Tentatively Great Election for DSA and NYC Left + City Hall Park Occupied

Elections: 

• With tens of thousand potential absentee votes still uncounted in every district, results from many of Tuesday’s primaries will not be clear until July. But in-person results showed decisive leads for NYC-DSA endorsed incumbents, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Astoria) and State Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Bushwick), as well as encouraging news for the rest of the DSA slate and NYC’s broader progressive left.

• Jabari Brisport leads Tremaine Wright the State Senate District 25 (Central Brooklyn) by nearly 3,000 votes, and Zohran Mamdani leads Aravella Simotas in Assembly District 36 (Astoria) by nearly 600. Marcela Mitaynes trails incumbent Felix Ortiz in Assembly District 51 (Sunset Park) by only 464 votes, where it appears that the presence of multiple progressive spoilers prevented what could have been a decisive victory against Ortiz. Phara Souffrant Forrest trails incumbent Walter Mosley in Assembly District 57 (Clinton Hill) by 588 votes.

• In New York’s 15h Congressional district, NYC-DSA endorsed Samelys Lopez is further behind, in fourth place in a very fractured race. But noted homophobe Ruben Diaz Sr. is also far off the lead, which is currently held by City Council Member Ritchie Torres. Assembly Member Michael Blake, who is currently in second place, accused the Board of Elections of coordinated voter suppression that targeted the black community in NY-15, although gave limited evidence to support a conspiracy versus widespread BOE incompetence.

• Jamaal Bowman holds a wide lead over Eliot Engel in the 16th Congressional District (Bronx, Westchester) race, and some publications have already called the race for him even though absentees are yet to be counted. Mondaire Jones (Rockland, Westchester) also looks to be headed for victory in the 17th Congressional District.

• Jessica González-Rojas took a strong lead in what would amount to an progressive upset against incumbent Assembly Member Michael DenDekker (District 34, Jackson Heights). Jennifer Rajkumar also took a dramatic lead against incumbent Assembly Member Michael Miller (District 38, Ridgewood).

• According to AMNY, at least 11 races from last week’s elections are close enough to be decisively impacted by absentee counts. The board of elections still has not provided a complete count of the number of ballots returned by voters through the mail.

• City & State and Ross Barkan’s newsletter both acknowledged that the results of last week’s election have cemented NYC-DSA as a primary force in NYC politics.

• Immediately after establishing a strong lead in the NY-15 race, Council Member Ritchie Torres appeared at a virtual event celebrating LGBTQ Pride in Israel, cohosted by Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer and a member of the IDF.

Local News:

• Activists led by VOCAL-NY organized an occupation of City Hall Park in the leadup to the July 1 City budget deadline, to demand a minimum of $1 billion cut from the NYPD. The protest has grown from about 100 activists on its first night to thousands of participants.

• Due to a $9 billion deficit caused by COVID-19, Mayor de Blasio has threatened cutting 22,000 city jobs in the July 1 budget unless Albany allows the City to borrow funds or provide new tax revenues.

• New York City lost 20% of its jobs during the coronavirus shutdown.

• The Appeal spoke with various legal experts who question the federal government’s involvement in the cases of Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman, two attorneys who were arrested and indicted on charges related to the burning of an NYPD vehicle during a Black Lives Matter protest on May 30.