State Senator - District 34
Nathalia Fernandez
State senator for District 34, which covers parts of the Bronx and Westchester, since January 2023; she was re-elected in November 2024 with 67.5% of the vote.
Issues Nathalia is raising
Housing and tenants
Voted for a 2025 law on landlords' use of algorithmic pricing to set residential rents. Voted against a 2025 bill on succession rights for tenants of New York City Housing Authority properties; it passed the Senate and was signed into law.
Addiction, overdose and mental health
Sponsored 2025 laws on the state's opioid settlement agreements and on letting practitioners dispense controlled substances as emergency treatment and for detoxification. Also sponsored a bill creating a Latina suicide prevention task force; it passed both houses in 2023 and was vetoed by the governor.
Health care and consumer health
Sponsored laws restricting certain substances in menstrual products and barring charges for certificates of stillbirth or fetal death. Voted for the Medical Aid in Dying Act, which passed the Senate 35-27 in 2025 and became law.
State budget
Voted for the bills carrying out the state's 2024-25 education, labor, housing and family assistance budget and its 2026-27 fiscal plan; the 2026 bill passed the Senate 38-24.
Discrimination and harassment
Sponsored laws making the removal or threatened removal of someone's religious clothing second-degree aggravated harassment, and barring settlements of discrimination or sexual harassment claims from requiring a set damages payment if a nondisclosure agreement is violated.
Background
She chairs the Senate Alcoholism and Substance Use Disorders Committee and represented Assembly District 80 from 2018 to 2023.
- New York State Senator, District 34, since Jan. 1, 2023
- Chair, Senate Alcoholism and Substance Use Disorders Committee
- Co-Chair, Joint Senate Task Force on Opioids, Addiction & Overdose Prevention
- Member of the New York State Assembly, District 80, 2018 to 2023
- Bronx regional representative in the office of Governor Andrew Cuomo
- Executive coordinator and chief of staff to Assemblymember Mark Gjonaj; her Senate biography also lists work as a community director in the Assembly
- B.A. in public relations, Hofstra University (2010)
- Won the Aug. 23, 2022 Democratic primary with 63.0% and the Nov. 8, 2022 general election with 65.2%, defeating Samantha Zherka; re-elected Nov. 5, 2024 with 67.5%, defeating Edwinna Herrera
- Advanced to the Nov. 3, 2026 general election after the June 23, 2026 Democratic primary was canceled; on the Democratic and Working Families lines
- Daughter of immigrants; the first Latina to represent the 34th Senate District
Support
New York Working Families Party
Also on your ballot on the Working Families Party line
Money
$245K
raised
Top donors: Local 6 Committee on Political Education, 1199 SEIU PAF, D-J Ambulette Services Inc.
Others running for State Senator - District 34