By: Elmer Creighton
Voters in the Bronx are faced with a back-to-the-future kind of choice, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez puts her reputation as a Democratic Party thought leader on the line on June 23.
It is, as political wags across the Big Apple are noting, the first time in three decades that New York’s 15th Congressional District in the Bronx won’t have Rep. José Serrano as a candidate.
Like sharks sensing blood in the water, candidates are crawling out of the woodwork to vie for the soon to be vacant inevitably Democratic seat.
The maxim that political races outside of Manhattan almost always go to progressive candidate is being put to the test.
Rubén Diaz Sr., a member of the City Council and father of Ruben Diaz Jr., the current Bronx borough president, is the odds-on favorite to take the seat. But some say the 74-year-old Pentecostal minister is anti-gay, which would seem to work against him. One of the people he is running against is a college in the City Council, Ritchie Torres, 32, an up and comer who is open about being gay.
Together, the two notched roughly 50% of a recent poll, so they are the odds-on favorites, at least for now. AOC is supporting Torres.
John DeSio of Risa Heller Communications, Diaz Jr.’s spokesman, told Crain’s New York Business that Diaz, Sr. has “been an elected official for decades, and everyone knows this about him, and it never really seems to affect him. If there is a weakness, it’s the lack of sophistication in a congressional campaign. That could hurt him.”
Torres is the City Councilmember for the 15th district. Elected in 2013, he is the first openly gay candidate to be elected to legislative office in the Bronx, and the youngest member of the city council. He serves as the chair of the Committee on Public Housing, and is a deputy majority leader. As chair of the Oversight and Investigations Committee he is focusing on taxi medallion predatory loans, and the city’s Third Party Transfer Program. He announced his bid for the United States House of Representatives seat a year ago.
Díaz Sr. is Puerto Rican, and has represented the 18th Council District in the New York City Council since January 2018. A member of the Democratic Party, Díaz represented the 32nd district in the New York State Senate from 2003 to 2017; his Senate district included parts of the Bronx neighborhoods of Castle Hill, Parkchester, Morrisania, Hunts Point, Melrose, Longwood, and Soundview. A socially conservative Democrat, he has also been known for his opposition to abortion.
