Her platform calls for expanding affordable housing, strengthening tenant protections, increasing Section 8 rental assistance and funding public housing. She supports Medicare for All, expanding pathways to citizenship and providing legal representation for immigrants facing deportation, and backs redirecting federal military spending toward domestic programs including child tax credits and baby bonds through her campaign’s “Babies, Not Bombs” initiative, according to The Riverdale Press. She also supports raising the minimum wage, strengthening union rights and preventing deed theft. Chevalier was not available for an interview, the publication reported.
In District 13, Williams is a lifelong Harlem resident and U.S. Army veteran running as a Republican, The Riverdale Press reported. A former Democrat, Williams identifies as an urbanist conservative, citing disagreements with Democratic policies on immigration, public safety and housing, according to his campaign website as reported by the publication. His platform emphasizes increasing police funding and addressing economic challenges facing working-class residents, and on immigration he supports strengthening border security and temporarily restricting immigration during periods of high unemployment, housing shortages or displacement, as well as elements of the bipartisan Dignity Act with additional screening requirements. He also proposes allowing constituents to introduce and vote on amendments to proposed policies during community meetings, and calls for a broader overhaul of the criminal justice system.
Congressional District 15, which covers Riverdale and Spuyten Duyvil along with parts of the south and east Bronx, has been represented since 2021 by U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat, The Riverdale Press reported. He faces four challengers: Gonzalo Duran of the Conservative Party, Andre Easton of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Republican Stylo Sapaskis and Jose Vega of the Speak the Truth Party.
Torres told The Riverdale Press his priorities are affordability, with a focus on healthcare and childcare, holding the Trump administration accountable and ensuring artificial intelligence safety, along with public safety and combating antisemitism. He cited accomplishments including being a “national voice against hate in all forms,” securing more than $60 million in community project funding for the Bronx and more than $1 billion for the city’s public hospital system, and leading an effort to reimagine the Cross Bronx Expressway to reduce asthma rates and greenhouse gas emissions, the publication reported. He also pointed to a close working relationship with Council member Eric Dinowitz and Assembly member Jeffrey Dinowitz. Torres was elected to the City Council in 2013 at 25, making him the city’s youngest elected official and the first openly LGBTQ+ person elected in the Bronx, and was raised by a single mother in public housing, according to The Riverdale Press.
“The Bronx is not only where I represent, it’s who I am,” Torres told The Riverdale Press.
Duran is vice chair of the Bronx Conservative Party, district leader for the 79th Assembly District and founder of Devil Dog USA Incorporated, a nonprofit that advocates for veterans’ mental health awareness, The Riverdale Press reported. He is an Iraq War veteran who experienced periods of homelessness after returning to the United States, was born in Belmont and grew up with a single mother who immigrated from El Salvador. Duran is focused on housing, including maintenance repairs to New York City Housing Authority buildings and new construction, and wants more funding for first-time homebuyers to preserve a neighborhood character he said is at risk of overdevelopment, according to the publication. He said public safety needs are not being met and supports greater police funding to ensure departments are fully staffed.
“I show that I can do the work,” Duran told The Riverdale Press. “The only thing that’s missing is the position.”
Easton is a Bronx public school teacher whose parents immigrated from Jamaica, The Riverdale Press reported. He supports raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour, lowering rent to no more than 20 percent of a person’s income and universal healthcare, and he backs repealing the Faircloth Amendment, which limits construction of new public housing units. Building new public housing would give residents options outside the private sector and prevent landlords and developers from raising rent, he said, according to the publication. Easton also supports universal childcare and said the issues he is addressing stem from capitalism, which he called a “system that benefits billionaires.” He said the wealth generated by Bronx labor, including the Hunts Point Cooperative Market, should be controlled by Bronx workers.
“I am the candidate that is running on a campaign to put that power back in the workers’ hands,” Easton told The Riverdale Press, “and to allow the working class to decide what kind of future and what kind of quality of life they want to live.”
Sapaskis, who lives in Riverdale, wants to improve public safety by hiring more police officers and faster response times, and said he believes officer patrols in the neighborhood have declined, The Riverdale Press reported. He also wants to create more jobs, citing support for a years-ago Amazon proposal to build a headquarters in Queens that city lawmakers opposed. He opposes city-owned grocery stores over concerns about the cost to taxpayers and the effect on mom-and-pop shops, calling it an instance of Democrats wanting to “spend our hard-earned money on frivolous things,” according to the publication.
“I want to reinvent more opportunities for the people here in the city,” Sapaskis told The Riverdale Press, “especially in my community, and especially in the district I’m representing.”
Vega is a political organizer and associate of the LaRouche movement who grew up in the South Bronx, The Riverdale Press reported. He wants to expand public transportation within the Bronx by creating a subway line from the east Bronx to the west Bronx, and he hopes to improve public safety, especially for people who feel unsafe practicing their religion. He said he would focus on the history of Judaism in the Bronx and believes growing antisemitism could be curbed through educational outreach and community involvement, according to the publication. Vega said Riverdale is among the Bronx neighborhoods hit hardest by rising costs, and he supports partnering with the city to address potholes and brownouts. He said he would help address Washington’s “complicity with corruption.”
Early voting ran through November 1 and polls close November 3 at 9 p.m., The Riverdale Press reported. Voters can find their poll site and other information at vote.nyc.
Featured image: Photos: U.S. House, public domain (top left); Darializa Avila Chevalier campaign (top right); DiscoA340 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (background). Composite by Bushwick Daily
