Bill Samuels has pledged $250,000 to help get Gustavo Rivera elected in the 33rd Senate District, though he’s only ever met the man for 30 seconds, total.

Samuels, a businessman whose family has political roots and founded the plastics company Kordite (think Hefty Trash Bags), is on a mission to get State Senator Pedro Espada, Jr., voted out of office. He recently dropped out of the race for Lieutenant Governor to focus on his New Roosevelt Initiative, an independent expenditure campaign trying to reform Albany — one bad politician at a time, they say.

The first on their list is Pedro Espada. A leaflet the group hands out to passersby outside of subways and in parks in Espada’s 33rd District is a laundry list of the Senate Majority Leader’s apparent misdeeds: the lawsuit filed against him by Andrew Cuomo, his history of snubbing renters’ rights, his role in the Senate coup last summer.

“The damage that’s been done by this man is astounding,” Samuels said, while handing out fliers in Crotona Park on a recent afternoon. “It’s corrupted the process. It’s made people cynical. It’s tied up the legislature.”

Getting Espada out means getting someone else in. So Samuels and his New Roosevelts are throwing their weight behind Rivera, an adjunct politics professor and former political aide who’s one of three candidates challenging Espada in the September primary.

The New Roosevelts (modeled and named after FDR) endorsed Rivera earlier this month, working as an independent campaign group. That means they aren’t confined by contribution limits — though none of their money can go directly to Rivera, and they aren’t allowed to coordinate with him or his campaign. Which is why Samuels’ only contact with the man he’s endorsed was when he ran into him once on his way out of an event.

Samuels says the $250,000 his group’s set aside will be spent to hire organizers to knock on doors, hand out leaflets and talk to voters in the district, pushing one central message: Don’t vote for Pedro.

Their next challenge is to get voters in the Bronx familiar with the name Gustavo Rivera.

“I usually only vote in the big elections,” said resident Dorothy Matthews, as she walked away from Samuels, flier in hand. “I don’t know what this guy is about.”

In making its endorsement, the group had narrowed its decision down to Rivera and community activist Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, who was also running at the time. Rivera seemed more articulate, well liked, and to have an overall better chance of winning, Samuels said.

“I think he will be an immediate statewide figure,” he said. “He’s extremely bright, and he’ll be a positive image for the district.”

Pilgrim-Hunter, citing lack of funds, dropped out of the race in June, a move Samuels called “courageous.” He’s urged the other challengers, Fernando Tirado and Dan Padernacht to follow suit. The idea being that the fewer candidates running, the better the chance Rivera will win, Samuels says, and Espada will lose.