Megan Burney
Due to the influx of mail-in voting this year, results from yesterday’s election are still pending. Absentee ballots will continue to be collected and counted by the Board of Elections and we won’t see the full count for a few weeks, so these are the unofficial results as of Wednesday June 24, 2020.
The NYS Board of Elections is currently reporting that Incumbent Senator Julia Salazar (D-District 18) holds a 68.2% lead over challenger Andy Marte. Since many voters opted to vote by way of absentee this year due to public health concerns over in-person voting and the spread of Coronavirus, these numbers only account for a portion of the total voting pool at this time. Still, there seems to be a wide enough margin in some of these races to predict who might come out on top.
And the NYC Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) provides a live map of the primary results broken down by Election District (ED) that clearly paints Salazar as the winner at this point.
“I’m really proud to say that it looks like we won every single ED except for one, and that one we’ve only lost [so far] by one vote,” Salazar told Bushwick Daily this morning.
In addition to these preliminary results, the Senator noted the “strong absentee program” that she and her campaign ran and offered her personal prediction: “The win will probably be certified.”
She was most proud, however, at the voter turnout in the district.
“Our campaign received more votes than any other senate campaign in the state,” She said. “It’s really impressive because we had really high turnout by districts that were hit hard by Coronavirus and that historically have had a very low voter turnout.”
One of Salazar’s former staffers seems to be making headway in his race for District Leader in AD 53, too. Samy Nemir Olivares likewise holds a 25.6% lead over sitting District Leader Tommy Torres.
“It’s incredible that North Brooklyn would overwhelming support this campaign,” Olivares told Bushwick Daily this morning. “I’m very excited about all the support and I think what this apparent victory shows is that people are ready for change, progressive change. People are ready for LGBTQ representation, people are ready for a socialist in local politics and I’m excited that I can bring this vision here to Bushwick.”
Last night Olivares also noted that his plans as District Leader include “working with neighbors to bring accountability to elected officials to make sure that they are doing what they have to do and that they actually serve the constituents.”
Though results remain uncertain, Olivares said it was “truly inspiring to see how many people got involved in hyper local politics.”
As Salazar and Olivares celebrated their results last night at a small election night gathering, Salazar’s opponent, Andy Marte, gave what seemed to be a concession speech over facebook.
“I just want to thank everyone for their support,” Marte said on video. “It was a good fight.” And he continued on to ask for better representation and for support from the community. “We need Bushwick, we need Williamsburg, we need our community to stand up and continue to fight and continue to vote.”
Marte also included a specific message to his opponent:
“My message to Senator Salazar is that if you really want to be ingrained in our community, you really have to reach out to those of us that have been here and you need to start going to meetings and you need to touch base with those of us that have been around. Being a face of a movement is good, and I applaud you for that, however, the job is much more than that and I look forward to working together. I look forward to moving our community forward, but most of all I look forward for the democratic party to grow.”
As for the Congressional race in our district which features long-time incumbent Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez (D-District 7) and Paperboy Love Prince, current polling shows that Congresswoman Velazquez is leading against the first-time challenger by nearly 60%.
Love Prince remained hopeful in an Instagram post last night. “Thank you all for everything! I love you!! You all campaigned for me and went out and talked to thousands of people and were spreading love! I love you! Let’s see what the results of the election are in a week!! Get in your absentee ballot ASAP”
To follow the live election results as votes continue to be counted click any of the links below:
https://nyenr.elections.ny.gov/
http://results.socialists.nyc/full-results.html?district=SD18 (ONLY FOR RACES FEATURING DSA CANDIDATES)
Cover photo by Alec Meeker.
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