She hired investigators to track her opponent

FIRST UP: Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s commitment to back Rep. Adriano Espaillat was initially so ironclad they shook hands on it last summer. But Mamdani broke that promise last week when he endorsed Espaillat’s primary opponent, democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier — and the fallout is mounting. Rep. Nydia Velázquez, an early supporter of Mamdani’s 2025 mayoral run, said she’s not sure she can trust the mayor anymore after the Espaillat snub and won’t take just his word on anything going forward. “I will say I want it in writing,” Velázquez said. Read more from POLITICO’s Chris Sommerfeldt and Madison Fernandez here.MANNY ADDRESSES: Francesca Castellanos has run for state and city office in Upper Manhattan eight times, and lost every single time. In her ninth bid for public office, she’s going to even greater lengths to oust her local assemblyman, Manny De Los Santos. Castellanos has spent $8,000 of her own money on private investigators to surveil him at his wife’s Rockland County home and to stake out the Washington Heights apartment where De Los Santos says he lives, and she’s circulated thousands of flyers that question his residency and include a photo of his young child. De Los Santos says Castellanos, a Spanish-language interpreter, is harassing him and his family. Castellanos says she’s applying well-intentioned scrutiny to a public official who, she claims, lives way outside the district he represents. And election law says the residency requirement for state legislative candidates actually isn’t that strict. “I understand that public service comes with scrutiny. But this opponent has crossed a line,” De Los Santos said in a statement. “My opponent has spent thousands of dollars on private investigators to follow me and even my children.” On Monday, Castellanos filed a complaint with Attorney General Letitia James alleging her opponent “moved out of Northern Manhattan, moved to the suburbs, cashed his taxpayer paycheck, and continues to hold a politic