Ruben Cruz, a long-time Richmond Hill resident, has worked in everything from sales and social work to children’s theater. Could the state legislature be next?
BY JACK DELANEY
This November, voters in Queens’ Assembly District 38 — which encompasses parts of Glendale, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Ridgewood, and Woodhaven — will see a Republican listed on their ballots: Ruben Cruz.
But Cruz isn’t a typical Republican. For one, he doesn’t have the Queens Republican party’s backing — and he doesn’t want it. Then there’s his professional background, several decades spent using his business chops to help nonprofits focused on the arts and social services succeed. And his platform, at a glance, leans blue: Cruz thinks ICE has gone too far, says he’s against “punitive politics,” and wants to expand free education to all New Yorkers.
For Cruz, who grew up in the district, the answer to those seeming contradictions lies in his campaign’s slogan: “Neighbors Before Politics.” This isn’t his first time throwing his hat in the ring — in 2022, Cruz amassed 22,000 votes but ultimately fell to John Liu in the race for State Senate District 16, and in 2024 he was overtaken by David Weprin in Assembly District 24. Yet he’s stayed true to his roots, eschewing sweeping political promises to emphasize the local issues he believes matter most, like stopping deed theft, protecting older adults from hidden fees, and enabling small businesses to thrive.
Cruz, who attended P.S. 62 and Richmond Hill High School before graduating from Queens College with a degree in Theatre and Dance, started his career in “corporate America,” taking a string of jobs in sales to pay the bills. But in the early 2000s, when his son was older, Cruz returned to his earlier passion. After several years volunteering with the Clemente Soto Vélez Center, an arts hub in the Lower East Side, Cruz took the plunge and accepted a full-time position managing their board meetings, among other responsibilities.
Cruz believes that experience, which involved mediating between members of the center who often butted heads, has prepared him for the testier side of politics. “What can I do,” he recalled thinking, “for these people who have all these emotions going all over the place, and these egos?”
Leaving sales opened up a new world of possibilities. Cruz launched his own media company, eventually expanding into a children’s theater outfit called Patty Cake Theater, which has been performing bilingual puppet shows at parks and schools around the city since 2006. From there, Cruz and his wife began working with older adults, offering programming that ranged from short films to computer classes; during this span, Cruz also served as a social worker in Staten Island.
Cruz’s interest in politics piqued in 2017, while handing out Thanksgiving meals in Ozone Park and the Rockaways with then-Council Member Eric Ulrich. According to Cruz, one of Ulrich’s staffers’ commented that he should run to fill the seat when their boss left. “I realized that I’m always hustling for money from this side, through this or that organization,” said Cruz of the exchange. “Maybe I should be on the other side, handing the money out.”
Cruz sees himself as a “community architect,” ready to demolish the hundreds of small obstacles faced by families in southern Queens. For homeowners, he wants to improve transparency around liens, while ramping up repairs at NYCHA complexes and reducing the property tax burden on older residents. For students, he hopes to expand both technical and arts programming, open more schoolyards for afterschool use, and — more ambitiously — create a “universal 3-K to universal PhD” pipeline of subsidized education. For everyone in the state, he’s looking to lower drug prices and provide reliable transportation. In Cruz’s eyes, the guiding question is: “What do we really need to have a better life?”
Cruz is ready to experiment, and to think big. Recently, he’s been mulling over the future of Aqueduct Racetrack, the 132-year-old horse racing venue that closed for good this summer. The site is currently slated for affordable housing, but if elected Cruz would also pursue building a renewable energy facility, using vanadium redox flow batteries to power nearby residents’ homes.
Above all, Cruz aims to protect vulnerable New Yorkers. After moving from Brooklyn to Queens at age 7, he dealt with bullying due to an early lisp; at 14, he began working in lumber yards to support his family. By his description, running for office is an extension of his need to “stick his neck out” to help others, fostering systems — like the Queens Pet Pantry, which he founded during the pandemic to ease the financial stress on pet owners — that make life in the city less punishing.
The upcoming election won’t be easy. Cruz’s opponent, the DSA-endorsed immigration lawyer David Orkin, won the Democratic nomination by beating the incumbent, Jenifer Rajkumar, by a large margin (59% to 41%).
But Cruz, despite the “R” that will appear next to his name on the ballot, is quick to downplay party politics. “I have seen a Progressive neighbor help a Conservative neighbor with taxes, and a Republican neighbor plow a Democrat’s driveway,” he noted. “I’ve done my part by repairing front doors for both. This spirit of cooperation is what I will take to Albany.”
“It is time to move past the old platform terms and platitudes that no longer serve us,” Cruz concluded. “We are neighbors, and neighbors help each other out.”
Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, but early voting will run from October 24 to November 1. For more information, visit vote.nyc.
