‘Not going to compromise’: Claire Valdez on her primary victory and hopes for the House

Democratic nominee for Congress Claire Valdez celebrated an overwhelming victory in her June primary, and is now gearing up to head to federal office.  Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

By Ryan Schwach

Most had expected election night to be a long haul for sophomore Assemblymember Claire Valdez, who was running in a competitive four-way race to succeed a revered New York lawmaker.

Valdez, who was first elected to office in 2024, also thought it was going to be a while after polls closed before there would be any clarity as to who would fill the shoes of Congressmember Nydia Velázquez in New York’s 7th Congressional District, the most progressive district in the United States.

But just minutes after the last votes were cast, Valdez emerged as the expected Democratic nominee defeating Velázquez’ preferred heir, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, as well as Queens Councilmember Julie Won and attorney Vichal Kumar.

The race wasn’t close. The democratic socialist and self-described unionist won the primary by 21 points in what was a citywide sweep for the slate of candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

The group included four other DSA-backed candidates in Queens, and the night was seen as a major victory for the leftist organization and the political movement it kicked into high gear during Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s ascension to City Hall in January.

“I was obviously hoping for a full sweep, but certainly was not expecting the kind of margins that we saw,” she told the Eagle outside a Ridgewood café in July. The café still had her campaign poster on the window.

“I think we just correctly identified the political moment we find ourselves in,” she added. “I think there's just kind of mass dissatisfaction in the working class of New York City and around the country, too. People are really mad at incumbents. They're mad that their quality of life has not changed at a moment when we have just had our first trillionaire.”

She called her double-digit win a “mandate” to represent the deeply progressive district with the democratic socialist ideals she ran on.

“I think what we have is a real mandate to go and fight for the things that we talked about in the campaign, Medicare for all, housing for all, unions for all,” she said. “The margin really showed that the campaign was very successful in getting people to mobilize around those issues.”

A month removed from her victory, she told the Eagle that she wasn’t taking anything for granted, but she'll likely take federal office after what is expected to be an uncontentious general election against Republican community organizer Melvin Rivera.

However, the likely soon-to-be congressmember from Ridgewood has several hurdles to leap amid an increasingly divisive political climate in Washington and lingering apprehension toward the leftist movement.

It's still unknown which party will hold the majority if Valdez gets to the House of Representatives, but regardless, the body she will be joining will be a stark contrast to the increasingly progressive Democratic supermajority she enjoyed in Albany. And even if the Democrats retake the House, she will still be an ideological minority as a democratic socialist.

“To the people who are skeptical of democratic socialists, when we show up, and we build relationships and we build trust, when they see that we aren't three-headed monsters, we're actually just people who really want the best for our constituents and for the working class, I think they're much more willing to organize with us and to work with us,” she said. “I think that there's a growing recognition that democratic socialists can govern.”

There will also be those more than skeptical. House Speaker Mike Johnson said this week that DSA electeds “want to go to this dark down, dangerous, deadly road of communism,” and described races featuring democratic socialists as elections between “common sense and crazy.”

“What's really important is that I'm not going to compromise on any of my politics,” Valdez said. “I think that's what this mandate has delivered. I have the freedom in the room to be pretty unapologetic and also really work hard to find common ground.”

She hopes to find points of commonality with her future colleagues on things like infrastructure and war.

“I'm going to Congress thinking about where I have common ground with people who maybe we don't usually organize with,” she said. “I think there's a lot of common ground there around basic infrastructure stuff, around raising the minimum wage.”

A longtime member of the United Auto Workers, Valdez wants to make unionizing workplaces a major piece of her platform as a federal representative.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed Queens Assemblymember Claire Valdez to succeed Congressmember Nydia Velázquez.  File photo via Zohran Mamdani/X 

She said she hoped the Protect the Right to Organize Act, which would make it easier for unions to be recognized by their employer, would be her top legislative priority.

She described the legislation as “the most transformative piece of labor legislation in this country since the '30s.”

Born in Texas, Valdez has been a Queens resident for just over a decade, a fact of her biography that garnered criticism during the campaign, with detractors calling her an outsider who was not familiar with the issues of the communities she was running to represent.

Much of Reynoso’s campaign messaging was centered around his childhood growing up in the Brooklyn part of the district.

“I think what I believe in is that if you live here and if you love the city, then you're a New Yorker, and you deserve a voice in politics,” she added.

Valdez said she holds no ill-will toward any of the progressive electeds who backed Reynoso in the primary.

“I'm already in conversation with many of them, and I think at some point we'll sit down and talk about what our priorities are,” she said. “I don't hold grudges. You can't take politics personally, and if you do, I don't think that you're really cut out for this line of work.”

Her DSA and union supporters' response to the attacks about Valdez’s background was packaged in a slogan: “Claire was there.”

During her acceptance speech in June, Valdez said she initially wasn’t a fan of the slogan.

“I didn't like it, because none of this was ever about me,” she said in June. “This race has always been about the New Yorkers who are there before the sun rises and after it sets.”

The reluctance to accept the praise is on par with Valdez’s general disposition.

Morris Katz, the now-prominent political consultant behind Mamdani’s campaign and the ill-fated Maine senatorial bid of Graham Platner, was among the voices that pushed Valdez to run. He described her as a reluctant leader.

Valdez is far more soft-spoken than many of her DSA elected colleagues, like Assemblymember Diana Moreno or Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and she does not enjoy the same cult of personality that Mamdani has ridden to City Hall.

In DSA and union circles, she is known more as an organizer, practiced in building coalitions more so than serving as the face of the movement.

She admits it took some convincing for her to run for Congress, just as it had been when she was asked to run for the Assembly two years ago.

“It took a lot of convincing to get me there to see that vision,” she said. “But I'm really proud of the campaign we ran.”

Valdez has only been in the Assembly for a year and a half, succeeding former Assemblymember Juan Ardila, whose political reputation was hurt by allegations of sexual harassment.

While she is still somewhat new to elected office, Valdez said she had learned from her local experience and wants to take those lessons to Washington.

“The most important thing that you can do is be responsive to your constituents,” she said.

There will be difficulties ahead.

Building new coalitions in House, and fighting for resources under the Trump administration will be among her firsts tests as a national lawmaker.

“It'll be hard work,” she said. “I think we need to be really clear-eyed that under the Trump administration, it's going to be really hard to do a lot to pass all that legislation we want to.”

“So what we need to be doing until then, until he's out, is laying the groundwork for what what a potential Democratic trifecta could look like in 2029, and making sure that the agenda for 2028 is focused on the working class, lifting the working class, transforming American society, and holding people to it.”

About a month after her victory, Valdez, who less than two years ago was an unknown union organizer, is beginning to settle into the idea that she is likely to represent Queens and Brooklyn in the United States Congress.

“Somebody was talking to me about tax policy and taxing the rich, and they were saying, ‘every minute of your day, you are a congressmember now,’ which is a very overwhelming prospect,” she said. “But it's something that I've really tried to take to heart.”