Tired? “Nah, I’m feeling good,” he said. “I just had a Power Bar.” Mr. Espaillat, a Democratic state senator from Washington Heights, was on the last leg of a day that began inside an uptown subway station, asking commuters escaping the rain for their votes. He snatched a quick breakfast (a bagel with cream cheese and lox), shot downtown for a meeting, rode up to Albany while making campaign calls, and met lobbyists and legislators at the Capitol before returning to New York City to speak to constituents and check in at his office. It is this combustible pace that Mr. Espaillat, 57, has been trying to sell as his greatest advantage over the four-decade incumbent, Representative Charles B. Rangel, in next week’s Democratic primary for Congress. While Mr. Rangel, 82, has been arriving at campaign stops with the help of a walker and maintaining a relatively relaxed schedule, Mr. Espaillat has been feverishly bouncing around the Upper Manhattan and Bronx district, articulating a vision that focuses heavily on immigration reform, job creation, affordable housing and access to higher education. “I’m going to bring a fresh new view and voice to the 13th Congressional District that I think is entirely needed,” Mr. Espaillat said. “New ideas, new energy.” Mr. Espaillat, who is seeking to become the first Dominican-born congressman and expresses unabashed ethnic pride, is widely seen as Mr. Rangel’s most serious challenger since he won office in 1970 because the district is, for the first time, a majority Hispanic. Until recently, Mr. Espaillat had avoided sharply criticizing Mr. Rangel in public. But during a televised debate with Mr. Rangel and the three other candidates last week, Mr. Espaillat took aim at the ethics charges that led to Mr. Rangel’s censure two years ago. “As a result of that, we lost 60 Democratic seats in the Congress, and the Tea Party radicals invaded Congress and are pushing back on Obama,” Mr. Espaillat said. “So he became the poster child for dysfunction in Washington.” Mr. Espaillat’s critics have accused him of overzealous campaign tactics. Moises Perez, Mr. Rangel’s campaign manager, said supporters of Mr. Espaillat had branded Mr. Perez and other Dominicans supporting Mr. Rangel as traitors. “That’s a very heavy-handed style of campaigning that turns people off,” Mr. Perez said. And last month, Mr. Espaillat said he would not refuse the support of an anti-incumbent “super PAC” that is mostly funded by businessmen who back conservative causes. Asked to explain his position last week, Mr. Espaillat offered a different stance: he said he was “rejecting any super PACs from getting involved in this campaign.” With a public-service career that started as a community organizer and crime victims’ rights advocate in Washington Heights, Mr. Espaillat has long held high political ambitions. He often invokes personal experiences when advocating for a cause or bill, supporters say. “When he locks into an issue, he locks into an issue and he doesn’t let go until he gets resolution,” said Senator José Peralta, a Democrat of Queens. Assemblyman Phil Ramos, a Democrat from Long Island, said that Mr. Espaillat taught him the art of compromise. “He said that, as an elected official, if we can win 80 percent of what we want, then next year we live to fight for only 20 percent,” Mr. Ramos recalled. But if you “go for 100 percent, the end result could be that our community ends up with nothing.” Mr. Espaillat says he is a descendant of one of the Dominican Republic’s most notable political figures — Ulises Francisco Espaillat, who held the presidency for about five months in 1876. The family moved to Washington Heights in 1964, when Mr. Espaillat was 9, and one of the first things he did on American soil was to touch the snow on the airport tarmac. His father purchased a gas station in East New York, Brooklyn, where Mr. Espaillat helped out. Mr. Espaillat was introduced to politics through a summer youth program run by a Baptist preacher. After graduating from Queens College, he worked in criminal justice, first for the city and then as a liaison between his community and the police. “I remember Adriano walking up on the corner and talking to gang members and telling them to stop doing what they were doing,” said Roberto Lizardo, who worked closely in community activism with Mr. Espaillat. Mr. Espaillat lost two races for City Council; the second, in 1991, was won by Guillermo Linares, who became New York’s first Dominican-born elected official. In 1996, he won election to the Assembly, and became the first Dominican to hold office in Albany; he was elected to the State Senate in 2010. Mr. Espaillat, who dances bachata and merengue, decorated his Albany office with paintings from the Dominican Republic, including one of a twin-steeple church in Santiago and another of a broad-shouldered marchanta balancing a basket of flowers on her head. Two glittery, horned Carnival masks that Mr. Espaillat made hang from a wood-paneled wall. He has been “very aggressive about Dominican pride, very aggressive about furthering the Dominican people, very aggressive about putting a focus on making sure that Dominicans get their fair share,” said Assemblyman Daniel J. O’Donnell, who has endorsed Mr. Rangel. He also became a die-hard Yankees fan; so much so that years later, as a lawmaker, he put on a Yankees hat and professed his love for the team while he and other legislators were presenting a Mets player with an award. Gregarious and blunt, Mr. Espaillat balances his days of nonstop politicking with levity.“How come you’re looking sad today?” Mr. Espaillat sang at a tollbooth agent (he refuses to get an EZ Pass). There were also quiet moments, like when Mr. Espaillat made the sign of the cross when he got behind the wheel, or when he mumbled a song coming from the radio: “In the midnight hour, she cries more, more, more.”
