{"id":394271,"date":"2025-11-21T08:51:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394271\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T08:51:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:51:17","slug":"new-york-democratic-rep-nydia-velazquez-says-she-wont-run-for-reelection-in-2026-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394271\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Democratic Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez says she won’t run for reelection in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 <\/p>\n

New York Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez \u2014 a trailblazer known by the nickname \u201cLa Luchadora\u201d or the fighter \u2014 announced Thursday that she will retire next year after more than three decades in Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vel\u00e1zquez, 72, is the second long-serving New York Democrat to say she\u2019ll step aside after Rep. Jerry Nadler, 78, announced in September that he\u2019d exit at the end of his current term.<\/p>\n

Vel\u00e1zquez, the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress, said representing the people of New York City has been the \u201cprivilege of a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not an easy decision, but I believe that the time is right for me to move on and for a new generation of leaders to step forward,\u201d Vel\u00e1zquez said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Her retirement, just weeks after 34-year-old Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected the city\u2019s next mayor<\/a>, clears the way for a competitive primary in her deep blue district, which covers parts of Brooklyn and Queens.<\/p>\n

Vel\u00e1zquez, in Congress since 1993, is a former chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and is currently the ranking member on the House Small Business Committee and a member of the House Financial Services Committee.<\/p>\n

Vel\u00e1zquez backed Mamdani in the city’s ranked-choice mayoral primary, endorsing him along with two other candidates in a bid to stop former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s attempt at a political comeback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The mayor-elect, in a social media post, praised Vel\u00e1zquez as \u201ca champion and tireless advocate for immigrants, small businesses and working families.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour grace and fight showed us what real leadership looks like. From the bottom of my heart, thank you La Luchadora,\u201d Mamdani wrote.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who served in Congress with Vel\u00e1zquez, said she \u201chas never forgotten where she came from, and she has never stopped fighting for the people she serves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 New York Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez \u2014 a trailblazer known by the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":394272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[187175,5229,347,90,57,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,61,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-394271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-187175","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-u-s-news","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115586840042935292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}