Campaign Insiders is PoliticsNY’s latest Q&A series featuring candidates running for office in the 2026 New York primary election. This edition of Campaign Insiders features Illapa Sairitupac who is running to represent New York’s 65th Assembly District. The 65th Assembly District is located in Manhattan and includes the Financial District, Chinatown and the Lower East Side.
What are the top three issues for your campaign?
- Taxing the rich to provide services for New Yorkers, e.g., free childcare
- Making NYS directly build affordable housing through a Social Housing Development Authority
- Protecting our neighbors from an out-of-control federal government, especially from ICE
Why did you decide to run for office?
I’m running because our government is not working for regular people. I’m a tenant organizer, and the tenants I help are drowning: figuratively, under pressure from huge rent burdens, massive amounts of debt, and terrible working conditions and literally, in basement apartments during storms. Our neighbors live in fear of an increasingly fascist federal government. We need elected officials who can organize regular people to pressure the legislature.
What do you believe is the top issue facing voters and how do you plan to address it if elected?
New York has become unaffordable for regular people because the state is not doing enough for them. Parents are expected to pay at least $1,500/month for childcare. We are not building enough affordable housing and rents are sky high. Working-class New Yorkers are voting with their feet and leaving the city and state every day due to the cost-of-living crisis and displacement.
How does your background qualify you to hold office?
Despite not being an elected official, I’ve been a leader in multiple successful campaigns to pass legislation, such as the the Build Public Renewables Act, which enables New York to build publicly-owned renewable energy to meet its own climate goals, NYS bill S2980C/A6216 to end ‘frankensteining’ of rent-controlled apartments, and Intro 195-B at the city level, which lets tenants report housing maintenance code violations for unoccupied units in their building.
Why should voters choose you over your opponents?
I am running to implement Mayor Mamdani’s Affordability Agenda, to build the New York we deserve with the services we need by taxing the rich. I’m a movement candidate accountable to working New Yorkers, not corporations and the rich.
From now until early voting, Campaign Insiders will be featuring candidates from select democratic primary races across the City & State. Be sure to check back to hear from a wide range of candidates from assembly, senate, and congressional races as well as the NYS comptroller race!
Early voting in NYC is June 13th-21st and Election Day is June 23rd. Check out the PoliticsNY Election Primer to see who will be on your ballot and don’t forget to vote this June!
