Lower East Side NYC Councilwoman Carlina Rivera to run for Congress
City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera formally announced Wednesday she’s running for Congress in the crowded race for a newly opened seat that covers lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn.
Her competitors in the Democratic primary include former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Rep. Mondaire Jones, former Rep. Liz Holtzman, former federal prosecutor Daniel Goldman and Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou.
In an interview with the Daily News Wednesday morning, Rivera pointed to her record of achievements during her more than four years with the Council — and to the fact that, unlike some of her competitors, she’s a born and bred New Yorker with deep roots in the Lower East Side.
“I went to school here. I played basketball here. You know, I was married downtown. Every milestone in my life is here,” she said. “I know the struggles that everyday New Yorkers face because I’ve lived them myself. This is more than just a job to me ... This is about taking care of the communities that raised me.”
New York City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera (D-Manhattan) (Luiz C. Ribeiro/)
If she wins, Rivera said she’d focus much of her attention in Congress on the issues that have dominated her tenure at the City Council: affordable housing, healthcare, transit and the environment.
She pointed to the rezoning of Soho and Noho that she was instrumental in pushing through, her legislation targeting Airbnb that aimed to crack down on violators of the city’s hotel laws and the $1.45 billion East Side resiliency project she pushed through to protect the Lower East Side from climate change.
In announcing her run Wednesday, Rivera pointed to dozens of supporters who are backing her run. They include Councilwomen Diana Ayala, Althea Stevens and Sandy Nurse — none of whom reside in the Congressional district she’s vying for — and former Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who does. Rivera has also won support dozens of community leaders living in city public housing, which is likely to be a boon in getting out the vote.
“It was clear from day one that her deep roots in her community and the city at large are matched by her love for public service and her political will to get even the most challenging initiatives over the finish line,” Chin said. “I watched Carlina lead with unwavering focus as we worked to make New York City the first in the nation to allocate city funds to abortion care.”
Rivera told The News that she has “the clearest path to building a district-wide coalition” and suggested that voters will take note of her roots in the community when considering their options.
“Look at the first forum we did together with the Stonewall Democrats,” she said of a recent candidates’ forum. “Mondaire said, ‘I commuted into the district.’ Bill de Blasio said, ‘I learned to be an activist here.’ I was born and raised in this district and I cut my teeth for it.”
Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) (Andrew Harnik/)
Rivera’s campaign team will include campaign manager Jenna Bimbi, executive director of the New York Birth Control Access Project; fundraiser David Mansur, who worked on campaigns for both Attorney General TIsh James and Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez; and Slingshot Strategies.
With her announcement, Rivera’s campaign team also sent out a release outlining her “path to victory,” which will rely on retaining voters in the Lower East Side and East Village, as well as creating a new base in Brooklyn public housing and peeling off votes in liberal brownstone Brooklyn.
“Rivera has a demonstrated ability to win economically and racially diverse liberal neighborhoods that resemble her Council electorate such as Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, Gowanus, Prospect Heights, South Slope, and Red Hook, including in NYCHA,” her campaign contended. “Other candidates have dueling constituencies in Brownstone Brooklyn and will need to compete aggressively there or risk losing their base voters, while Rivera will add votes in these neighborhoods to her existing constituencies.”
