Hope this is well taken, but as a regular reader I have a critique: the framing here, and in your previous articles on the NY-13 race, presents 'Black' and 'Hispanic' as totally cleaved and simple ethnic categories which can be depended on for analysis.
Rangel was not just a 'Black' institution representing a district becoming rapidly more 'Hispanic'; he was Puerto Rican, and he relied on that growing electorate to build a coalition against Powell in 1970. Espaillat's 2010s challenge and subsequent support for the "Squadriano" represented a challenge to both established African-American and Puerto Rican political power in Harlem. (You yourself mention him sponsoring the ouster of a longtime Puerto Rican rep.) You present no data around Puerto Rican voters' political behavior in that race, which feels like an oversight.
It's also impossible to talk about the challenge to Espaillat by Avila-Chevalier without discussing generational differences between Dominican-Americans and their relationship to American Blackness. Espaillat, as is typical for someone of his generation, refers to himself as a "Latino of African descent," infrequently identifies as Black because of his relative remove from African-American culture. Avila-Chevalier uses the more recent neologism "Afro-Latina," and frequently talks about her politics within the tradition of Black Radicalism in this country. This greater assimilation into American Blackness is key to the coalition-forming you discuss at the end.
Part of Espaillat's continued distance from African American communities had been that the CBC told him he had to choose between joining them or CHC after his first election (largely because they were mad at his past challenges of Rangel). They later dropped that obstinate posture and Ritchie Torres has been a member of both, but Espaillat never joined for whatever reason. He tried to at first, so I never understood on a raw political level why he wouldn't for the exact coalition-expanding reasons laid out here.
To Rangel's Puerto Rican father, wasn't this something even he wasn't sure about or mentioned in his campaigns until Espaillat's challenges? I wasn't that plugged in to House primaries pre-2014.
Rangel was always aware he was Puerto Rican, used it politically to some extent (including his strong ties to Puerto Rican pols), but was often reluctant to identify as such due to his estrangement from his father, who left when he was six- that's part of why I'm curious to know cross-tabs for Puerto Rican voters in the 2016 election. Similar dynamic to Espaillat's hesitance to identify as Black affecting his political identity.
As a constituent, during the NYSNA strike I called the office of Espaillat to ask why he hadn’t yet appeared at any picket lines.
His Washington Heights office said he was currently in DC and to call there for comment; his DC office said he was currently in NY-13 and to contact a district office. His Harlem office said they couldn’t “disclose his whereabouts” and accused me of “amplifying social media concerns” before promptly hanging up.
He seems famously hard to reach, at least, until you cut a check.
As usual, superb, I go way back to the deposing of Stanley Steingut when he was Speaker, sort of Joe Crowley a repeat of the Steingut election. The Steingut coup d’état is fascinating … if you want to speak with one of the engineers let me know …
I wonder about the white vote. Newcomers (many of them Mamdani voters) presumably vote for the DSA newcomer, but the votes of longer-term residents, especially the still substantial Jewish population, who are turned off by Chevalier’s ardent pro-Palestine advocacy, may go to Espaillat.
The take away I'm getting it's every party should be a political machine. One issue I'm seeing is that unfortunately ethnic groups have not been able to count on fair representation so where they were concentrated and had the vote, unlike the South they could get a representative.
I'm guessing any where in the world where there's ethnic cleavages political machines will develop.
They might not necessarily be bad if there's competitive elections that everyone agrees to and the electorate at least benefits.
Right now at the national level we're seeing a Republican machine not only doing things like trying to consolidate power in Louisiana by erasing positions when the wrong candidate wins, disenfranchising voters and of course rewarding mid sized business with contracts for ICE and CBP logistics plus all the graft.
This essay reminded of what happened in Maine where Platner has been meeting with the voters almost daily while Susan Collins keeps being absent. So he might actually beat her.
I really appreciated the detailed analysis you gave about NYC machines. I also valued the information other engaged people who live there are bringing.
The question about should DSA be a machine is good. I think it focuses on building power. But if a politician doesn't have a coalition in the legislature they can easily get sidelined.
"For the first time in seventy years, Harlem would not have an African American representative in Washington."
Probably more accurate to say for the first time in seventy years, Harlem would not have an non-Hispanic black representative in Washington. Espaillat is, of course, American, and clearly has as much African ancestry as Rangel, if not more.
True, half Puerto Rican. I guess you could accurately phrase it "for the first time in seventy years, Harlem would not have a representative with some non-Hispanic black ancestry in Washington."
