A Democratic Socialists of America affiliated challenger named David Orkin knocked off a sitting state assemblymember in South Queens last month, and the neighborhood that put him over the top was Ridgewood, according to the Queens Chronicle.
Orkin beat incumbent Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar in the June 23 Democratic primary for Assembly District 38, which stretches from Ridgewood and Glendale down through Woodhaven, Ozone Park and Richmond Hill. The win puts him on November’s ballot. Rajkumar, a Woodhaven resident, won almost everywhere in the district, the Chronicle reported. Of the 54 election districts in AD 38, she lost only four outside of Ridgewood and a piece of Glendale.
Ridgewood decided the race. The neighborhood, sometimes called part of the “Commie Corridor,” delivered more than 1,500 votes to the DSA-affiliated Orkin, according to the Chronicle. No election district in AD 38 outside Ridgewood recorded more than 200 total votes. Parts of Ridgewood hit 300 in a single election district. In ED 4, Orkin took 253 votes to Rajkumar’s 49. In ED 1, it was 240 to 78.
Outside Ridgewood, the margins tightened. Orkin won the Glendale districts directly bordering Ridgewood, but he barely snagged ED 15 in Glendale, 74 to 65, per the Chronicle. Further west into Glendale, Rajkumar took back the majority, winning ED 11 by 52 to 41 and ED 14 by 62 to 60. Rajkumar’s strongest showing came in a section of her home Woodhaven, where she beat Orkin 97 to 47 in ED 32.
AD 38 has 39,581 active registered Democrats, the Chronicle reported, citing state enrollment data, but only 6,415 of them cast a ballot. Orkin took 3,722 of those votes. Citywide, just 17 percent of registered Democrats voted, according to a New York Post report the Chronicle cited.
One district south, Pesach Osina secured the November ballot line in Assembly District 23. Osina, an Orthodox Jewish longtime political staffer with roots in Far Rockaway, beat Howard Beach attorney Mike Scala. AD 23 has 41,080 active registered Democrats, but only 5,566 votes were cast, with 59.8 percent going to Osina, per preliminary results the Chronicle cited.
Scala polled better across most of the district’s 76 election districts, winning most of Howard Beach, Lindenwood and Ozone Park and doing well in Breezy Point and Roxbury, the Chronicle reported. Osina took the Rockaway peninsula. He pulled more than 2,000 combined votes from Far Rockaway and nearby Bayswater. In ED 29, a predominantly Orthodox Jewish area that had the district’s largest turnout, Osina beat Scala 430 to five.
All of these totals are preliminary and subject to change as the New York State Board of Elections certifies results in the coming weeks, the Chronicle noted.
Featured image: Bushwick Daily image
