The 32-year-old is set to head to Congress to represent a South Bronx district that was hit hard by the coronavirus.
BRONX, N.Y. — Ritchie Torres has a clear path to Washington, but getting to this point has not been an easy ride.
“So, when I think about the greatest challenges affecting the South Bronx … these are not simply abstractions that I studied intensely as a policymaker,” he added. “These are struggles that I’ve lived deeply in my own life.” Torres is Puerto Rican, but he speaks with a distinct New York twang that makes him sound like an especially erudite version of an extra from a Martin Scorsese mob movie. That Bronx patois is peppered with stats and references to famous philosophers.
Housing is a nationwide problem. In 2010, a federal Department of Housing and Urban Development report indicated that, as of that year, the nation’s public housing stock needed about $26 billion worth of repairs and improvements, and that those costs would grow about $3.4 billion per year after that. Despite this, under President Trump, HUD requested just $1.
Despite this platform, Torres has ended up at odds with other liberals, including the two most famous progressives in the country, Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a neighboring district. During the crowded Democratic primary, both Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez endorsed one of Torres’s opponents, Samelys López. Neither Sanders nor Ocasio-Cortez nor López responded to requests for comment.
Generally, when asked if he sees himself as a progressive, Torres says he doesn’t “obsess about words.” The district, however, is one of the most solidly blue in the country. The current congressman in the district, Rep. José Serrano, whose impending retirement is leaving the seat vacant, generally beat his Republican rivals with about 90 percent of the vote.
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