Dalourny Nemorin hopes to unseat Ritchie Torres with progressive agenda

Daloury Nemorin, a public defense attorney of ten years, is challenging U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres to serve the 15th Congressional District, which stretches from Riverdale, to central and southern portions of the Bronx.  

Her progressive platform targets housing — including rent control, NYCHA repairs and homeownership opportunities — as well as affordability, climate justice, healthcare for all, immigrants’ rights and restoring congressional oversight.

The district is one of the poorest in the nation, with a median household income of about $44,000, and 30 percent of residents below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But, disparities are wide between neighborhoods, with Riverdale’s household income averaging at $75,000.  

“People in Riverdale are not a monolith, and speaking about them in a monolith is misgiving,” Nemorin told The Press. 

She wants residents to know middle-class issues like the rising cost of homeowners insurance, college affordability and securing a job post-graduation are a focus as well. Strengthening other neighborhoods in the district helps Riverdale too, she added, by drawing more visitors who support small businesses in the community. 

Nemorin also touched on quality-of-life concerns. She believes residents’ opposition to the men’s shelter on Broadway and the migrant shelter near Waldo Avenue stems from worries about their own wellbeing, not from a refusal to address the issues these buildings aim to solve. 

She wants to advocate for funding towards community-outreach programs that speak with residents, and work to address loitering, sanitation or other worries community members express. 

“Nothing that I am advocating for is to harm the middle class,” Nemorin said. “It’s to hope that they can sustain the city that is becoming ever-more-expensive for everybody, regardless of your socio-economic status. The middle class and working class are not far apart at all, and I think the best change happens in this country when those two classes work together. I hope to be that change.” 

Bronx-wide, Nemorin believes Torres has been overlooking constituents and prioritizing donors instead. She thinks parts of the district feel this too. 

“If we have decided you are no longer a trustworthy candidate, there is nothing you can do,” Nemorin said. “If we do not think you have our best interests at heart — that you have a track record of neglecting us, serving yourself, serving your donors and not the 740,000 people in the district — we’re not a priest, we’re not going to forgive you. We’re going to try with someone else.” 

The 36-year-old wasn't born in the borough, but says she chose it instead. 

Originally from Miami, Florida, Nemorin grew up in Little Haiti with two immigrant parents. As a law school student at the City University of New York School in Queens — where she relied on Medicaid and food stamps for support — Nemorin rented a room in an older woman’s apartment. Her home health aid lived in the East Bronx, and started inviting Nemorin over for holidays in 2011. Nine years later, she moved to the South Bronx. 

A decade into her career, she joined Community Board 1 — representing the southern Bronx neighborhoods of Melrose, Mott Haven and Port Morris — and still serves as chair of the policy and legislation committee. She’s been with the Legal Aid Society as a defense attorney for about seven years, and worked with the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem before that. 

She aims to take these advocacy skills and apply them to Congress. “I think there is a push for new ideas and not playing it safe,” Nemorin said. 

On immigration, Nemorin pointed to Torres’ support for the Laken Riley Act — a law that allows immigrants to be detained, without bond, on some charges such as burglary, theft, shoplifting or assaulting a police officer — as evidence he isn’t serving constituents. 

She also commented on Chestnut Holdings, a Riverdale-based property management company South Bronx residents protested against in October, citing poor living conditions. According to campaign-finance data, donations affiliated with Chestnut totaled $35,000. 

“We’re not holding Torres to some standard that is unfair to him,” Nemorin said. “Elected officials are doing this — they’re meeting with us, they’re standing next to us. I think [Torres] is exploiting the fact that low income communities don’t vote.”

The Bronx has some of the lowest voter turnout rates in the city, according to the New York City Campaign Finance Board. In 2024, only 10 percent of residents voted in the June primary election, and 52 percent in the November general election. 

The candidate pledged to not take any corporate Political Action Committee, PAC, funds, instead relying on donations from people — a strategy Nemorin is ready to embrace, as “the most money  is not indicative of a winner,” she said. 

At the core of her campaign, is a deep love for the resilience of the borough and a willingness to move it forward.

“We are strong beyond our means,” Nemorin said. “We are making it work despite all the obstacles, and we are making it work in community and family … I hope [Bronxites] know they get a changemaker and an advocate with me.”