By Jacob Kaye, Ryan Schwach and Noah Powelson<\/p>\n
Rain trickled in throughout Tuesday in Queens, potentially dampening some voters\u2019 enthusiasm for a slew of contested races in the World\u2019s Borough. <\/p>\n
Poll workers and campaign volunteers greatly outnumbered voters at many poll sites across Queens at the start of election day, which came after an early voting period that similarly saw a drop in the number of votes cast compared to last year, when Zohran Mamdani\u2019s campaign for mayor inspired tens of thousands of New Yorkers, many of them on the younger side, to show up to vote for the first time. <\/p>\n
Turnout totals appeared to shift back to historical norms on Tuesday, with no major city or statewide primary drawing voters from all corners of the five boroughs. <\/p>\n
By 3 p.m., around 63,000 voters in Queens had cast ballots \u2013 around 33,000 of those ballots were cast during the city\u2019s nine-day early voting period. Last year, as a crowded Democratic mayoral primary led by Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo dominated headlines, nearly 228,000 voters in Queens cast ballots by the close of election day. <\/p>\n
But Tuesday\u2019s numbers far surpassed voter turnout in 2024, when fewer than half as many Queens residents voted early. <\/p>\n
While turnout didn\u2019t come anywhere near 2025\u2019s totals, many who trekked to the polls on Tuesday in Queens said the energy generated by Mamdani\u2019s historic mayoral campaign last year remained a powerful influence. <\/p>\n
In New York\u2019s 7th Congressional District, which includes parts of Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside, Maspeth, Ridgewood, Woodhaven and North Brooklyn, nearly all voters who spoke with the Eagle said they were backing Claire Valdez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed by Mamdani, in her race against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, City Councilmember Julie Won and attorney Vichal Kumar.<\/p>\n
Similarly, a large number of voters told the Eagle they had cast ballots for attorney David Orkin in his bid to unseat Assembly Jenifer Rajkumar in District 38, which includes parts of Ridgewood, Glendale, Woodhaven, Ozone Park, and Richmond Hill. While Mamdani didn\u2019t formally endorse Orkin, the public defender was backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the city\u2019s DSA chapter. <\/p>\n
Voters also pointed to Mamdani\u2019s endorsements in other closely watched Queens races, including the contest for Senate District 12 between Aber Kawas and Assemblymember Steven Raga, and the Assembly District 37 race between Samantha Kattan, Pia Rahman and Melissa Orlando.<\/p>\n
Beyond Mamdani\u2019s sphere, voters in Jackson Heights, Corona, East Elmhurst, Elmhurst, and parts of Astoria cast ballots in a heated race between State Senator Jessica Ramos, Assemblymember Jessica Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas, and Hiram Monserrate. Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas decided to challenge Ramos for her seat after the incumbent, who ran a failed bid for the mayor\u2019s office last year, endorsed Cuomo in the final days of the race. While Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas was endorsed by nearly every progressive lawmaker in the city, Mamdani stayed out of the race. <\/p>\n
Though the mayor\u2019s influence appeared to draw a number of voters to the polls, whether it would result in victories for his preferred candidates had yet to be determined Tuesday afternoon. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a snapshot of poll sites in some of the most competitive districts in Queens on election day. <\/p>\n
New York\u2019s 7th Congressional District<\/p>\n
The battle for New York\u2019s 7th Congressional District \u2013 perhaps the most contentious and consequential race in Queens \u2013 was at the top of Western Queens voters\u2019 minds on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Voters walking by poll sites often couldn\u2019t make it to the end of the block without being handed literature by volunteers with all four candidates running the race \u2013 Claire Valdez, an assemblymember from Queens; Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president; Julie Won, a city councilmember from Queens; and Vichal Kumar, a civil defense attorney. <\/p>\n
Alex Messersmith, a 29-year-old Sunnyside resident who cast his ballot at I.S. 125 Thom J. McCann in Woodside, said his door was knocked by each of the campaigns in the past several weeks. <\/p>\n
While he said he felt most aligned with Valdez\u2019s platform, it was Mamdani that ultimately pushed him toward the candidate. <\/p>\n
\u201cI voted for who he endorsed,\u201d Messersmith said. \u201cI think a lot of us that followed Mamdani’s campaign are going to take his endorsements pretty seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Valdez\u2019 native Ridgewood, voters seemed excited to vote for their assemblymember, who had been representing them since 2024. <\/p>\n
\u201cI really believe in what Claire Valdez stands for,\u201d said Pete Rittweger, a member of the DSA. <\/p>\n
Valdez was one of Mamdani\u2019s earliest supporters last year and Mamdani returned the favor this year, pushing Valdez\u2019s candidacy over Reynoso\u2019s, spurning incumbent Representative Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez. <\/p>\n
The race to replace the retiring Vel\u00e1zquez has largely come down to Valdez and Reynoso. <\/p>\n
Reynoso, a former city councilmember, has been a progressive darling throughout his career. In addition to Vel\u00e1zquez, he received endorsements from Attorney General Letitia James, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, the Queens County Democratic Party, and the Working Families Party. As such, Valdez\u2019s campaign has painted Reynoso as the institutional candidate, while Reynoso\u2019s campaign has described Valdez as an outsider, unprepared to represent the district he grew up in. <\/p>\n
Jen Greene said she thinks of herself as \u201ctoo left\u201d for the DSA, but came out to vote for Valdez. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not for institution-backed people,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to switch it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least some voters in Queens on Tuesday cast their ballot in the race for Won, their local councilmember. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jacob Kaye, Ryan Schwach and Noah Powelson Rain trickled in throughout Tuesday in Queens, potentially dampening some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-275695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275695","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=275695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}