A reasonable Democrat who’s among the many New York Metropolis Council’s strongest members beat his Republican opponent on Tuesday, in accordance with The Related Press. By prevailing within the southern Brooklyn race, Democrats held a council seat that had proven indicators of drifting away from their management.
The Democrat, Justin Brannan, the Council’s finance chairman, defeated Ari Kagan, who was elected to the Council as a Democrat in 2021, however left the celebration final 12 months and rapidly adopted Republican stances on points reminiscent of abortion and crime.
The 2 incumbents wound up working in the identical South Brooklyn district on account of a once-in-a-decade redistricting course of that noticed all 51 Council seats up for re-election.
Democrats overwhelmingly management the Metropolis Council, and plenty of ran unopposed on Tuesday — together with Yusef Salaam, one of many so-called Central Park 5 defendants who received a hotly contested Council major in Harlem this previous summer time.
However Republicans had been hoping to flip a seat or two, with Mr. Kagan and a candidate within the Bronx, Kristy Marmorato, considered their finest hopes. Ms. Marmorato, an X-ray technician working on the Republican and Conservative traces, was difficult Marjorie Velázquez, the Democratic incumbent within the northern Bronx.
The expansion within the measurement and political affect of the Asian American group had been additionally mirrored on this 12 months’s poll.
In a brand new southern Brooklyn district that was created as a part of the redistricting course of to account for the expansion of that group, Susan Zhuang, a Democrat and the chief of workers for William Colton, an assemblyman, confronted Ying Tan, the Republican.
In northern Queens, the Republican incumbent, Vickie Paladino, defeated Tony Avella, a Democrat and former council member, in a rematch from two years in the past.
Inna Vernikov, a Republican who was just lately charged with brazenly displaying a gun on her hip at a pro-Palestine rally the place she was a counterprotester, simply defeated two candidates in one other South Brooklyn district.
Melinda Katz, the Queens district legal professional and a reasonable Democrat, additionally received simply over Michael Mossa, the Republican nominee. Mr. Mossa tried unsuccessfully to color Ms. Katz as a far-left progressive who was delicate on crime.
Voters additionally thought of two statewide ballot measures that will permit native governments to extend their debt limits for constructing sewage-treatment vegetation and for varsity districts in small cities to enhance their bodily properties.
