We will usher in a golden age for organized labor to battle back the new gilded age that is upon us.
Assemblymember Claire Valdez is a union organizer, artist and proud democratic socialist. A dual citizen of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Nation and the United States, she worked low-wage customer service jobs through high school, college and after. As a worker at Columbia University, she joined UAW Local 2110, was elected to the bargaining committee, and organized to democratize her union. A longtime leader in NYC-DSA, Claire serves in the New York State Assembly, where she has fought to tax the rich, protect tenants, and empower working people.
New York’s 7th Congressional District spans North Brooklyn and Western Queens, neighborhoods shaped by both struggle and creativity. From the industrial polluters of the 19th and 20th centuries to the real estate speculators of today, powerful interests have long sought to extract wealth here at the expense of working people. But this district is also a place of deep resilience and extraordinary diversity, where immigrants, artists, workers, and families have built lasting communities and helped define the cultural life of New York City.
I didn’t come to politics through party machines or electoral ambition. I learned how this system really works in low-wage customer service jobs and found my power in a union.This district has also long stood on the frontlines of progressive political change. It was here that the daughter of a sugarcane worker took on the political establishment and became the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress. Nydia Velázquez went on to spend decades fighting for workers, immigrants, and small businesses against corporate power. This district delivered the single largest margin of victory for Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for mayor. It’s a district that doesn’t just want strongly-worded letters but a real economic vision to win the working class away from Trumpism. That’s what Claire will deliver.
No dark money group or corporate PAC would ever consider giving me money. And I would never take it. But they will spend it against us.
Donors like you will fuel this campaign, not AIPAC or the fossil fuel industry. Join us by contributing what you can today.
Unions are how we build power and expand democracy. Organized workers win higher wages and stronger benefits, work in safer conditions, and exercise more control over their time and their lives. They are more secure at work, more engaged in their communities, and more likely to vote. That's exactly why oligarchs spend billions trying to crush collective bargaining—because organized workers threaten their power.
In Congress, Claire will champion the PRO Act to make it easier for people to form unions, hold bosses accountable, and stop corporations from retaliating against people who demand dignity on the job. She will use her office to stand shoulder to shoulder with workers organizing across our city—on picket lines, at bargaining tables, and wherever working people are fighting for their rights. It's exactly what she has done throughout her adult life.
Housing is a human right—but Congress has chosen to side with landlords and speculators instead of working people. Claire will fight to guarantee safe, affordable housing for all, because housing is not a commodity. It's a necessity.
As a tenant, Claire knows what it means to be one crisis away from losing your home. In NY-07, more than seven in ten residents rent, but the establishment has allowed displacement and skyrocketing costs to hollow out our communities. That's not inevitable—it's a political choice.
Claire will be a voice for tenants in Congress and work to pass the Homes Act, championed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to create a public option for housing and break the private market's stranglehold. She will fight to fully fund the New York City Housing Authority and repeal the Faircloth Amendment so we can build beautiful public housing again. Claire will take on a housing system designed to reward speculation and scarcity—and fight for a New York where working people can afford to stay.
While major health insurance corporations post obscene profits, tens of thousands of people in New York's 7th District remain uninsured—and many more are underinsured. Working people delay care, ration medication, and face financial ruin from a single hospital visit. This is not inevitable. It's the result of a system designed to put profit before patients.
In Congress, Claire will sponsor Medicare for All on Day One and fight the insurance companies that profit from denying care and driving up costs. No one should lose their health care when they lose a job, and no one should have to choose between seeing a doctor and paying rent. Health care is a human right.
Employer-based insurance gives bosses power over workers' lives—holding care hostage to keep wages down and trap people in jobs they can't afford to leave. Nearly half of NY-07 residents rely on employer coverage, and tens of thousands more are at risk of losing insurance because of new work and verification requirements. We will not fix this crisis with half-measures. Claire will fight to pass Medicare for All, paid for by taxing billionaires and corporations that have rigged the system, and deliver universal health care for every New Yorker.
Donald Trump’s reckless foreign policy serves the billionaire class. Far from the peacemaking he promised, his administration has bombed multiple countries without Congressional approval, boasts of a ceasefire that Israel routinely violates, promotes far right fascist parties across the world, and even kidnapped a foreign head of state. It’s gangsterism—lawless, dangerous, and making the world more violent. Congress has a duty to stop it.
But we cannot return to the old status quo. For more than a year, a Democratic White House and Senate enabled and funded Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Too many Democrats denied reality or stayed silent. That failure helped pave the way for Trump’s return to power.
Claire Valdez will be a courageous voice for peace, international law, and a free Palestine in Congress. She will work with any member—Democrat or Republican—to rein in illegal warmaking and restore Congress’s authority. She will fight for Puerto Rican self-determination and for a foreign policy rooted in international solidarity—one that recognizes the shared interests of working people everywhere, not the profits of the few.
New York’s 7th District is home to people from all over the world—and from every corner of this country. Roughly a third of our neighbors were born outside the United States. Many more moved here chasing work, safety, or a better life. NY-7 shows what makes New York City strong: solidarity, diversity, and change.
Donald Trump wants to destroy that vision. He’s using ICE to terrorize whole cities, rip families apart, and impose a white nationalist agenda on the country. ICE doesn’t just carry out mass deportations—it has become a tool of domestic repression, used to intimidate communities and silence dissent.
In Congress, Claire Valdez will fight to dismantle and abolish ICE. She will push for real immigration reform that legalizes the status of millions of immigrant Americans. Claire believes our district’s future—and our country’s—depends on protecting the dignity and rights of all working people, no matter where they were born.
A livable planet starts with livable homes, clean air, safe jobs, and secure communities right here in NY-7. Climate change isn’t a distant threat. It’s already raising our energy bills, flooding our waterfronts, worsening asthma, and making our apartments dangerously hot in the summer.
NY-7 isn’t just on the frontlines of the climate crisis; it’s been on the receiving end of fossil fuel pollution for generations. Our waterfront was home to some of the first modern oil refineries and the toxic legacy is still with us today: contaminated sites, poisoned waterways, heavy truck traffic, and neighborhoods where working people breathe dirtier air so corporations can profit.
Claire will fight to cut pollution and lower costs by winning a Green New Deal that puts working people in charge of the transition. She will push to decarbonize and retrofit NYCHA—lowering utility bills, fixing mold and leaks, and making homes safer through heat waves and storms. She will demand urgency and resources for the federal cleanup of the Newtown Creek Superfund site and make polluters pay for the damage they’ve done. She will join Senator Bernie Sanders’ call for a moratorium on new AI data centers until we have clear rules to protect our grid and water from runaway corporate energy use. And she will back climate action that creates good union jobs and protects our communities from flooding and extreme heat.
Claire Valdez stood with me on day one because she understands how change is won—by building power, raising expectations, and delivering for working people. She comes from the labor movement and knows how to turn struggle into real gains on housing, healthcare, and workers’ rights. That’s the kind of partner I need in Congress, and why I’m proud to endorse her.
Corporations and billionaires are doing everything they can to crush the working class. The only way we can take on the crises in front of us is if we have more workers representing us in the halls of power. That is why I am proud to stand with UAW member Claire Valdez in her run for Congress. Claire will fight like hell for dignity, fairness, and justice for all workers. This is exactly how the labor movement can fight back against corporate greed and inequality: by electing more of our own. UAW is excited to send Claire to Congress to deliver for the working class.
