retiring state Sen. Brian Kavanagh<\/a>, opening up her Assembly seat.<\/p>\nSairitupac is one of a number of candidates looking to replace Lee in the Assembly. Other Democratic candidates include district leaders Jasmin Sanchez, Jacky Wong and Mariama James, who\u2019s also first vice chair of the Manhattan Democratic Party, and Lilah Mejia, an outreach manager with New York Disaster Interfaith Services. On the Republican side, perennial candidate Helen Qiu has also filed to run.<\/p>\n
Sairitupac said that he believes the 2026 field is much weaker than the 2022 field, when he lost to Lee. \u201cLast time, as a first-time candidate, we were going up against someone who had run (in) the previous cycle, and she was really strong,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this time, we see ourselves as being kind of the strong, kind of front-runner candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though DSA doesn\u2019t hold any legislative seats in Manhattan, this district represents a pick-up opportunity. Mayor Zohran Mamdani won 65% of the vote in the district in the final round of ranked-choice voting in last year\u2019s Democratic primary, to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo\u2019s 35% \u2013 making it the most pro-Mamdani Assembly district in Manhattan south of 125th Street. Sairitupac is a very active DSA member and expects to receive the socialist group\u2019s endorsement. Until recently, he played a key role in NYC-DSA\u2019s electoral strategy as co-chair of candidate recruitment \u2013 a position he resigned after Lee\u2019s seat opened up and he decided to run for office again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eric Thor, the socialist group\u2019s remaining co-chair of candidate recruitment, said both Sairitupac and Sanchez applied for NYC-DSA\u2019s endorsement and they\u2019ll be heard at a March 4 forum at the Church of the Village.<\/p>\n
Like Sairitupac, Sanchez also ran for Assembly four years ago and sought DSA\u2019s endorsement at the time. After the socialist group voted to endorse Sairitupac instead, she distanced herself from DSA and ultimately threw her support behind Lee \u2013 a decision that may haunt her as she once again seeks DSA\u2019s support.<\/p>\n
Dan Cheng, a former member of NYC-DSA\u2019s Steering Committee who volunteered for Sairitupac\u2019s first Assembly campaign, told City & State he expects DSA members will once again unite around Sairitupac. \u201cWith the combination of Illapa’s name recognition from last time and the massive momentum of the socialist movement right now, I’m confident we can win in June!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In addition to DSA, Sairitupac has applied for an endorsement from WFP, which held a candidate forum last Monday. He\u2019s also had conversations with former Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou, who is running against Lee for Kavanagh\u2019s state Senate seat. Niou did not endorse Sairitupac in 2022 \u2013 which upset many DSA members at the time \u2013 but Sairitupac said he has since worked closely with her and maintains a friendly relationship with her. Sairitupac currently works as a housing organizer at Cooper Square Committee, where Niou is a board member.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also hoping to score an endorsement from the mayor. Through DSA, Sairitupac also has a relationship with Mamdani, whom he said helped him during his 2022 Assembly campaign. \u201cI remember we had a lot of late night calls with him giving me advice, and him (saying), \u2018OK, here’s where we are on this, here’s we are on this endorsement, how it’s looking.\u2019 And he didn’t owe me any of that, so he really went out of his way to help me and be like a real guide in 2022,\u201d Sairitupac said, adding that he\u2019s been in touch with the mayor\u2019s team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will the second time be the charm for Illapa Sairitupac? The socialist organizer confirmed to City & State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[7160,2495,359,75,84,83,9,24,49,17566,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-142537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-2026-new-york-state-elections","9":"tag-dsa","10":"tag-lower-manhattan","11":"tag-manhattan","12":"tag-manhattan-headlines","13":"tag-manhattan-news","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-state","17":"tag-new-york-state-assembly","18":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}