By Jacob Kaye and Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s support and the political energy he generated a year ago, democratic socialist candidates in Queens were on track to sweep races for Congress, the State Senate and State Assembly on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Congressional candidate Claire Valdez, Assembly candidates Samantha Kattan and David Orkin, and Senate candidate Aber Kawas all appeared headed to victory as unofficial election results were tallied after the polls closed on election day. <\/p>\n
It was a powerful showing for Mamdani\u2019s brand in the World\u2019s Borough, where DSA-endorsed candidates were poised to pick up three new seats.<\/p>\n
Beyond the dominance of the DSA in Queens, voters appeared generally interested in change. Two incumbents \u2013 State Senator Jessica Ramos and Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar \u2013 appeared to have been toppled by candidates who challenged them from their left. <\/p>\n
Valdez, who will likely be elected to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez in New York\u2019s 7th Congressional District in November, was able to celebrate victory early in the night, picking up 56 percent of the vote with around 92 percent of ballots counted an hour after the polls closed. Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso had around 35 percent of the vote at the same point in the evening. <\/p>\n
Apparent victories were solidified relatively early in the night for the other DSA candidates as well. <\/p>\n
Kawas, who is running to replace retiring State Senator Michael Gianaris in District 12, had won around 60 percent of the vote with 95 percent of ballots counted Tuesday night. Assemblymember Steven Raga, Kawas\u2019 only opponent, held around 40 percent of the vote. <\/p>\n
With around 94 percent of ballots counted, Kattan held a 50-point lead over both of her opponents, Pia Rahman and Melissa Orlando. <\/p>\n
And Orkin, an attorney who was not formally backed by Mamdani but who received an endorsement from the DSA, received nearly 59 percent of the vote over Rajkumar, who has represented Assembly District 38 since 2021. She was one of several young candidates from Queens that year to defeat an incumbent on the way to victory. Also among them was Mamdani, whose political influence appeared to play a role in Rajkumar\u2019s ousting. <\/p>\n
At 99 Scott, a live music venue in Brooklyn where the DSA held a joint Queens results party, the crowd erupted as soon as the initial votes were counted. They did not stop as the results continued to pour in. <\/p>\n
This time last year, many of the same DSA members and elected officials were celebrating what seemed at the time like the mountain top \u2013 a DSA member had been elected to be the Democratic nominee for mayor. On Tuesday, they celebrated a complete and overwhelming sweep of every Queens race they contested. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s what we dreamed of, what we worked our asses off for,\u201d said Assemblymember Diana Moreno, who won a special election to replace Mamdani in the Assembly in February and who cruised to victory on Tuesday. \u201cThese are the results of an actual democracy, people power at work. We are showing that we can defeat the establishment.\u201d <\/p>\n
This is a developing story. Check back for more on Queens\u2019 election results. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jacob Kaye and Ryan Schwach Powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s support and the political energy he generated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-276126","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\/276126","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=276126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}