'Born and raised' Antonio Reynoso banks on track record in NY-07 primary

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Jun 11, 2026

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NEW YORK — Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso boasts of living just a stone’s throw away from where he was born and raised in south Williamsburg.

Four decades later, Reynoso points to a potent track record of activism and progressive political victories like few others, forged from countless meetings in public housing projects, community boards, political clubhouses and on street corners.

“This is the community that raised me, from elementary to middle school, right on up,” Reynoso told the Daily News. “Everything about me comes from this this community and that’s what I’m all about.”

Reynoso got involved in neighborhood politics as a teenager, ousted a once-omnipotent Brooklyn Democratic Party incumbent as a young adult and just won reelection for a second term in Borough Hall.

He’s got his eyes on Washington, D.C., now that Rep. Nydia Velazquez has announced her retirement from Congress representing the NY-07 district.

“Congress was always the place I wanted to see myself,” Reynoso said. “Fulfilling and extending her legacy is one of the things that made me run.”

The June 23 primary has been anything but a cakewalk for Reynoso, 43. He faces an unexpectedly tough challenge from progressive Assemblywoman Claire Valdez in the district that snakes through rapidly changing neighborhoods in northern Brooklyn and western Queens

A recent independent poll showed a narrow edge for Valdez with nearly half the voters still undecided vote. Valdez has the endorsement of Mayor Mamdani, a potentially powerful edge in the progressive district where he won about 80% of the vote in last year’s mayoral race.

Whoever wins in the June 23 primary is virtually certain to replace Velazquez in Washington, D.C. representing one of the most heavily Democratic districts in the nation.

Reynoso says he’d be a can-do advocate for federal programs like SNAP, or food stamps, public assistance and Section 8 housing that sustained his own family when his parents moved to New York from the Dominican Republic in search of a better life.

Now a married father of two boys, one of whom has special needs, Reynoso said his perspective as a young middle class father is sorely needed on Capitol Hill.

“There aren’t a lot of young people with families in Congress at a time when the American dream is slipping away for so many,” Reynoso said.

Reynoso says he’s ready to fight hard to roll back the damage President Trump’s right-wing agenda has done in the district, but he calls it “a great thing” that he has earned a reputation for having a soft touch in the sometimes ugly world of New York City politics.

“I always thought being kind, being respectful can help you get a lot done,” he said. “It’s a circus and there’s too many clowns down there already.”