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    N.Y. City Council Sees Historic Changes, and Republicans Gain Ground

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    Concerns over public safety and pandemic restrictions helped some Republicans win seats on the New York City Council, which will also be one of the city’s most diverse councils ever.Election Day was expected to be something of a historic moment for the New York City Council. The city’s legislative body was poised to welcome its first South Asian members, its first Korean American members, its first Muslim woman and its first out L.G.B.T.Q. Black women. For the first time, it would have more women than men.Most of that did happen on Tuesday, but not exactly in the way that was anticipated. At least two of the women newly elected to the Council were Republicans — part of a trend that saw the party unexpectedly gain seats for the first time since 2009.Though Democrats cruised to victories in the vast majority of races, Republicans defended the three City Council seats they held, including one that Democrats sought to flip. They also picked up a fourth and remained competitive in three other races that, with some ballots yet to be counted, remained too close to call on Wednesday night.Even in two races where incumbent Democrats were running for re-election on multiple party lines, they received more votes on the Republican ballot line than the Democratic one.The results reveal the extent to which Republicans were able to garner support in more moderate and conservative districts by focusing on a few salient issues — a dynamic that was also at play in races nationwide.Elected officials and strategists from both parties said that the competitive Council contests were largely shaped by similar issues: concern over public safety, frustration over pandemic-related guidelines including vaccine mandates, and alienation from a Democratic Party that some voters worry has left them behind as the left wing has ascended.“There is a lack of a clear message of what the Democratic Party stands for,” said Ken Sherrill, a professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College.Councilman Justin Brannan, a potential contender for Council speaker next year, was in a close race against his Republican rival, Brian Fox.Holly Pickett for The New York TimesOthers said that low turnout had likely been a factor, and that Democrats had to do more to draw voters to the polls.“We can’t take our electorate for granted and just assume that because we’re in a blue state that all voters will follow us,” said Sochie Nnaemeka, the New York State director of the left-leaning Working Families Party. “We have to always be fighting.”Still, the broader contours of the next City Council remain unchanged from expectations. As it has been for decades, the 51-member body will be dominated by Democrats, many of them new faces from the party’s left wing. The city is poised to have one of the most diverse councils in its history, with at least 30 women holding office.The showing from Republicans is unlikely to alter the city’s immediate political direction. If Republicans picked up the final three races, they would have seven seats — their largest faction since the mid-1990s, but likely not enough to pose a major threat to Democratic priorities. Eric Adams, the Democratic candidate, handily won his election for mayor, and four of the five borough presidents will also remain Democrats, with Staten Island, a conservative stronghold, the exception.Among the still undecided races was a re-election bid by Councilman Justin Brannan, a Democrat who is a contender to become City Council speaker next year and whose Brooklyn district includes Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and Bath Beach. On Tuesday night, he was 255 votes behind his opponent, Brian Fox, though at least 1,456 returned absentee ballots, about 1,000 from registered Democrats, have yet to be counted.In an interview on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Brannan said that he believed that low turnout — about 24,000 people voted in person and 3,300 requested absentee ballots in a district where 105,000 are registered — was a factor in the tight margin of his race.But he also said the close race was demonstrative of the headwinds that Democrats had faced nationally and accused his opponent of trying to “harness these national culture wars” over hot-button issues like policing and vaccine mandates.During the campaign, Mr. Fox staunchly opposed vaccine mandates. His campaign also seized on the slogan “Justin Brannan defunded the police,” a reference to the budget negotiations last year in which city officials agreed to shift roughly $1 billion from the Police Department. Most council members, including Mr. Brannan, voted for that budget. He also voted for this year’s budget, which added $200 million back to the police budget.In Bay Ridge on Wednesday, Evan Chacker, 49, who owns an online education business, pointed to Mr. Brannan’s vote as a principal reason that the councilman lost his support.