By Jacob Kaye<\/p>\n
Diana Moreno was elected on Tuesday to replace Mayor Zohran Mamdani in the State Assembly, handily winning the three-way race in the low turnout special election. <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t particularly close. <\/p>\n
Moreno brought in nearly 74 percent of the vote with around 99 percent of ballots counted on Tuesday night in the race for Assembly District 36. <\/p>\n
Her stiffest competition was herself. Carrying both the Democratic and Working Families ballot line, Moreno, the Democratic nominee, beat out Moreno, the Working Families nominee, by a mere 200 votes. <\/p>\n
Rana Abdelhamid, a local organizer and nonprofit leader, finished second with around 17 percent of the vote. Mary Jobaida, also a local organizer and former Assembly candidate, finished last with a little under 8 percent of the vote. <\/p>\n
Moreno\u2019s victory, which she\u2019ll have to defend in the upcoming June primary race for the seat, appeared inevitable. <\/p>\n
Moreno was not only endorsed by Mamdani \u2013 who won 70 percent of the vote in the district in the November mayoral race \u2013 but she was also backed by the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, the Working Families Party and the Queens County Democratic Party, in a rare, if not unprecedented, alignment from the three political organizations. <\/p>\n
On the campaign trail, the Ecuadorian-born, Astoria resident billed herself as Mamdani\u2019s political successor and vowed to fight for his agenda in the state legislature. She\u2019ll arrive at the Assembly just as state budget negotiations start to heat up. <\/p>\n
At her election night party in Astoria, Moreno said she was committed to fight every single day to make sure that our district, Astoria and Long Island City, becomes the model for the future that we want to see in this country.\u201d Many voters in Assembly District 36 are represented by DSA-backed candidates in the City Council, the state legislature, Congress, and, now, the mayor\u2019s office. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are showing the world what it means to build a world where the dignity of workers is at the center of our politics, where the safety and precious life of all children is equal and respected,\u201d Moreno said during her victory speech. \u201cThat is the path forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mamdani traveled from City Hall to his old neighborhood to welcome Moreno to the office he once held. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis district, it means a lot to all of us because it’s home,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cI can tell you, there is no one that I would rather see leading this district, leading this fight for working people across the entire state, than our new and next assemblymember, Diana Moreno.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jacob Kaye Diana Moreno was elected on Tuesday to replace Mayor Zohran Mamdani in the State Assembly,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-122370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}