2026 PRIMARIES: Nicholas Reyes challenges incumbent José Serrano for D-29 State Senate seat

One of these races is for the District 29 State Senate seat, which covers parts of East Harlem, most of the South Bronx, Highbridge, Hunts Point, and Shorehaven. The Bronx Times spoke with both candidates for the seat: incumbent State Senator José Serrano, and former State Committee Member Nicholas Reyes.

Serrano’s campaign disclosed $74,100 in contributions, with an average donation of $1,807.32, according to the Board of Elections. The largest PAC contributions were from Friends Of Mike Gianaris, Montefiore PAC Inc, Onward PAC, Skoufis for NY Senate, and TWU Local 100 PAC, which each donated $5,000 to the campaign. Reyes’ campaign disclosed $13,645 in contributions from individual donors, with an average donation of $46.41.

José Serrano

Serrano is the chair of the State Senate’s Cultural Affairs, Tourism, Parks and Recreation committee, and has served in the State Senate since 2005. 

He is coming into the election with a track record of large-margin wins and the backing of many progressive advocacy groups and unions, including Working Families Party, New York Immigration Coalition, District Council of Carpenters, AFL-CIO and Planned Parenthood. 

Serrano was born and raised in the Bronx, and is now raising his family in the Yankee Stadium area.

“I can recall as a child growing up in the Bronx that many people had left behind, due to redlining, benign neglect, and many other policies that hurt the growth of this beautiful place,” he said.

“I think my growing up in these neighborhoods and being in the Bronx all my life and raising my children here has colored my desire to change the perception of the Bronx, to have people reimagine the Bronx in a more positive way,” Serrano said.

He has overseen the passage of a variety of bills. In 2017, Serrano passed a bill to create a task force to study why asthma rates in the South Bronx are so high and draft policies to address the underlying issues. This year, he passed a bill to require cultural awareness and competence training for medical professionals.

“The purpose of this bill is to ensure that medical professionals have a deep, deep understanding of the cultures of the populations that they’re serving,” he said. “The food and customs and ways that particular communities interact with their medical professionals have a profound impact on health outcomes.”

If elected, he said he would push the governor to upgrade SNAP cards to crack down on skimming, and continue fighting against the Trump administration’s deportation agenda. His advocacy for immigrants began more than a decade before the current administration- In 2009, he formed a coalition called East Harlem Against Deportation to push back against a rise in deportations and collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement. 

“What the actions of ICE have only served to do is to further push immigrant communities into the shadows and make them less likely to come forward and be active parts of society, or to even come forward to law enforcement when they’ve been the victims of crimes themselves, because they are unsure of what may be in store for them. So I think the chilling effect that this campaign has had has been very detrimental, and I’m glad to join with many, many of my colleagues in government when we say no more from ICE,” he said.

But politics isn’t just about fighting, said Serrano, adding that art and social justice are intertwined. He passed a bill this year to require the Council of the Arts to develop guidelines for state-designated arts and cultural districts. He hopes to inspire New Yorkers to challenge their preconceived notions of the Bronx, and pointed to the historical Art Deco architecture of the Grand Concourse and the fact that the Bronx has the most parkland out of all the boroughs.

He rejects the idea that politicians always need to be aggressive, and said that he wanted to lead with kindness, empathy, and compassion when he first ran for office in 2004. He considers those qualities to be at the center of his politics.

Nicholas Reyes

Nicholas Reyes, a former two-term State Committee member, is taking on Serrano for the state senate seat. Born and raised in the Lexington Houses NYCHA complex in East Harlem, Reyes has deep ties to neighborhoods throughout the Bronx. 

At 9 years old, he moved to Shorehaven, where he lived for four years. He attended Cardinal Hayes High School in Melrose, and worked in community engagement roles for South Bronx-based nonprofits Housing Solutions of NY and Eastside House Settlement. 

Reyes said that the issues facing East Harlem and the Bronx are deeply connected, and that the city needs a fierce advocate who understands them. “When you’re born on 98th and Lexington, you’re exposed to a lot,” said Reyes, who has been endorsed by the El Nuevo Caribe Democratic Club. Living on the border of the Upper East Side and East Harlem and witnessing the stark contrast between the two neighborhoods was a foundational experience that led him into politics, he said.

Reyes decided to run for office after working as a special assistant to Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and as a consultant services liaison to New York State Assemblymember Robert Rodriguez. In 2022, Reyes was elected to serve as a State Committee Member for the 68th Assembly District, and was re-elected in 2024. 

The main issue that needs to be addressed immediately, said Reyes, is affordability. “Affordability means housing people can actually stay in. We need stronger tenant protections, more preservation funding, deeper investment in affordable housing, and truly affordable housing,” he said.

He pointed out that many new buildings in the South Bronx and East Harlem, even if dubbed as “affordable,” are actually pricing out the people who live there. “It feels like we’re being replaced,” he said.

Another issue he would prioritize in office is healthcare from a holistic lens. “Care means healthcare, Medicaid, home care workers, disability rights, child care, and elder care as infrastructure,” said Reyes. “Care is not a side issue. It allows people to work, age, and recover and live with dignity.”

He hopes to use his experience helping the public advocate build coalitions to work closely with other politicians and raise awareness about these issues, he said. If elected, he plans to hold forums and town halls to keep constituents involved in the policymaking process. 

At the same time, Reyes said that he’s not afraid to hold fellow Democrats accountable, adding that he would push back against Governor Kathy Hochul’s rollbacks of environmental protections. 

To Reyes, the most important task for politicians is making sure that voters can trust that their representative will work to make their lives easier. “Rent is uncontrollably high right now. Healthcare is getting harder to access. The seniors and disabled New Yorkers are fighting to stay in their homes. Homecare workers are unpaid. Transit is unreliable. And in the South Bronx and the Bronx in general, families are still dealing with the health and consequences of pollution and divestment,” he said. 

“I’ve seen how government can help people when it works and how painful it is when it doesn’t. I’m running to bring an urgency, accountability, and a good approach to Albany.”

Siddhartha Harmalkar is a student at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. You can reach him at s.harmalkar08@journalism.cuny.edu. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!