“We have law enforcement in the family,” he said. “He voted to defund the police.”In the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, the “defund the police” movement drove some voters away from Democratic candidates like Councilman Justin Brannan.Anna Watts for The New York TimesVincent Dardanello, the owner of a Sicilian cafe called Amuni, said that taxes and public safety were top issues for him, and that he had voted for Mr. Fox out of party loyalty, even though he knew and liked Mr. Brannan.“I’m a Republican, pretty much straight through,” Mr. Dardanello, 45, said.The debates were similar in other districts where Republicans won or exhibited strong showings, including in District 32 in Queens, the last Republican-controlled seat in that borough.During the campaign, which attracted spending from outside groups, Joann Ariola, the head of the Queens Republican Party, touted her support for the police, her commitment to protecting and improving the city schools’ gifted and talented program, and her focus on quality-of-life issues.Her Democratic opponent, Felicia Singh, a former teacher backed by left-leaning groups, kept her focus on education, the environment and the need for resources for often-underserved communities. Ms. Ariola, who sought to portray Ms. Singh as too left wing, won easily, by thousands of votes.Joann Ariola won her bid for a open Council seat in southeast Queens, in a race to replace the departing Republican, Eric Ulrich.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesThe race to fill the seat in District 48 in southern Brooklyn, home to many Orthodox Jews and Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, reflected some changing political winds in parts of the city.Voters in the district have gradually shifted to the right, and the area favored former President Donald J. Trump in 2020. Inna Vernikov, a lawyer who decried vaccine mandates and to whom Donald Trump Jr. lent support, defeated Steven Saperstein there, giving Republicans a fourth seat on the Council.Races remained close in District 19 in Queens, where Vickie Paladino, a Republican community activist, leads Tony Avella, a former Democratic state senator and councilman. The Democratic candidate in District 47 in Brooklyn, Ari Kagan, was ahead of his Republican opponent, Mark Szuszkiewicz, by just 283 votes. Many absentee votes remain outstanding in both races.The winners of those races will join a City Council stuffed with Democrats who won easy victories in their races. Among them are five Asian Americans, the most in the body’s history, including Julie Won and Linda Lee in Queens, who are the Council’s first Korean American members; Shahana Hanif in Brooklyn and Shekar Krishnan in Queens, the first South Asian members; and Sandra Ung in Queens, who is Cambodian American. Ms. Hanif will also be the first Muslim woman to serve on the Council.The incoming council members come from across the liberal spectrum. They include moderate incumbents like Francisco Moya, as well as a number of former left-wing activists with no previous ties to City Hall like Tiffany Cabán and Kristin Richardson Jordan, an activist who, with Crystal Hudson, is one of the first two Black L.G.B.T.Q. women on the Council.Kristin Richardson Jordan will become one of the first two Black L.G.B.T.Q. women on the City Council. Rainmaker Photos/MediaPunch/IPX, via Associated PressMs. Jordan, who narrowly won victory in her primary, said on Wednesday that her win reflected the priorities of voters in her Upper Manhattan district: affordable housing, criminal justice reform and equality in education. Those differ from the chief concerns stated by voters in districts where Republicans were more competitive.Christina Greer, a political scientist at Fordham University, said that as a whole, the Council results highlighted what has long been true: that while conservatives have been muted in the city’s political discourse, they have always been something of a force.Ms. Greer also said that the results illustrated the difficulty of characterizing the city’s electorate in broad strokes.“We have to recognize that there’s several shades of blue in New York City,” she said.Julianne McShane More

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      The Places in New York City Where Republicans Still Stand a Chance

