I’m on the ballot against Ritchie Torres this November. I’ve spent the past year on the campaign trail across the Bronx, and I haven’t seen him once. In June, Ritchie Torres won the Democratic primary with just 24,600 votes out of more than 460,000 eligible voters in NY-15. That means nearly 95% of us didn’t vote for him. Apparently, that’s enough for him to act like the general election is already over. You’d expect the person who claims to represent us to be registering voters, holding town halls, and making sure every neighbor knows there’s an election coming. Instead, Torres has been silent about the upcoming election. There’s a reason so many of us in the Bronx have tuned out politics, and it’s not because we don’t care. Ritchie Torres and the Democratic Party have spent years making sure we stay disengaged and disenfranchised. An engaged Bronx is the last thing they want, because the moment we start paying attention, we start asking whether there’s a better option than decades of Democratic Party neglect and apathy toward our neighborhoods. It shows. New York’s 15th Congressional District has some of the lowest voter turnout in the country. The general election is two weeks away, and our whole team, from staff to volunteers, is working hard to make sure every one of our Bronx neighbors knows about it. Both billionaire-backed parties are now more unpopular than ever. Fifty-seven percent of Americans view the Democratic Party unfavorably, and 63% view the Republican Party unfavorably. Clearly, people want a party that actually represents the working class, not billionaires. In the past few weeks alone, we’ve hit thousands of doors across the district, and we’re just getting started. This week, we’re running more than 20 canvassing shifts, out on the streets from 7 AM to 8 PM, speaking with our neighbors. From Mott Haven to Van Cortlandt Park, we’re building an unstoppable socialist movement that reaches every corner of NY-15. We’ve learned a lot from doing what the Democratic Party refuses to do: building a movement for free healthcare, clean air, more and better public housing, and fully funded schools. Building a future for the Bronx, not for the billionaires who fund and control our entire political establishment. That work doesn’t end on November 3. This campaign has always been an invitation to join the struggle for a socialist future. We’ve learned that the natural distrust most Bronx residents have for Democratic Party politicians has been mistaken for conservatism and indifference. In reality, it points to a much deeper potential: a suppressed yearning for radical, system-wide change. The Bronx is ready for a whole new system: a system where working people control the economy and the government, not the billionaires. A system that actually meets the needs of the people and the planet. The Bronx is ready for socialism.