Velazquez, Marjorie (1981- )

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    Ending 40-Year Hiatus, GOP Wins a NYC Council Seat in the Bronx

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    Although Democrats won contentious races all across New York, losses in the Bronx and throughout Long Island gave Republicans hope.The last time voters in the Bronx were represented by a Republican on the City Council, Mayor Ed Koch was still asking voters “How’m I doin’,” Ronald Reagan was president and hip-hop music was mostly a local phenomenon.The idea that voters in the Bronx, one of the most deeply Democratic counties in the country, might send a Republican representative to the City Council would be nothing less than a “national embarrassment,” Representative Ritchie Torres said at a recent rally for the Democratic incumbent, Marjorie Velázquez.On Wednesday, that political ignominy came to fruition.With less than a thousand votes to spare, Kristy Marmorato, a conservative Republican candidate, was declared the winner by The Associated Press of the tightest City Council contest in the city, roughly 15 hours after the polls had closed.Ms. Marmorato had sparred with Ms. Velázquez about crime and her support of a rezoning that would bring affordable housing to the neighborhood in District 13 in the northeast Bronx. The area had shown signs of tipping to the right: In 2021, the Republican candidate for mayor, Curtis Sliwa, won more votes in the district than the Democrat, Eric Adams.Sensing a rare opportunity to flip a seat, the Bronx Republican Party went all in on the contest. The party sent 20,000 text messages to their base; made 40,000 robocalls in English, Albanian and Arabic; and made 10,000 live calls.“We threw everything and the kitchen sink at her,” said Michael Rendino, the chairman of the Bronx Republican Party who is also Ms. Marmorato’s brother. “It’s a wake up call to the Democratic Party.”Ms. Velázquez’s defeat still sends chills through the city’s Democratic establishment and gives hope to Republicans. Both parties are closely watching a smattering of off-year suburban contests across New York as bellwethers for 2024, when a half dozen key congressional races in the state could tip the balance of power in the House of Representatives.But for the most part, the potential rightward shift driven by changing ethnic demographics did not materialize in New York City, where all 51 City Council seats were up for re-election because of a once-in-a-decade redistricting process.In southern Brooklyn, Justin Brannan, the chairman of the finance committee and one of the most powerful members of the Council, scored a resounding victory against Ari Kagan, a Democrat-turned-Republican who quickly adopted his party’s views on issues like crime and abortion.Councilman Justin Brannan, center right, repelled a challenge from a fellow Council member, Ari Kagan, in a heated contest in southern Brooklyn.Paul Frangipane for The New York TimesIn a neighboring district, Susan Zhuang, a moderate Democrat, defeated Ying Tan, a Republican, in a district created to recognize the growth of the city’s Asian American population.The story was different on Long Island, where Republicans routed Democrats. Their dominance harkened back to the 1970s, when its suburban towns were a Republican stronghold, and suggested that concerns about crime, the cost of living and the state’s unfolding migrant crisis might be doing long-term damage to Democrats’ image in an otherwise hospitable state, where abortion rights are generally seen as safe.After Ed Romaine’s 15-point victory in the race for Suffolk County executive, Republicans have now flipped nearly every major office on Long Island since 2020. They also notched key victories in Long Beach and North Hempstead in Nassau County, traditionally Democratic areas included in the must-win districts of Republican Representatives Anthony D’Esposito and George Santos.The results left Democrats, who have lost three straight election cycles in the area, in a near panic.“The conventional wisdom is that the road to a Democratic majority of the House runs through New York,” said Representative Steve Israel, a former New York congressman who once ran Democrats’ campaign arm. “But there’s nothing but yellow lights blinking for Democrats, especially on Long Island, suggesting they are not getting the traction they need.”He said he had seen a “perception about crime and disorder and lawlessness that is hitting the anxieties of suburban voters,” with little sign of abating.However, the party notched much stronger performances north of New York City, where voters in the suburban towns that hug the Hudson River and in the state’s western reaches behaved much more like their counterparts in Virginia or Ohio.Democrats won key local races in Westchester and Rockland Counties, where Representative Mike Lawler, a Republican, faces one of the toughest re-election fights in the country next year. They appeared to be on track to win a trio of competitive district attorney contests in Ulster, Dutchess and Columbia Counties, a hotly contested territory where Representatives Pat Ryan, a Democrat, and Marc Molinaro, a Republican, will be defending key swing seats next year.And in Erie County, which includes Buffalo and its suburbs, Mark Poloncarz won a record fourth term as county executive. Republicans had pummeled Mr. Poloncarz over his handling of the state’s migrant crisis, but voters paid little mind, handing the Democrat a nearly 20-point victory.Jason Weingartner, the executive director of the state Republican Party, conceded upstate counties had lessons to learn from Long Island, particularly convincing voters to go to the polls early.Ms. Velázquez’s support for more affordable housing in the district displeased some voters.Anna Watts for The New York TimesEven though Ms. Velázquez won the June Democratic primary by almost 50 percentage points, the fault lines in that election showed that she was vulnerable on both crime and her decision to support the rezoning of Bruckner Boulevard to bring affordable housing to the neighborhood, Mr. Rendino said. Ms. Velázquez had opposed the project for months before changing her mind.Ms. Velázquez was elected as a progressive in 2021 but soon joined more than a dozen other Democrats in leaving the Progressive Caucus after they were asked to sign a statement of principles that called for “the size and scope” of the New York Police Department to be reduced. During the Democratic primary, Ms. Velázquez emphasized that she was a moderate.