You're missing a few details about Espaillat's rivalry with Robert Jackson. In 2014, after losing to Rangel, he ran for reelection to the state senate and defeated Jackson. In 2016, Espaillat's chosen successor Marisol Alcantara defeated Micah Lasher and Jackson. And in 2018, after Alcantara joined the IDC, Jackson finally won Espaillat's state senate seat.
I thought it was interesting that he engaged in some level of political theater going to Delaney Hall, and I didn’t realize he needed the photo op for his re-election campaign!
The Manhattan Democrat establishment has a math problem, a memory problem, and a revenge problem. The math is obvious: Espaillat’s machine can still dominate part of the electorate, but not enough of it. Lange shows that NY-13 may be majority Hispanic on paper, but the actual 2025 Democratic primary electorate was roughly 34% Hispanic, 30% white, and 27% Black. That means no one bloc owns the district anymore. Espaillat can run up the score with older Dominican voters and still lose if younger Hispanic voters, white progressives, Harlem liberals, Columbia-adjacent radicals, and Black voters consolidate against him.
The memory problem is Joe Crowley. Political machines always look strongest right before they look ridiculous. Crowley had judges, ballot lawyers, labor leaders, Washington seniority, and the “King of Queens” mythology. Then he skipped forums, sent surrogates, ignored the electorate changing around him, and got wiped out by AOC. Espaillat is now playing with the same loaded gun: missing forums, sending Shaun Abreu to read canned remarks, trusting a machine built for yesterday’s electorate, and assuming incumbency still hypnotizes voters.
But the revenge problem is the killer. Keith Wright and the Harlem establishment should logically want to stop the DSA from eating another piece of the New York Democrat Party. Their natural enemy is the socialist insurgency, not Espaillat. But politics is not algebra. It is blood memory. Espaillat beat Wright in 2016 after years of Black-Hispanic machine warfare over Rangel’s old seat. That hostility did not vanish. It went dormant. Now DSA is coming for Espaillat, and Wright has every reason to watch from the porch while the wolves chew the Dominican machine down to bone.
That is what makes this so dangerous for the regular Democrat machine. DSA does not merely want one seat. It wants infrastructure. It wants proof of concept. It wants Crowley, then Bowman, then Mamdani, then Reynoso, then Espaillat. Every machine it devours becomes calories for the next fight. If Avila Chevalier takes Espaillat down, the DSA does not just win NY-13. It inherits momentum, credibility, donor energy, canvassing mythology, and fear. That makes it stronger against Keith Wright, Niko Minerva, the Manhattan regulars, and every old club leader who still thinks endorsements and petition fights can stop a movement.
This is another stop on the train line to DSA domination of the New York City Democrat Party. The old machines are not dying for lack of money. They are dying because they no longer understand the voters walking into the station.
It's Democratic Party not what you are calling it. Of you want to use a pejorative term for the Democratic Party come up with your own. Unless you like what the half ass juvenile Republican behavior of not referring to people or their associations by what they call themselves. If you hold the party in contempt that's ok. You don't have to like them.
Richard I understand perfectly. It's very simple. Have you ever seen the anybody except you say the Republicanic Party, well maybe I five year old when they're making a joke. I assume you're not five. You don't seem to be making a joke, just being silly.
The Democrats belong to the Democratic Party. Again it's very simple. This is not complicated. You can go back 50 years, 60 years it’s always been the Democratic Party it's members have called themselves Democrats.
I'll explain one more time then we can be done. George Bush and the Republicans started saying The Democrat Party which I think is a juvenile, passive aggressive insult that I expect from Republicans. They're the type of people who would also deliberately deadname folks. They're the type of people who get upset over basic politeness and complained and threw tantrums over PC which again is basic politeness.
Now Richard I don't know if you're a Republican if you are that's fine. You are behaving how I expect.
If you're just being lazy and don't want to add the two words to the Democrat’s party when be lazy if you want.
If you want want to disparage the Democratic Party there's lots of insults already I don't see why you need to go for some grade school bullshit that Republicans came up with.
We’re done here. I understand you perfectly. I have explained myself in simple words
AOC did not win the election in Joe's district, but Joe lost the election. He did not campaign at all, and his staff begged him to campaign, which he did not do.
In 2020, they all woke up, and you could see that with Nydia Velázquez in NY-7 when Paperboy challenged her. Now you can see it in NY-13. I have never seen Adriano run around so much.
