Max Zappone wasn't born into politics. He was born in Italy and came to America with his parents and sister before his first birthday. He grew up in New York, went to Fordham Prep and Fordham University, and built a career in development and building management—work that taught him how New York actually runs, and how often it doesn't.

He met his wife seventeen years ago at a party at Tavern on the Green. She had emigrated from Poland, where she was born under communism, and came to America for college. They've been married eleven years. They're raising two kids—Victoria, 9, and Giovanni, 5—both born at NewYork-Presbyterian on 70th Street, both New Yorkers to the bone.

It was Giovanni who changed everything.

At three years old, Giovanni couldn't speak. Max and his wife did what parents do—they fought. They jumped through every hoop the city put in front of them. They got approved for early intervention services. And then the system failed them. The services never came. Giovanni aged out of the program before he ever received help.

The Zappones were lucky—they could afford private speech therapy. Giovanni is thriving now, still receiving services at school in the Bronx and from a private therapist in Manhattan. But Max couldn't stop thinking about all the families who aren't lucky. All the kids who fall through the cracks while money disappears into a bureaucracy that serves itself instead of the people who need it.

That's when Max stopped watching from the sidelines.

He became a community advocate, then a political organizer. In 2025, he worked on the Curtis campaign for Mayor, running operations in the Bronx and helping across Manhattan. He saw up close how the system works—and how often it fails the people it's supposed to serve.

Now he's running for Congress.

Max isn't naive about the odds. NY-12 is one of the most Democratic districts in the country. It's been a safe seat for decades—and now the political machine wants to hand it to Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist whose agenda would make New York even more expensive and less safe. By every conventional measure, this race is unwinnable.

Max is running anyway.

"My daughter Victoria asked me why I don't run in Manhattan instead of the Bronx," Max says. "She said, 'Papa, that's where all our friends are, where our schools are, where we were born—where our life is.' She was right. But more than that—I love this district, and I'm not going to watch it get ruined the way so much of this city has been. NY-12 is special. It's worth fighting for."

Max Zappone is running on five commitments: safe streets, real affordability, actual accountability, real immigration reform, and standing with the Jewish community against rising antisemitism.

He believes New Yorkers deserve a representative who still rides the subway, still feels the squeeze, and still has to live with the consequences of the decisions made in Washington. And he'll fight—in NYC and in Washington—to keep Zohran Mamdani's socialist agenda in check.

This seat has been on autopilot long enough. It's time for someone new.