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      In some New York City Council races, supporting former President Donald Trump is seen as a positive by voters.For most Democratic candidates running in New York City, criticizing former President Donald J. Trump hardly requires making a studied campaign strategy decision — it’s already a given.But in one of the few competitive races in New York City this year, the Democratic candidate for City Council will not even say how he voted for president, insisting that at the local level, voters in his Brooklyn district still care more about municipal matters. That candidate, Steven Saperstein, is running in one of the few Trump-friendly districts in the city, and as he campaigned down a breezy stretch of boardwalk in Brighton Beach last Sunday, not far from the Trump Village housing complex where he grew up, he couldn’t seem to escape partisan politics.“I’m Republican,” one woman declared.“One hundred and twenty percent,” another proclaimed, before allowing that she would consider Mr. Saperstein anyway.“They’re trying to make it about the presidential election,” Mr. Saperstein said of his Republican opponent, Inna Vernikov, for whom Donald Trump Jr. has recorded a robocall. “People in this district understand and they know that national elections are one thing, but on the local level you have to vote for the person.”Steven Saperstein insists that voters in his district are more concerned about local matters than last year’s presidential election.Nate Palmer for The New York TimesIndeed, for years, New York City voters who favored Republicans for president often still elected Democrats in local races. But in the final days of the fall campaign, Republicans are working to change that in the 48th Council District of Brooklyn, which is home to many Orthodox Jews and Russian and Ukrainian immigrants.If they succeed, that victory will offer one more example of just how polarized, and nationalized, even ultra-local American politics has become.That seat is one of a smattering of City Council districts where there is evidence of Republican life in an otherwise overwhelmingly Democratic city — and it is not the only one attracting attention from major national figures. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate majority leader, was slated to campaign on Sunday for a fellow Democrat, Felicia Singh, who is seeking to flip the last Republican-held Council seat in Queens (though the event was pulled following a security threat, Ms. Singh’s campaign manager said).The Republican candidates in New York’s competitive races differ from one another in tone, experience and the local issues that reflect their distinctive districts. But all of those contests, party officials and strategists say, are shaped by the continued salience of public safety in the minds of voters, discussion of education matters like the gifted and talented program that Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to phase out, and intense feelings over vaccine mandates. Some Republicans even argue that the challenging national environment that Democrats appear to be facing may be evident in a handful of city races, too.“This has a lot of likenesses to 2009, when Obama came in on hope and change and then fell flat,” said Nick Langworthy, the chairman of the New York Republican State Committee. “In 2009 we had great gains at the local level, and then had a cataclysm in 2010. Are we facing that, or is there going to be flatness all the way around?”Whatever the turnout, Republicans are virtually certain to be shut out of citywide offices. Indeed, by nearly every metric, the Republican Party has been decimated in the nation’s largest city. They are vastly outnumbered in voter registration and have struggled to field credible candidates for major offices. At the City Council level, Republican hopes boil down to a matter of margins.The most optimistic Republican assessment, barring extraordinary developments, is that they could increase their presence to five from three on the 51-seat City Council, as they did in 2009. But even that would require a surprise outcome in a sleeper race — and it is possible they retain only one seat (setting aside the candidates who are running on multiple party lines).Officials on both sides of the aisle believe a more realistic target for the Republicans is three or four seats, a number that could still affect the brewing City Council speaker’s race and may indicate pockets of discontent with the direction of the city.The most high-profile of those contests is the last Republican-held seat in Queens.Ms. Singh, a teacher who is endorsed by the left-wing Working Families Party, is running against Joann Ariola, the chairwoman of the Queens Republican Party. The race has stirred considerable interest from the left and the right and attracted spending from outside groups.Democrats argue that Ms. Singh’s focus on education, the environment and resources for often-underserved communities best reflects working-class and immigrant families like her own who have changed the makeup of the district.Felicia Singh, center, who is running for City Council, canvasing in her hometown of Ozone Park, Queens.