iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

11/11 The choice is bigger than four names on a ballot. We can keep accepting that outside money and hidden donors are the cost of competing. Or we can decide we meant it. I’m betting this district meant it. I’ve built my entire campaign on that bet. June 23. You get to settle it

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10/11 I don’t trust politicians to fix these systems. Given what I’ve watched in this race, can you blame me?

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9/11 I’m a public defender. Twenty years standing with immigrants, tenants, and working families on the worst days of their lives. Those rooms taught me who broken systems are designed to protect. It’s almost never the person in front of me.

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8/11 If a commitment to clean money holds only while the polling is comfortable, it was never a commitment. It was a slogan. The promise is the tell.

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7/11 But I didn’t build this campaign on money from the very interests I’d have to stand up to in Washington.

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6/11 I want to be honest about what keeping the promise has cost me. I’ve raised far less than the three elected officials I’m running against. I’ve been shut out of public debates. I carry less name recognition.

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5/11 Each of them drew the clean money line where it served them. Valdez swears off real estate and welcomes the super PAC. Won swears off super PACs and takes real estate money. Reynoso does both.

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4/11 During the NY1 debate, Valdez said the quiet part out loud: “we have a campaign that we need to win.” That’s the tell.

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3/11 At least 4 superPACs are now active in this race. Two candidates red-boxed, posting instructions on their websites for outside money to follow. The third wrote that superPAC money has no place in this race. I agree. But she took roughly $90,000 from the real estate industry

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2/11 The ways around the promise were not subtle.

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Hey, Greenpoint! @heygreenpoint.com · 17/06/2026

1/11 At the start of this race, all four of us made the same promise: no super PACs, no unlimited outside money. Early voting is already underway. I’m the only one who kept it. Do we want money out of politics, or do we just want to win? 🧵

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Reposted by Vichal Kumar

After 35 years of service, Congresswoman @velazquez.house.gov is retiring. We’ve asked candidates running for the NY-7 seat in our June 23rd primary to appeal directly to Greenpoint Voters. First up, @kumar4ny.bsky.social ! Early voting is happening NOW 🗳️💚

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Vichal Kumar @kumar4ny.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Thank you for having me @spectrumnewsny1.bsky.social Great far-ranging conversation with @errollouis.bsky.social on my frontlines experience as a public defender for two decades, immigration, affordable housing, Sunnyside Yard, and carrying Rep. Velázquez's legacy forward. ny1.com/nyc/all-boro...

ny1.com

Vichal Kumar on why he wants to replace Rep. Velázquez in Congress

The 7th Congressional District spans Brooklyn and Queens, including neighborhoods like Long Island City, Williamsburg, Bushwick and Woodhaven.

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Vichal Kumar @kumar4ny.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Early voting starts this weekend. June 23 primary. #kumar4ny #ny7

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Vichal Kumar @kumar4ny.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

BK Reader, "Meet Your Candidate": "Three politicians acting like politicians, and one public defender." www.bkreader.com/featured-new...

bkreader.com

Meet Your Candidate: Vichal Kumar For NY-7

New York's 7th Congressional District will see a public defender on the Democratic ballot on June 23.

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Vichal Kumar @kumar4ny.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

"Vichal Kumar Looks for Upset Win in NY-7." That's the headline from Brooklyn Downtown Star today. Three local outlets covered the campaign in 36 hours. Sharing all three.

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Reposted by Vichal Kumar

Citizens' Impeachment @citizensimpeachment.com · 07/05/2026

NY-07: The primary is June 23. Meet your Courage Candidate. @kumar4ny.bsky.social He kept families in their homes. Fought ICE. Built systems that actually work for people. Now he's running for Congress — not to debate, but to dismantle.

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5/5 I am not running because I have all the answers. I am running because I cannot stop thinking about the questions. June 23. #Kumar4NY #NY7

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4/5 I kept waiting for someone else to run. Someone with more money, more connections. Then I realized: 20 years of lying awake thinking about people the system failed is exactly the credential this job needs. Not in spite of the weight, but because of it.

