By Noah Powelson<\/p>\n
While democratic socialist members across the city celebrated on Tuesday night, the atmosphere was different inside State Senator Jessica Ramos\u2019 Election Day watch party.<\/p>\n
Ramos was ousted by her former political ally Assemblymember Jessica Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas on Tuesday night, ending a hotly contested primary election for Senate District 13 that was mired in attack ads from both sides .<\/p>\n
Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas received roughly 6,400 votes as of reporting time, roughly 47 percent of the total. She defeated the seven-year incumbent Ramos, who received about 5,000 votes. Former State Senator Hiram Monserrate received just under 2,000 votes at the time of reporting.<\/p>\n
Inside a watch party held in a local community center in Corona, Ramos supporters and canvassers watched with increasing hung heads as the returning polls made it increasingly clear victory wasn\u2019t possible.<\/p>\n
Halfway through the night, Ramos spoke to her supporters and conceded defeat, attributing her loss to the massive campaign spending in the race. While Ramos slightly lagged behind fundraising compared to Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas for most of the campaign, a $850,000 donation made in the last week of the election to the Progress for New York super PAC \u2013 which supported Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas\u2019 campaign \u2013 tipped the scales, according to Ramos.<\/p>\n
Ramos said she believed the funding came from Mets owner Steve Cohen as retribution for Ramos\u2019 opposition to Metropolitan Park, a casino and entertainment complex Cohen eventually received state approval for.<\/p>\n
Ramos said that being outspent and Monserrate\u2019s vote share ultimately decided the campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cTonight, we did not prevail,\u201d Ramos told her supporters on Tuesday night. \u201cIt was a race where we were outspent 10 to one. We know that outside money, billionaire money, was poured last minute into this race.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat, coupled with a third candidate who clearly took enough Spanish-speaking votes away, really I think made a difference in tonight\u2019s results,\u201d Ramos added.<\/p>\n
Announcing her victory the next day, Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas attributed her success to the widespread action of her volunteers and canvassers who aggressively handed out flyers and knocked on doors these past weeks. Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas also enjoyed the endorsements of Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York Attorney General Letitia James. <\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, we knocked on more than 50,000 doors, engaged thousands of neighbors, and proved that a grassroots movement can overcome the politics of division,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas said in a statement. \u201cWhile this campaign was too often marked by personal attacks, misinformation, and efforts to divide our community, voters made clear that they want something different. They want leadership that listens, brings people together, and focuses on solving problems. They want a government they can trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas also defeated former Monserrate, who made another unsuccessful bid at the State Senate after being ousted in 2008 following charges for misdemeanor assault.<\/p>\n
Monserrate did not respond to an Eagle inquiry for this story. <\/p>\n
Ramos was first elected to the New York State Senate in 2019. She worked in several roles in city government prior to her election, including as a communications adviser in City Hall, and was also a Queens County Democratic district leader from 2010 to 2014.<\/p>\n
She ran for New York City mayor in 2025, but effectively dropped out of the Democratic primary to endorse former Governor Andrew Cuomo for the position over then-Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, a move that alienated many of her progressive allies. <\/p>\n
She will continue serving her constituency until Dec. 31. She encouraged her supporters to respect their new state senator, and said she\u2019d continue to advocate for her community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never really thought I\u2019d end up running for office,\u201d Ramos told her supporters on Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s been a hell of a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Noah Powelson While democratic socialist members across the city celebrated on Tuesday night, the atmosphere was different…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-277185","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\/277185","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=277185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}