Two Democratic Assembly candidates declared victory Wednesday after manual recounts in Manhattan and Queens races that remained unresolved for more than three weeks after primary day.<\/p>\n
David Siffert<\/a> said they won the Democratic primary in Manhattan\u2019s 66th Assembly District by 15 votes, while Patrick Martinez<\/a> declared victory in Queens\u2019 30th Assembly District after what his campaign called a full count of every ballot. The Board of Elections, however, had not yet provided final vote totals of either contest as of publication.<\/p>\n In AD66, Siffert\u2019s campaign said they secured the Democratic nomination after a two-day manual recount, holding a 15-vote lead over Jeannine Kiely<\/a>. The campaign said Kiely withdrew her lawsuit and conceded the race after the parties appeared in court on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The race had flipped after election night. Siffert trailed Kiely by 56 votes in preliminary results, according to Siffert\u2019s campaign, but that count excluded affidavit ballots, late-arriving mail ballots, cured mail ballots, and data from one polling place that failed to transfer on election night due to a data error. After all votes were counted, Siffert pulled ahead by 15 votes, triggering the automatic recount.<\/p>\n Kiely filed a petition in New York County Supreme Court on July 7, seeking to preserve her rights under state election law and allow for court supervision of the recount if necessary. Her filing said election-night results showed her leading Siffert 4,169 to 4,113, but that Siffert was later unofficially ahead by about 12 votes after the canvass. amNewYork has reached out to Kiely\u2019s campaign for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the honor of a lifetime to be the Democratic nominee to represent Assembly District 66,\u201d Siffert said in a statement. \u201cThis community has been my home for 20 years, and it\u2019s my favorite place in the world.\u201d Siffert also thanked Kiely, saying they had \u201can enormous amount of respect\u201d for her and her work in the district.<\/p>\n Siffert, a civil rights lawyer and NYU Law instructor, would be the first openly nonbinary person elected to New York state government, according to their campaign. If elected in November, they will succeed Assembly Member Deborah Glick, who is retiring; Glick had been the first openly gay New York State legislator in history.<\/p>\n The AD66 race pitted candidates with different bases of support in downtown Manhattan politics. Kiely, a longtime Manhattan Community Board 2 member and Democratic district leader, had support from prominent elected officials and unions, including Rep. Jerry Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Assembly Member Glick, Council Members Chris Marte, Gale Brewer and Harvey Epstein, UFT and NYSUT.<\/p>\n Siffert drew support from progressive and issue-focused groups, including Village Independent Democrats, Sunrise Movement NYC, Citizens Union, Tenants PAC, UNITE HERE Local 100, Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, and Planned Parenthood of Greater New York Action Fund, according to their campaign.<\/p>\n Queens Assembly candidate declares victory after \u2018full and fair count\u2019<\/p>\n Meanwhile, on Wednesday in Queens, Martinez said he was \u201chumbled and honored\u201d to become the Democratic nominee for the 30th Assembly District after \u201ca full and fair count of every ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn a race decided by so few votes, their diligence gave this community confidence that the outcome is correct,\u201d Martinez said of the Board of Elections staff. \u201cWhether you voted for me or not, I will represent all of you: every family, every block, and every corner of this district.\u201d<\/p>\n Martinez also thanked opponents Shamsul Haque<\/a> and Somnath Ghimire, saying they ran \u201cserious, positive campaigns\u201d and that he looked forward to working with them for the district.<\/p>\n Martinez had filed his own election-law petition in Queens County Supreme Court on July 1. At the time, unofficial returns showed him leading Haque by 13 votes, 2,703 to 2,690, with Ghimire in third at 689 votes, according to the filing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Martinez, a Woodside resident, Democratic district leader and Queens Community Board 2 member, works in digital ad sales and is the nephew of former Queens Democratic Party leader and Rep. Joe Crowley, according to City & State.<\/a> He entered the race with the backing of the Queens Democratic Party and a long list of labor unions and elected officials, including Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez, Assembly Member Catalina Cruz, 32BJ, DC37, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and the New York State AFL-CIO.<\/p>\n Haque, a retired NYPD lieutenant commander and co-founder of the Bangladeshi American Police Association, ran as a progressive focused on affordability, public education, health care and immigrant communities. If elected, he would have been the first Bangladeshi American to serve in the state Legislature, according to City & State<\/a>. His campaign touted endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, UNITE HERE Local 100, CWA Local 1182 and the Muslim Democratic Club of New York.<\/p>\n The 30th Assembly District includes Woodside, Maspeth, Elmhurst and parts of East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights. It is currently represented by Assembly Member Steven Raga, who made an unsuccessful state Senate bid this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Requests for comment were sent to the Kiely and Haque campaigns.\n<\/p>\n This a developing story. Check back for updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Democratic Assembly candidates declared victory Wednesday after manual recounts in Manhattan and Queens races that remained unresolved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[89536,12881,6369,113080,75,84,83,9,24,63,107078,113081,106391],"class_list":["post-296966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-2026-democratic-primary","tag-2026-elections","tag-board-of-elections","tag-david-sitler","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-patrick-martinez","tag-recount","tag-state-assembly-races"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296966","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=296966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}