I am tired just watching him. In my own building, they removed my flyers and replaced them with Shaun Abreu.
The concept of achieving victory through defeat is hard for Americans to accept.
Michael one of my take away from your essay is not so much that political machines are obsolete, it's they're still very relevant. It's more about machines replacing each other.
The Daley machine ran Chicago and Cook county for generations until the last Daley ran the city's finances poorly so his machine couldn't fund patronage which went into jobs and services plus changing demographics I guess. I learned all this from reading Driftglass years ago.
I wish all politics was still local because when every election becomes national residents and voters in a place are not always well served. I'm ambivalent about machines. My biggest issue is that unfortunately when they break down over racial and ethnic lines it's an sign that not everyone is being treated fairly, some people are being deliberately excluded based on race or ethnicity which always leads to corruption.
When there's a focus on local politics like you're doing here it empowers the residents to show up and exercise their power instead of doomscrolling. It focuses them on what they can do and keeps them focusing on that. I wish there were more things like machines that get voters, well I really care about the democrats doing things like having things like democratic community halls where folks meet in person for play dates, bowling, book groups, basketball, flag football, cribbage, voter education, dance nights, coffee and sandwiches, spaghetti dinners, you get my drift. So people are meeting in b person getting energized and organized.
I like the DSA I like the communists, well not the ones in China and North Korea. There's no shame in DSA's game just they don't have the reach of the Democrats in our first past the post system.
Some of my ideas might not be tenable which is fine. But your point about machines delivering votes every election even low turn, off year elections is a big deal. You've convinced me we might need more machines not less. The DCCC is a machine that benefits consultants, wealthy donors and reactionary centrists. We need more machines for workers I guess.
Hope this is well taken, but as a regular reader I have a critique: the framing here, and in your previous articles on the NY-13 race, presents 'Black' and 'Hispanic' as totally cleaved and simple ethnic categories which can be depended on for analysis.
Rangel was not just a 'Black' institution representing a district becoming rapidly more 'Hispanic'; he was Puerto Rican, and he relied on that growing electorate to build a coalition against Powell in 1970. Espaillat's 2010s challenge and subsequent support for the "Squadriano" represented a challenge to both established African-American and Puerto Rican political power in Harlem. (You yourself mention him sponsoring the ouster of a longtime Puerto Rican rep.) You present no data around Puerto Rican voters' political behavior in that race, which feels like an oversight.
It's also impossible to talk about the challenge to Espaillat by Avila-Chevalier without discussing generational differences between Dominican-Americans and their relationship to American Blackness. Espaillat, as is typical for someone of his generation, refers to himself as a "Latino of African descent," infrequently identifies as Black because of his relative remove from African-American culture. Avila-Chevalier uses the more recent neologism "Afro-Latina," and frequently talks about her politics within the tradition of Black Radicalism in this country. This greater assimilation into American Blackness is key to the coalition-forming you discuss at the end.
Part of Espaillat's continued distance from African American communities had been that the CBC told him he had to choose between joining them or CHC after his first election (largely because they were mad at his past challenges of Rangel). They later dropped that obstinate posture and Ritchie Torres has been a member of both, but Espaillat never joined for whatever reason. He tried to at first, so I never understood on a raw political level why he wouldn't for the exact coalition-expanding reasons laid out here.
To Rangel's Puerto Rican father, wasn't this something even he wasn't sure about or mentioned in his campaigns until Espaillat's challenges? I wasn't that plugged in to House primaries pre-2014.
Rangel was always aware he was Puerto Rican, used it politically to some extent (including his strong ties to Puerto Rican pols), but was often reluctant to identify as such due to his estrangement from his father, who left when he was six- that's part of why I'm curious to know cross-tabs for Puerto Rican voters in the 2016 election. Similar dynamic to Espaillat's hesitance to identify as Black affecting his political identity.
As a constituent, during the NYSNA strike I called the office of Espaillat to ask why he hadn’t yet appeared at any picket lines.
His Washington Heights office said he was currently in DC and to call there for comment; his DC office said he was currently in NY-13 and to contact a district office. His Harlem office said they couldn’t “disclose his whereabouts” and accused me of “amplifying social media concerns” before promptly hanging up.
He seems famously hard to reach, at least, until you cut a check.
Good gosh. That was truly insightful, with nuance. The type of detailed writing the Voice in its prime did. Thank you.
