Two days before the June 23 Democratic primary for Nydia Velazquez’s open congressional seat, Bushwick City Council Member Sandy Nurse put her closing argument for Antonio Reynoso in writing. On Sunday, June 21, the last day of early voting, she was out with Reynoso as voters cast early ballots, and the same day she sent her mailing list a newsletter she titled “10 Reasons I Support Antonio Reynoso for Congress,” according to Bushwick Daily’s coverage of the email.
Nurse had endorsed Reynoso months earlier. The newsletter went further, laying out her argument point by point in her own words before the final ballots were cast. She also shared a preview of her own marked ballot with her list, which showed her picks but left the comptroller race blank, a decision she said she was still weighing.
The ten reasons she put in writing span his legislative record and his organizing roots. She cited his 2020 council vote against expanding the NYPD budget at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, calling it “a values vote.” She cited his $45 million investment as Brooklyn Borough President in the borough’s public hospitals to address Black maternal health, his work to remove ICE from Rikers Island, and his immediate response when federal immigration agents appeared at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Bushwick. She named his support for BK ROT, the youth jobs program Nurse herself started, and for Mayday Space, the Bushwick political organizing and mutual aid hub. She listed his role founding the reformist New Kings Democrats club after Obama’s election, and, more recently, passing a city law creating criminal penalties for bad landlords.
One of her ten reasons was also a personal reversal. “Years ago, I protested Reynoso because I was scared that more housing would create displacement,” she wrote. “Now, I realize that because we haven’t built more housing fast enough, we are losing the most vulnerable New Yorkers. He has been ahead of the curve on this for years.”
She closed by cataloguing what backs him: nearly every major labor union in New York City, the Working Families Party, and what she called “every homegrown grassroots institution in north Brooklyn.” She also wrote that he has never taken AIPAC money, does not take from big developers, and rejects corporate PACs.
Reynoso is running on a broad progressive platform in the four-way Democratic primary. Rolled out plank by plank on a tour he called “Real Fights, Real Results,” it includes a wealth tax of 5 percent annually on fortunes above $50 million and 10 percent on fortunes above $250 million, which his campaign estimates would raise roughly $6.8 trillion over ten years. He is also running on abolishing ICE, creating a federal insurance billing code for endometriosis, decriminalizing sex work, and opposing Puerto Rico’s federally imposed fiscal control board and the Jones Act.
Reynoso and state Assembly Member Claire Valdez, the two front-runners, agree on most major policy questions, but the race turned contentious over Reynoso’s real-estate donations, a split with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and arguments about which wing of the New York left should hold the seat, as Bushwick Daily reported. Valdez is backed by Mamdani, Senator Bernie Sanders, the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, and the United Auto Workers. Reynoso’s coalition includes the Working Families Party, Attorney General Letitia James, Velazquez herself, and a bloc of major labor unions including 32BJ, DC 37, 1199SEIU, RWDSU, the Hotel Trades Council, and CWA.
The four-candidate primary, which also includes City Council Member Julie Won and public defender Vichal Kumar, effectively decides the seat. NY-7, which runs through Bushwick and Williamsburg and into Queens, is heavily Democratic, and the June 23 winner goes to Washington. Reynoso’s full platform is at reynosoforcongress.com.
Featured image: Courtesy bushwickdaily.com