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesMs. Singh has called Ms. Ariola a Trump Republican and noted her past ties to a district leader who was charged with participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol. Ms. Ariola has said she condemns the insurrection and that no one “should be guilty by association.”Ms. Ariola is pressing a message of strong support for the police, protecting and improving the gifted and talented program, and emphasizing quality-of-life issues.She is casting Ms. Singh as too radical for a district that has been dotted in parts with Blue Lives Matter signage, and she has noted that some of the area’s moderate Democratic officials have stayed on the sidelines — which will surely be a source of tension among Democrats if Ms. Singh loses narrowly.“The strategy has to be to pull out every single Democrat, knowing there are some Democrats that will shift the other way as well, but I think she’s still in a good position,” said Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president and a Democrat.The other race widely seen as competitive is for a seat currently held by the Republican minority leader, Steven Matteo, on Staten Island.David Carr, Mr. Matteo’s chief of staff, is the Republican nominee; Sal F. Albanese, once a Brooklyn city councilman who has run unsuccessfully for mayor several times, is the Democratic nominee; George Wonica, a real estate agent, is running on the Conservative Party line.Unlike in Queens, where there is a clear ideological contrast, the candidates on Staten Island largely agree on several issues roiling New York, including city vaccine mandates, which they oppose. They have also competed vigorously over who is the true law-and-order candidate.Beyond those clearly competitive races, a number of Democrats are running aggressive campaigns even in presumably safe seats. Councilman Justin Brannan of Brooklyn, a candidate for City Council speaker who won his Bay Ridge-area district narrowly in 2017, has maintained an intense pace. Just this weekend he campaigned with Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor; Letitia James, the state attorney general, who is now running for governor; and Mr. Schumer.“Low-turnout elections are always where surprises happen, and we’ve had a bunch of those in the past few years,” said Kevin Elkins, the political director for the New York City District Council of Carpenters, which is largely supporting Democratic candidates, as well as Ms. Ariola. “Most of the elected officials and candidates who have run before have no interest in being next on that list.”A few districts away from Mr. Brannan’s, Ms. Vernikov was in a heavily Orthodox Jewish part of Midwood recently, meeting with volunteers.Inna Vernikov, a Republican, said voters were more receptive to her when she told them her party affiliation. Nate Palmer for The New York TimesShe has been a registered Democrat and a Republican, and the better-funded Mr. Saperstein has previously run for office as a Republican, further scrambling the political dynamics of the race.But in an interview, Ms. Vernikov said she sometimes found voters to be more receptive when she mentioned her current party affiliation.“When you tell people you’re a Republican in this district, it just changes the tone,” especially with the many voters in the district who fled the former Soviet Union, she said. “They see the Democratic Party moving this country in a very bad direction.”Back in Brighton Beach, Mr. Saperstein wanted to talk about parks, the relationships he has with the Police Department, and cleaning up the boardwalk.That last point was a compelling one for Lidiya Skverchak, a 64-year-old Trump voter. She was slated to receive her next dose of the Moderna vaccine on Election Day and was uncertain whether she would vote, she said. But if she does vote, she will still vote “Democrat, of course Democrat,” in the city elections. Asked about her biggest issue in the race, she, like Mr. Saperstein, kept her focus local.“For this area, there should be more trees,” she said. More

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      And Then There Was One: G.O.P. Defends Its Last Seat in Queens

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      The party struggles to hold on in an increasingly diverse borough, even as it fights its own internal battles.In heavily Democratic Queens, Councilman Eric Ulrich is a political oddity: He’s the only Republican elected to public office in the borough, and one of the only ones remaining in New York City outside of Staten Island.