Espalliat's opponent is branding herself as an "Afro-Latina" is interesting. Makes more sense now.
Really comprehensive analysis as always! I'd love to see you turn your perspective toward the NY-6 primary.
Does this mean you can take credit for the endorsement
As usual, superb, I go way back to the deposing of Stanley Steingut when he was Speaker, sort of Joe Crowley a repeat of the Steingut election. The Steingut coup d’état is fascinating … if you want to speak with one of the engineers let me know …
I wonder about the white vote. Newcomers (many of them Mamdani voters) presumably vote for the DSA newcomer, but the votes of longer-term residents, especially the still substantial Jewish population, who are turned off by Chevalier’s ardent pro-Palestine advocacy, may go to Espaillat.
So... is DSA-NYC *not* a political machine? The successor to the goo-goos, even.
The take away I'm getting it's every party should be a political machine. One issue I'm seeing is that unfortunately ethnic groups have not been able to count on fair representation so where they were concentrated and had the vote, unlike the South they could get a representative.
I'm guessing any where in the world where there's ethnic cleavages political machines will develop.
They might not necessarily be bad if there's competitive elections that everyone agrees to and the electorate at least benefits.
Right now at the national level we're seeing a Republican machine not only doing things like trying to consolidate power in Louisiana by erasing positions when the wrong candidate wins, disenfranchising voters and of course rewarding mid sized business with contracts for ICE and CBP logistics plus all the graft.
This essay reminded of what happened in Maine where Platner has been meeting with the voters almost daily while Susan Collins keeps being absent. So he might actually beat her.
I really appreciated the detailed analysis you gave about NYC machines. I also valued the information other engaged people who live there are bringing.
The question about should DSA be a machine is good. I think it focuses on building power. But if a politician doesn't have a coalition in the legislature they can easily get sidelined.
"For the first time in seventy years, Harlem would not have an African American representative in Washington."
Probably more accurate to say for the first time in seventy years, Harlem would not have an non-Hispanic black representative in Washington. Espaillat is, of course, American, and clearly has as much African ancestry as Rangel, if not more.
That's actually incorrect as well- Rangel was Puerto Rican
True, half Puerto Rican. I guess you could accurately phrase it "for the first time in seventy years, Harlem would not have a representative with some non-Hispanic black ancestry in Washington."
You're missing a few details about Espaillat's rivalry with Robert Jackson. In 2014, after losing to Rangel, he ran for reelection to the state senate and defeated Jackson. In 2016, Espaillat's chosen successor Marisol Alcantara defeated Micah Lasher and Jackson. And in 2018, after Alcantara joined the IDC, Jackson finally won Espaillat's state senate seat.
I thought it was interesting that he engaged in some level of political theater going to Delaney Hall, and I didn’t realize he needed the photo op for his re-election campaign!
The Manhattan Democrat establishment has a math problem, a memory problem, and a revenge problem. The math is obvious: Espaillat’s machine can still dominate part of the electorate, but not enough of it. Lange shows that NY-13 may be majority Hispanic on paper, but the actual 2025 Democratic primary electorate was roughly 34% Hispanic, 30% white, and 27% Black. That means no one bloc owns the district anymore. Espaillat can run up the score with older Dominican voters and still lose if younger Hispanic voters, white progressives, Harlem liberals, Columbia-adjacent radicals, and Black voters consolidate against him.
The memory problem is Joe Crowley. Political machines always look strongest right before they look ridiculous. Crowley had judges, ballot lawyers, labor leaders, Washington seniority, and the “King of Queens” mythology. Then he skipped forums, sent surrogates, ignored the electorate changing around him, and got wiped out by AOC. Espaillat is now playing with the same loaded gun: missing forums, sending Shaun Abreu to read canned remarks, trusting a machine built for yesterday’s electorate, and assuming incumbency still hypnotizes voters.
But the revenge problem is the killer. Keith Wright and the Harlem establishment should logically want to stop the DSA from eating another piece of the New York Democrat Party. Their natural enemy is the socialist insurgency, not Espaillat. But politics is not algebra. It is blood memory. Espaillat beat Wright in 2016 after years of Black-Hispanic machine warfare over Rangel’s old seat. That hostility did not vanish. It went dormant. Now DSA is coming for Espaillat, and Wright has every reason to watch from the porch while the wolves chew the Dominican machine down to bone.
