Former federal worker Alissa Ellman has secured the Democratic nomination in the race for New York’s 24th Congressional District, the Associated Press declared.
The U.S. Army veteran defeated Diana Kastenbaum, the former CEO of a tool-and-die casting company, in Tuesday’s primary elections, denying Kastenbaum her second shot as a party nominee for Congress.
As of the latest unofficial results, Ellman had 61.4% of the vote to Kastenbaum’s 38.4%, with 70.56% of the estimated vote counted.
After her Army deployment ended in 2004, Ellman served as a military contractor in Afghanistan for four more years before returning home to go to school.
Ellman was recently a file clerk at the Buffalo VA until 2025 when she was one of 2,500 VA employees fired by the short-lived Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Ellman was a guest of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at President Donald Trump’s Joint Address to Congress shortly after his second term began in 2025.
She will face Republican U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney, who is running for her third term in the 24th District, in the November general election, and her fifth term in Congress overall.
The 24th District snakes along Lake Ontario’s shoreline from the Thousand Islands to Niagara County, save for the greater Rochester area.
Election Day is Nov. 3.