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3/5 The same families kept walking through my door. Different names but the same story. Healthcare. Housing. Immigration. One problem triggering the next. At some point you stop calling it bad luck. This is policy. And policy is a choice.

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2/5 I have been doing this for 20 years. I still lie awake. Not because I am bad at managing the work. Because the people are real and what happens to them is real. The day you stop lying awake is the day you stop seeing them as people.

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1/5 Someone once told me that lying awake at night thinking about your clients was a curse. It is the only qualification that matters for this job. 🧵

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6/6 The offer stands. 8 debates. 8 weeks. Any format. Any venue in NY-7. I will be there. Will you? June 23. #Kumar4NY #NY7 #NY07Debates

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5/6 There is a difference between someone who came to this fight through politics and someone who came to this fight through the fight itself. From the fight. Not from politics. That isn't a slogan, it's the work.

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4/6 I am a public defender. I have spent 20 years being tested. In courtrooms, at kitchen tables, in homes of families who had no one else to call. They never had the luxury of a friendly room.

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3/6 The voters deserve to hear candidates tested. Not in a press release. Answering real questions about housing, immigration, healthcare, and wages. That is not a lot to ask. Unless you are not ready to answer.

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2/6 I want to be clear about what that silence means. We had 8 weeks until June 23. Eight weeks to show NY-7 who you are and why you should represent them in Congress. I asked for one debate a week.

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1/6 72 hours ago I challenged every candidate in this race to 8 debates in 8 weeks. Silence. 🧵

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6/6 It is one thing to echo "Abolish ICE". It is another to sit at a kitchen table with someone whose family it destroyed and figure out what comes next. That is the work. That is why I'm running. June 23. #Kumar4NY #NY7 #AbolishICE #ImmigrantJustice

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5/6 Abolishing ICE is the right call, but not enough. We need to dismantle ICE, end the machinery that would outlive the agency - the detention beds, the surveillance system, and the enforcement mechanism. We need a complete reimagining of how this country treats the people who built it.

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4/6 I have sat at kitchen tables with those families. Not at a forum, in their homes after the knock on the door, the detention order. I know what ICE does not because I read about it, but because I have been the person their targets called when there was nowhere else to turn.

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3/6 ICE is not just enforcement, it is targeted destruction. It is detention — families held with no due process, people who have lived here for decades. It is surveillance — communities monitored unaware, every move.

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2/6 ICE was created in 2003. Post 9/11. A new agency with almost no oversight, its mandate was never about public safety. It was built to target people who look like me.

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Hindus for Human Rights Action @hfhraction.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

1/6 Every candidate at the forum said abolish ICE. With 20 years experience, I want to talk about what that means. Saying it and knowing it are two different things. 🧵

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Reposted by Vichal Kumar

🚨We are proud to endorse @kumar4ny.bsky.social to be the next Congressman for New York's 7th Congressional district! Vichal is a dedicated public servant and an exemplary representative of our community who will fight for everyone being attacked, vilified, and left behind.

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6/6 Nobody in NY-7 should be making the calculations my family was forced to make. When I say guarantee healthcare, I do not mean expand access or improve coverage. I mean exactly what I say. Guarantee it. June 23. #Kumar4NY #NY7 #MedicareForAll #HealthcareIsARight

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5/6 Medicare for All is not a radical idea. Every other wealthy country has figured out how to guarantee care. The reason we haven't is not complexity. It is the $500 million the healthcare industry spends lobbying Congress every year. I don't accept that money.

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4/6 Healthcare should not be a market. Markets work when you can comparison shop, walk away from bad deals. Nobody delays a heart attack to comparison shop for emergency care. The logic of markets does not apply to healthcare. Pretending it does cost lives.

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3/6 Sometimes we were lucky. Sometimes waiting made things worse. I watched my parents make that calculation again and again. I learned to make it myself. You get good at estimating how sick is sick enough to justify the cost. No one should build that skill.

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2/6 Are we sick enough? Can we wait another week? Maybe it will pass. That was the actual conversation. Not because my parents didn't understand health, but because they understood money. Without insurance a doctor's visit becomes a financial calculation, not a medical one.

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