That is what makes this so dangerous for the regular Democrat machine. DSA does not merely want one seat. It wants infrastructure. It wants proof of concept. It wants Crowley, then Bowman, then Mamdani, then Reynoso, then Espaillat. Every machine it devours becomes calories for the next fight. If Avila Chevalier takes Espaillat down, the DSA does not just win NY-13. It inherits momentum, credibility, donor energy, canvassing mythology, and fear. That makes it stronger against Keith Wright, Niko Minerva, the Manhattan regulars, and every old club leader who still thinks endorsements and petition fights can stop a movement.
This is another stop on the train line to DSA domination of the New York City Democrat Party. The old machines are not dying for lack of money. They are dying because they no longer understand the voters walking into the station.
It's Democratic Party not what you are calling it. Of you want to use a pejorative term for the Democratic Party come up with your own. Unless you like what the half ass juvenile Republican behavior of not referring to people or their associations by what they call themselves. If you hold the party in contempt that's ok. You don't have to like them.
A group of Democrats comes together and forms the Democrat Party. What is wrong with that?
I'll put it to you in words you can understand.
A group of Republicans comes together and forms the Republican Party - not the Republicanic Party.
So, a group of Democrats isn't the Democrat Party?
Your way doesn't make much sense.
Richard I understand perfectly. It's very simple. Have you ever seen the anybody except you say the Republicanic Party, well maybe I five year old when they're making a joke. I assume you're not five. You don't seem to be making a joke, just being silly.
The Democrats belong to the Democratic Party. Again it's very simple. This is not complicated. You can go back 50 years, 60 years it’s always been the Democratic Party it's members have called themselves Democrats.
I'll explain one more time then we can be done. George Bush and the Republicans started saying The Democrat Party which I think is a juvenile, passive aggressive insult that I expect from Republicans. They're the type of people who would also deliberately deadname folks. They're the type of people who get upset over basic politeness and complained and threw tantrums over PC which again is basic politeness.
Now Richard I don't know if you're a Republican if you are that's fine. You are behaving how I expect.
If you're just being lazy and don't want to add the two words to the Democrat’s party when be lazy if you want.
If you want want to disparage the Democratic Party there's lots of insults already I don't see why you need to go for some grade school bullshit that Republicans came up with.
We’re done here. I understand you perfectly. I have explained myself in simple words
Cheers.
Democrats are entitled to their "official name." They are not entitled to force everyone to repeat their preferred branding.
Do you call it the Trump Kennedy Center?
AOC did not win the election in Joe's district, but Joe lost the election. He did not campaign at all, and his staff begged him to campaign, which he did not do.
In 2020, they all woke up, and you could see that with Nydia Velázquez in NY-7 when Paperboy challenged her. Now you can see it in NY-13. I have never seen Adriano run around so much.
I am tired just watching him. In my own building, they removed my flyers and replaced them with Shaun Abreu.
The concept of achieving victory through defeat is hard for Americans to accept.
Michael one of my take away from your essay is not so much that political machines are obsolete, it's they're still very relevant. It's more about machines replacing each other.
The Daley machine ran Chicago and Cook county for generations until the last Daley ran the city's finances poorly so his machine couldn't fund patronage which went into jobs and services plus changing demographics I guess. I learned all this from reading Driftglass years ago.
I wish all politics was still local because when every election becomes national residents and voters in a place are not always well served. I'm ambivalent about machines. My biggest issue is that unfortunately when they break down over racial and ethnic lines it's an sign that not everyone is being treated fairly, some people are being deliberately excluded based on race or ethnicity which always leads to corruption.
When there's a focus on local politics like you're doing here it empowers the residents to show up and exercise their power instead of doomscrolling. It focuses them on what they can do and keeps them focusing on that. I wish there were more things like machines that get voters, well I really care about the democrats doing things like having things like democratic community halls where folks meet in person for play dates, bowling, book groups, basketball, flag football, cribbage, voter education, dance nights, coffee and sandwiches, spaghetti dinners, you get my drift. So people are meeting in b person getting energized and organized.
I like the DSA I like the communists, well not the ones in China and North Korea. There's no shame in DSA's game just they don't have the reach of the Democrats in our first past the post system.
Some of my ideas might not be tenable which is fine. But your point about machines delivering votes every election even low turn, off year elections is a big deal. You've convinced me we might need more machines not less. The DCCC is a machine that benefits consultants, wealthy donors and reactionary centrists. We need more machines for workers I guess.