Alexa Avilés

In 2021, Avilés defeated five other candidates to win the Democratic nomination, prevailing over her closest opponent Yu Lin 65%-35%. in the fifth round of ranked choice voting. She received endorsements from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Congressmembers Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, State Senators Julia Salazar and Jabari Brisport, Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes, the Working Families Party, United Federation of Teachers, District Council 37, and other local groups and elected officials. No Republican challenged her in the November 2021 general election, and Avilés won with over 80% of the vote. She took office in January 2022.

Avilés was a program officer and then program director at the Scherman Foundation from 2011 to 2021, working on advocacy for human rights, reproductive rights, and strengthening programs for the arts.

She lives with her husband, Frankie, and her two daughters in Sunset Park, where she has lived since 2000.

Avilés was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, and raised in East New York. She was the youngest of seven children to a substance abuse counselor mother, and the first in her family to attend college. She graduated Columbia University in 1995, and received a master's degree from CUNY's Baruch College School of Public and International Affairs. She is a National Urban Fellow and an alumna of A Better Chance.

Alexa Avilés is an American politician, community activist, and non-profit manager from New York City. She is a member of the New York City Council for the 38th district, which covers Sunset Park along Brooklyn's western shoreline, also covering Red Hook, Greenwood Heights, and small parts of Windsor Terrace, Dyker Heights, and Borough Park neighborhoods in western Brooklyn.