NY-AD#$: Assembly candidate Aber Kawas (DSA) says she didn't move into wrong district
Did Assembly candidate Aber Kawas accidentally move into the wrong district? That’s the rumor currently flying around progressive circles – but City & State found that it is almost certainly false, an exaggeration of concerns about her decision to run in a district that she only moved to recently.
At least five people have told City & State that they have heard a variation of the following rumor: the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America originally recruited Kawas to move to Queens so she could succeed Mayor Zohran Mamdani (who represented Assembly District 36, which covers most of Astoria), only for Kawas to accidentally move a few blocks outside the district’s border, forcing her to instead run for the seat held by Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas (who represents Assembly District 34, which covers eastern Astoria and Jackson Heights).
It would be entertaining if true, but Kawas and the DSA members who recruited her to run for office are now going on the record to debunk it. Kawas told City & State that she was not intending to run for office when she moved to Queens, and the DSA said it only broached the idea of running for office with Aber after Mamdani won the mayoral primary in June 2025, at which point she had already been living in her current apartment for nearly a year.
“When I moved to Queens, I was never planning to run for office,” Kawas said. “I moved to start a new job at CLEAR (a civil rights program at the CUNY School of Law), and I spent most of the year organizing Know Your Rights workshops for local activist groups and fighting for the release of our clients who were illegally detained by ICE and the Trump administration for their advocacy for Palestinian rights.”
https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2026/01/assembly-candidate-aber-kawas-says-she-didnt-move-wrong-district/411058/?oref=csny-category-lander-featured-river