“I’ve heard that you’re socialist because you’re like A.O.C., and it’s like, no, I’m not,” Ms. Velázquez said in June, referring to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist.Ms. Marmorato, an X-ray technician and a married mother of an elementary aged daughter, has said that she was driven to run for office because she opposed plans to build mid-rise housing in an area of mostly single-family homes as part of the Bruckner rezoning and a proposal for supportive housing for people released from prison at a former Jacobi Medical Center building near her home.Speaking on NY1, she said that people wanted change. She called for more police officers.“They feel like there’s no more local control in our community,” she said. “They don’t have a say in what’s going on in their neighborhood and they’re just fed up with it.”Neither Ms. Velázquez nor her campaign responded to multiple requests to comment on Wednesday. Camille Rivera, a Democratic political consultant at New Deal Strategies, said the concerns raised about the Bruckner rezoning relied on “coded language” and racial fear mongering. Joseph Savino Jr. was the last Republican member of the City Council from the Bronx. He served as Councilman at Large from 1977 to 1983 before the position was abolished. In 1985 he was convicted of illegally possessing a machine gun and then pleaded guilty to tax evasion for failing to report $300,000 in income.Jamaal Bailey, a state senator who is the chairman of the Bronx Democratic Party, called Ms. Velázquez’s loss a local issue that would have little bearing on next year.“Taking a stand to make sure that more people have a place to live is a principled stance,” Mr. Bailey said, “and one that I believe that she’s proud of and one that we should be proud of as Democrats, especially in a housing crisis.”On Wednesday morning, Mr. Torres, one of Ms. Velázquez’s closest allies, described his “national embarrassment” remark as hyperbole meant to motivate supporters before an important election.“All politics is local, and nowhere are those words more true than in the East Bronx, where the racial and class politics of a rezoning can be treacherous,” Mr. Torres said. “A perfect storm put the seat in Republican hands.” More

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      New York’s Primary Elections 2023: What to Know

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      Primaries were being contested Tuesday for a range of New York City Council seats, district attorneys in the Bronx and Queens, and offices throughout New York State.Several Democratic incumbents in New York saw unusual challenges from more conservative candidates in Tuesday’s primary, with the opponents hoping to benefit from a demographic change, as an influx of immigrants is shifting some districts to the right.Incumbents easily held off primary challenges in Democratic primaries for district attorney in Queens and the Bronx; further north, a Council race in Buffalo was won by a woman whose son was shot in the Tops supermarket racist massacre.In New York City, just over 149,000 people had cast their ballots as of 6 p.m., according to the City Board of Elections. That includes 44,611 votes that were cast during the nine-day early voting period that began June 17 and ended on Sunday — less than a quarter of the early-voting turnout two years ago, when candidates for mayor were competing in the primary.There were contested primaries in New York City Council contests across the boroughs, with the races for a two-year term instead of the usual four years because of redistricting. Every seat on the City Council is up for re-election, but less than half of the 51 Council seats are being contested in primaries, and of those, 13 races feature more than two candidates — making ranked-choice voting, where voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, necessary.Ranked-choice voting will not be used in the races for district attorney.How Ranked-Choice Voting Will Affect the ResultsThe New York City Board of Elections will reveal the first-place vote totals each candidate receives on Tuesday; if one of the candidates in the 13 Council contests where there are three or more contestants draws 50 percent of the vote or more, a winner should be declared.If no candidate hits the 50 percent mark, the board will use the ranked-choice system, but not until July 5. The board usually runs the first ranked-choice calculation seven days after the vote, but because that day falls on the Fourth of July, the tabulation will be delayed a day.If necessary, additional ranked-choice tabulations will be held each week afterward, on July 11 and July 18, said Vincent Ignizio, the deputy executive director of the Board of Elections.About 15,000 absentee ballots have already been filed, but additional absentee ballots can be received a week after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by June 27.Under recent changes to state law, voters will also have an opportunity to cure or fix mistakes on their absentee ballots. The tentative last day to receive absentee ballot cures is July 17.Because of the low turnout, Board of Elections officials don’t expect that more than three rounds of ranked-choice voting tabulations will be required.Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, a government watchdog group, said ranked-choice voting gave people more options. “We heard some voters in our 2021 exit polling say that because they knew they had the ability to rank, they actually paid more attention to more candidates,” she said.Some Key Races to WatchNew York City District Attorney RacesThe incumbent district attorneys of the Bronx and Queens both fended off challengers to win their respective Democratic primaries, according to The Associated Press.In the Bronx, Darcel Clark defeated Tess Cohen, a civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, who was the first person to challenge Ms. Clark in a primary. With 65 percent of the votes counted, Ms. Clark led Ms. Cohen by more than 12,000 votes.In Queens, Melinda Katz, rebuffed a challenge from her right, defeating George Grasso, a former Police Department first deputy commissioner who attacked Ms. Katz as being soft on crime. Ms. Katz disputed the accusation by pointing to her focus on retail theft, gang takedowns and gun seizures.The challenge from Mr. Grasso came four years after Ms. Katz narrowly defeated a democratic socialist who wanted to abolish the police and end cash bail. Ms. Katz was leading Mr. Grasso and another opponent, Devian Daniels, by 27,000 votes with 71 percent of the vote counted.Ms. Clark, whose tenure began in 2016, was the first Black woman to be elected district attorney in New York. She grew up in the Bronx, was raised in public housing and went to public schools.She said that her biggest accomplishment as district attorney has been “putting humanity into the criminal justice system.”Central Harlem City Council RaceIn Harlem, three moderate Democrats are running in one of the most competitive races in the city to replace Kristin Richardson Jordan, a democratic socialist who dropped out last month.Ms. Jordan faced questions about her belief that the police should be abolished and about her far-left stance on housing development. Her name will remain on the ballot.The three Democrats running to replace her have sought to distance themselves from Ms. Jordan. They are: Inez Dickens, 73, who held the Harlem Council seat for 12 years before joining the State Assembly; Yusef Salaam, 49, one of five men exonerated in the rape of a female jogger in Central Park in 1989; and Al Taylor, 65, who is serving his sixth year in the Assembly.All three candidates gathered at Lenox Avenue and West 134th Street on Tuesday afternoon to try to woo voters. Ms. Dickens’s staff used a bullhorn, while Mr. Salaam’s team rang a bell every time a voter said they had ranked him first.Chantel Jackson, an assemblywoman from the Bronx who grew up in Harlem, came out with her nearly 2-year-old son to hand out fliers for Mr. Taylor. Mr. Salaam and Mr. Taylor had cross-endorsed each other, asking voters to rank them first and second. Ms. Dickens was endorsed by Mayor Eric Adams.The major issues in the historically Black neighborhood include the loss of Black residents, lack of affordable housing and a saturation of drug treatment centers and social service providers.The candidates have struggled to differentiate themselves. All three say they would have supported a new housing development on West 145th Street that Ms. Jordan initially rejected because it was not affordable enough.Ms. Dickens and Mr. Taylor have contended that their experience would make a difference, while Mr. Salaam, who moved back to the city from Georgia to run for the seat, has argued that it is time for a generational shift.“Knowledge is power,” Ms. Dickens said while campaigning. “If you don’t have the knowledge, working in the system is difficult.”Other City Council RacesIn Lower Manhattan, the incumbent Chris Marte, a progressive Democrat, was leading challengers Susan Lee, a consultant; Ursila Jung, a private investor; and Pooi Stewart, a substitute teacher. All the challengers emphasized public safety and education and argued that Mr. Marte was too far to the left.In the Bronx, incumbent, Councilwoman Marjorie Velázquez, was leading her opponents who criticized her because she backed the rezoning of Bruckner Boulevard in Throgs Neck, which will bring affordable housing to the area.In southern Brooklyn, three Asian American Democrats are running in a newly formed district.The candidates are Wai Yee Chan, the executive director at Homecrest Community Services; Stanley Ng, a retired computer programmer; and Susan Zhuang, the chief of staff for Assemblyman William Colton.In a district that has swung to the right in recent years, the winner of the Democratic primary is expected to face a tough general election challenge from the Republican primary winner.Vito J. LaBella, a conservative Republican and former Police Department officer, is facing Ying Tan, who works in senior services, in that primary.Buffalo Common CouncilIn Buffalo, Zeneta Everhart, a political newcomer whose son was a victim of a racist shooting at a Tops supermarket last May, appeared on track to defeat a well-known progressive, India Walton, in a primary race for a seat on the city’s Common Council.The seat represents Masten, an East Side district where the Tops is located and which is a traditional base of Black political power in Buffalo, New York’s second largest city and a Democratic stronghold.Ms. Everhart, a former television news producer who works for State Senator Timothy Kennedy, testified in front of Congress after the shooting, in which her son, Zaire Goodman, was shot in the neck but survived. Ten other people — all Black — were killed by the gunman, who targeted East Buffalo because of its large Black population.Ms. Walton, a democratic socialist, became a liberal star after she defeated Mayor Byron Brown in a primary in 2021, only to lose the general election that fall after Mr. Brown mounted a write-in campaign.In this campaign, Ms. Walton had criticized Ms. Everhart’s connections to the Democratic establishment, which included endorsements from the county Democratic Committee and Senator Chuck Schumer. But returns on Tuesday showed Ms. Everhart leading with about two-thirds of the vote, with about 85 percent of precincts reporting.Jesse McKinley More