“One is the loneliest number,” Mr. Ulrich said.A white moderate, Mr. Ulrich has won four elections over his 12-year term representing District 32 in southern Queens. But because of term limits, he cannot run for re-election, making the race to replace him something of a last stand for Republicans in the borough.While Queens has long leaned Democratic, its Republican Party has for decades maintained a presence in citywide party politics, and up until less than a decade ago kept a grip on a handful of public offices.But waves of immigrants have transformed Queens into one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the nation, while a steady progressive shift in the borough’s politics has all but banished Republicans from elected office.The county party still has a base, in absolute terms: There are roughly 140,000 registered Republicans in Queens, the most of any borough in the city and more than in many large American cities. Those voters have helped two Republican mayors win five elections over the last 30 years in a city that is overwhelmingly Democratic.But the Queens Republican Party has been hampered by long-running feuds that have driven members out and hindered its ability to embrace those waves of immigrant voters, even though many of them espouse conservative values, said Tom Long, chairman of the Queens County Conservative Party, which endorses many Republicans in Queen races. And the party has suffered a series of public embarrassments, most recently in February when Philip Grillo, a district leader, was arrested for participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in Washington, D.C. Mr. Grillo retains his position while his case is adjudicated.“The division is killing the Republican Party,” Mr. Long said. “The average person gets disgusted and walks away.”Such discord has provided an opening for Democrats to eliminate Queens Republicans entirely from public office this year. There are several Democratic candidates vying in the June 22 primary for the chance to claim Mr. Ulrich’s seat in the November general election.District 32 is demographically and ideologically split: The northern portion voted heavily for Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020 and has seen the kind of influx of immigrants — including Latino, Indo-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Punjabi — that has made Queens a model of diversity. To the south, Blue Lives Matter flags and bumper stickers are ubiquitous in neighborhoods like the Rockaways and Breezy Point, a gated community at the southwestern tip of the district that is an enclave of white conservatism. It is one of the few areas in the city that voted overwhelmingly for Donald J. Trump in 2020. Despite the large number of Republicans in Queens, registered Democrats still outnumber them roughly by three to one in District 32, though that difference is much narrower than the seven-to-one edge that Democrats enjoy boroughwide. Democrats say it is time to replace Mr. Ulrich with a leader who better reflects the immigrants and voters of color who have largely replaced white voters in the district’s northern stretches.Felicia Singh and her opponents in the Democratic primary for a city council seat say it is time for a council member who better represents their district in southern Queens.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesTo win, they have to defeat Joann Ariola, 62, who is both the chairwoman of the Queens Republican Party and its candidate to save the District 32 seat. “Being the Republican, there’s pressure on me,” she said, “But I have lot of support in the district.”Ms. Ariola, a longtime civic leader in Howard Beach, a mostly white, Republican-leaning neighborhood, is running partly on a tough-on-crime platform that she hopes resonates with voters frustrated with liberal city leaders like Mayor Bill de Blasio, who she says has mismanaged the city and implemented policies that have helped lead to a rise in violent crime.“Right now, the city is off the track,” she said. “It is absolutely a derailed train and needs to be brought back to the center.”She said cuts in police funding and bail-reform measures have helped turn the city into “a blood-soaked shooting gallery” that is driving New Yorkers away. She also opposes the mayor’s plan to close Rikers Island and build smaller jails across the five boroughs.Mr. Ulrich said he was supporting Ms. Ariola, and that he believed she could win in November.“People in this district vote for the person, not the party,” he said. “They are willing to vote for a moderate Republican when the Democrat is too liberal.”But not all Queen Republicans agree. Ms. Ariola’s campaign has already been affected by the kind of vitriolic infighting that has divided borough Republicans for years.The Queens Republican Patriots, a splinter faction within the county party, backed a local businessman, Steve Sirgiovanni, to run against Ms. Ariola in the primary. Her team responded by getting him ousted from the ballot over his petition filings, a ruling his campaign is appealing.Joe Concannon, who founded the Queens Republican Patriots in 2018, said party leaders have become more fixated on battling fellow Republicans than on battling Democrats. The focus, he said, should be on building the party through fund-raising, enrollment and recruiting moderate Democrats frustrated with the leftward drift of their party.For decades, handfuls of Queens Republicans managed to