Democrats in the most liberal congressional district in the country, located in the South Bronx, face the possibility on Tuesday of nominating Ruben Diaz Sr., an anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, Pentecostal pastor as their candidate for an all-but-guaranteed win.
The seat, which opened up with the retirement of Rep. Jose Serrano, has become a hotly contested struggle between the centrist and far-left wings of the Democratic Party. Diaz, a 77-year-old cowboy hat-wearing Puerto Rican, leads the field of 12 candidates. He’s a controversial figure in a district that gave 94% of its vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016. The pastor and city councilman who often declares that he doesn’t approve of drinking, smoking, or dancing also often decries gay marriage and abortion — two issues that have increasingly become litmus tests for membership within the Democratic Party.
In February 2019, Diaz declared during a Spanish-language radio interview that the City Council was “controlled by the homosexual community.” Diaz, who has long decried the increased public acceptance of gay marriage and transgender rights, weathered calls for his resignation and a rebuke from his son, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., who said his words were “antagonistic, quarrelsome, and wholly unnecessary.”
The incident, along with an anti-gay marriage rally Diaz hosted in 2011, have defined the opposition to his campaign, which Diaz launched last April. Diaz has been denounced by the gay and transgender rights groups the Human Rights Campaign and the abortion advocacy giant Planned Parenthood. The New York Times earlier this month endorsed the openly gay city councilman Ritchie Torres, one of Diaz’s 11 opponents, noting, in particular, the pastor’s comments on abortion and gay marriage.
“Mr. Díaz, a City Council member and former state senator, is running as a Democrat, but talks and acts like a pro-Trump Republican,” the paper’s editorial board wrote.
The comment was meant as a put-down, but Diaz, who has a history of endorsing Republicans, has largely embraced that image since he launched his campaign. In his 2019 announcement, he vowed to be “the opposite” of freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (whose district abuts his) by fighting the city’s leftward drift and focusing most prominently on alleviating poverty in the district, which is the poorest in the country.
“Those who know my work know that I am obviously a Democrat,” he told the Spanish language newspaper El Diario on Sunday. “But it happens that I am a conservative democrat, not a liberal or a socialist democrat, like many others.”
And, although he does not align with the party on social issues, Diaz has promised that he will fully support former Vice President Joe Biden in November. But at the same time, he said he will remain outspoken in his personal opinions — especially on President Trump, whom he respects.
“If a Republican does something wrong, I condemn him, but if a Republican does something good, I applaud him,” he said. “I’m not blind.”
That position, while unpopular with party leaders, has resonated within evangelical Hispanic communities in the South Bronx. A poll conducted in May by the liberal think tank Data for Progress found Diaz leading with 22% of the district’s vote. Aside from Torres, who, with 20% support, has raised more money than anyone else in the race, no other candidate garnered more than 6% of people’s support.
If Diaz wins with a plurality, it wouldn’t be the first time. When he was nominated for the Democratic seat on the City Council in 2017, he captured just 42% of the vote.
Diaz’s enduring appeal is a facet of his longevity. The pastor has been a religious fixture in his community since the 1970s and a political leader since the 1990s when he was appointed to serve on the city’s Civilian Complaint Board. Throughout his career, Diaz has enjoyed wide-reaching, multigenerational success: The Diaz name graces many buildings in the Bronx, and several Diaz children are public figures in the borough as well.
The candidate has used his name recognition to ignore most requests for interviews — he did not respond to repeated queries from the Washington Examiner — and has instead reached voters directly by leading charitable food drives, which he livestreams to his official Facebook page.
These events, one of which occurred as recently as Friday, have also attracted criticism. Bronx United, an anti-Diaz political action committee, earlier this month, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Committee, alleging that Diaz was mixing official business with campaigning while delivering boxes of food. Diaz has denied the allegation.
Other critics of Diaz have noted that the fact that he shares a name with his son, who is a popular borough president, will give him an unfair advantage over ill-informed voters. Ruben Diaz Jr., although he has distanced himself from his father’s more controversial remarks, often appears with him at his charitable events.
Diaz’s popularity comes at a time when left-wing Democrats in safe districts have tried to tug the party more in their direction. Ocasio-Cortez did it successfully in 2018 with her primary of then-powerful Rep. Joe Crowley. In another neighboring district, far-left educator Jamaal Bowman is attempting to do the same to Rep. Eliot Engel.
Diaz has not expressed concern that the party’s left-wing will triumph over him.
“To God be all the Glory and all the Honor!” he wrote in a Monday newsletter of his electoral prospects.