win elections in the borough despite its demographic and political shifts. But in 2012, Councilman Peter Koo, a Republican, switched parties to the Democrats, citing excessive Republican infighting. In 2013, Republican Councilman Dan Halloran, whose belief in Paganism had already made him a controversial figure, left office after becoming embroiled in a bribery scheme to sell a spot on the Republican ballot.Mr. Concannon complained that the county organization has come under the stranglehold of Bart and John Haggerty, two brothers from Forest Hills who are its vice chairman and executive director. (John Haggerty was convicted in 2011 of stealing $1.1 million in funds from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign. Released in 2015, he has since resumed a leadership role.)Mr. Concannon said the brothers helped install Ms. Ariola in 2017 as a figurehead, while retaining the real power in the party.Bart Haggerty denied Mr. Concannon’s accusation. “Joann Ariola runs the Queens Republican Party,” he said, and referred further questions to Ms. Ariola. Ms. Ariola likewise pushed back, calling Mr. Concannon and his supporters “a group of incompetent people” without standing in the party. “They’re squawking loudly from the sidelines but that’s exactly where they are, on the sidelines,” she said. “They’re not in the game.”Despite the infighting, Queens Republicans remain largely united behind their ongoing support for Mr. Trump, and county Democratic leaders see the District 32 race as an opportunity for borough voters to effectively rebuke the county’s pro-Trump voters, said Representative Gregory Meeks, a Queens congressman who heads the borough’s Democratic Party.Of course, discord is common within political organizations. Queens Democratic Party leaders have been criticized by more progressive members as remaining too moderate. In a Democratic primary for a City Council seat in Flushing, several candidates recently formed a coalition against Sandra Ung, the candidate backed by county party leaders, as a show of force against the party.Michael Reich, the executive secretary of the Queens Democratic Party, said it would make a “full court press” for the primary victor, including campaign volunteers, help from local Democratic clubs and appearances by local elected Democratic officials.County Democratic leaders opted not to endorse a candidate in the primary because local district leaders could not agree on a favorite and because it was difficult to isolate a front-runner, given the vagaries of the city’s new ranked-choice voting rules, which will allow voters to select their top five candidates.There are several moderate Democrats in the primary, including Kaled Alamarie, 52, a city planner; Helal Sheikh, 41, a former city schoolteacher; Bella Matias, a founder of an education nonprofit; and Mike Scala, 38, a lawyer and activist from Howard Beach who won the Democratic primary for the council seat in 2017 before losing to Mr. Ulrich.Ms. Singh campaigned in a garment shop in Ozone Park.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesAnother candidate, Felicia Singh, 32, a former teacher, hopes to ride a progressive political wave that has swept much of Queens in recent years, most notably with the 2018 election of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes parts of Queens and the Bronx.Changing demographics are palpable in Ozone Park, a large part of the district’s northern section that in the 1990s was still an Italian stronghold where the mobster John Gotti once had his clubhouse and threw mammoth Fourth of July parties. Today, Bengali, Guyanese and Indian immigrants have moved in, Punjabi music blasts from passing cars and cricket games can be seen in schoolyards.Ms. Singh, campaigning outside the sari and pizza shops along 101st Street in Ozone Park, promised voters a “revolution of change.”Some Democrats believe that November could see not just a defeat for the Queens Republicans, but the election of the district’s first nonwhite council member.Thanks to ranked-choice voting, like-minded groups of voters now have a greater chance of electing a candidate who reflects their preferences — even if he or she is not their first choice — rather than splitting their vote among multiple candidates, said Evan Stavisky, a Democratic political strategist.In one scenario, voters of color could split their votes among multiple candidates of color — as most of the Democratic candidates are — and wind up essentially “agreeing” on a candidate who may not be their top choice. Ms. Singh said she would tackle issues that affect working-class immigrants, like her father, a 66-year-old Indian immigrant who became a victim of the taxi medallion crisis after declaring bankruptcy on his loan, leaving him in danger of losing the family’s Ozone Park house.“Now you have candidates of color who are ready to represent a community that has been neglected,” she said. More