{"id":13529,"date":"2025-06-25T12:50:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/13529\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T12:50:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:50:18","slug":"hanif-aviles-post-early-wins-in-nyc-council-primary-races-marte-cruising-toward-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/13529\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanif, Aviles post early wins in NYC Council primary races; Marte cruising toward victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

As all eyes in New York were on the Democratic mayoral primary<\/a>, City Council election results started taking shape Tuesday night, with early wins posted in Broooklyn by Councilwoman Shahana Hanif and Councilman Christopher Marte making a strong showing in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Among the most high-profile were two Council races in which disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner<\/a> attempted a political comeback, while a former representative\u2019s daughter eyed a political dynasty.<\/p>\n

In other races, departing councilmembers are seeking to hand-pick their successors<\/a>, throwing their weight behind current staffers and other heirs apparent.<\/p>\n

Here are the key Democratic primary races:<\/p>\n

District 1: Financial District, SoHo, Chinatown and the Lower East Side<\/p>\n

Councilman Christopher Marte<\/a>, whose opposition to the citywide rezoning plan \u201cCity of Yes\u201d<\/a> has sparked pushback from pro-housing advocates, had secured nearly half of the vote Tuesday evening with more than 84% of ballots counted.<\/p>\n

In this year\u2019s primary, the opposition also spurred so called YIMBY-candidate challengers<\/a>, hoping to oust the incumbent by running on new housing production.\u00a0The candidates have sparred over the fate of Elizabeth Street Garden, a plan for affordable senior housing killed by Mayor Adams less than 24 hours before Primary Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CHINATOWN_PROTEST<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

Luiz C. Ribeiro\/for New York Daily News<\/p>\n

New York City Councilman Christopher Marte speaks in Manhattan in May 2022. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News).<\/p>\n

Also on the ballot is Elizabeth Lewinsohn, a former Police Department official and self-funded candidate who\u2019s out-raised her opponents.<\/p>\n

District 2: East Village, Greenwich Village, Gramercy and Murray Hill<\/p>\n

Anthony Weiner\u2019s<\/a> political comeback looked unlikely Tuesday night as the disgraced ex-congressman seemed poised to lose a bid for New York City Council<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Weiner received 10% of the vote after 87% of ballots were counted, with the frontrunner Harvey Epstein holding steady at about 40%.<\/p>\n

\"AnthonyAnthony Weiner takes a break while campaigning for a seat on the New York City Council at building in the Lower East Side, Thursday, May 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo\/Angelina Katsanis)<\/p>\n

Weiner hasn\u2019t held public office since 2011, when he was ousted from his congressional seat after accidentally tweeting a sexually explicit photo of himself. It was at least his second attempt at redemption in local politics after a failed bid for mayor more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

During the campaign, the irony of his face-off with the leading candidate of the night, Harvey Epstein, a state assemblyman, was not<\/a> lost<\/a> on<\/a> the internet<\/a>. Epstein was the subject of Saturday Night Live sketch<\/a> in November that spoofed his name.<\/p>\n

District 4: Upper East Side, Midtown East and Stuyvesant Town<\/p>\n

Virginia Maloney, the daughter of former Rep. Carolyn Maloney, was locked in a tight battle late Tuesday.<\/p>\n

She is facing off against a crowded field of primary challengers, some of whom had sizable campaign war chests. Keith Powers, the district\u2019s current councilmember, is term-limited and running for Manhattan borough president.<\/p>\n

The candidates include multiple political insiders, including nonprofit strategist and a former Democratic Club boss Vanessa Aronson\u00a0and an ex-Missouri legislator, Rachel Storch, with formidable fundraising power<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maloney, Aronson and Storch had each secured about a quarter of the vote with 86% of ballots counted as of Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

District 8: East Harlem, Randall\u2019s Island and parts of the South Bronx<\/p>\n

Elsie Encarnacion, Council Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala\u2019s hand-picked successor, was leading in the effort to win the Democratic nod to lead the district on Tuesday night with 28% of the vote and most ballots counted. Encarnacion is Ayala\u2019s current chief of staff.<\/p>\n

The race, however, is likely to advance to ranked choice voting and additional rounds of counting.<\/p>\n

Raymond Santana, one of five teenagers wrongfully incarcerated for the 1989 rape of a Central Park jogger, was trailing three front-runners as of about 10 p.m.. After Yusef Salaam was elected to the Council in 2023, Santana hoped to be the second member of the so-called \u201cExonerated Five\u201d<\/a> on the city\u2019s lawmaking body.<\/p>\n

District 14: Kingsbridge, Fordham, University Heights<\/p>\n

Incumbent Pierina Sanchez, a progressive with endorsements from Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Ritchie Torres, faced two challengers for her Bronx seat on the City Council, including her predecessor Pastor Fernando Cabrera<\/a> who held the seat for over a decade. The AP called the election Tuesday night for Sanchez with 63% of ballots tallied.<\/p>\n

Cabrera, a socially conservative Democrat, served as a senior faith adviser to Mayor Adams. His hiring<\/a> drew outrage from LGBTQ community advocates who pointed to his record of anti-gay rhetoric. (Cabrera claims his comments were \u201ctaken completely out of context.\u201d<\/a>)<\/p>\n

District 28: Southeast Queens including Ozone Park and Jamaica<\/p>\n

The race is on to replace term-limited Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is also running in the Democratic mayoral primary. Her chief of staff, Tyrell \u201cTy\u201d Hankerson<\/a>, is vying for the seat and was leading in early results with 35% of a majority of votes counted.<\/p>\n

There are four other candidates in the race, including nonprofit founder Latoya LeGrand, community board member Romeo Hitlall, former challenger Japneet Singh, and ex-Councilman Ruben Wills.<\/p>\n

District 38: Sunset Park, Red Hook, parts of Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst<\/p>\n

A similar contest to District 39 is playing out further south in Brooklyn, which has been withdrawn since Councilwoman Alexa Avil\u00e9s, a socialist, first won in 2021, adding some neighborhoods that voted for President Trump.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Avil\u00e9s as of Tuesday night bested challenger Ling Ye, a moderate Democrat who previously worked for Rep. Dan Goldman, with 72% of the vote as nearly all scanners reported results. The race attracted sizable outside money<\/a>, including from real estate interests.<\/p>\n

District 39: Kensington, Borough Park, Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill and the Columbia Waterfront<\/p>\n

In the Democratic stronghold of brownstone Brooklyn, Councilwoman Shahana Hanif<\/a>, co-chair of the progressive caucus and a district native, declared victory less than an hour after polls closed over challenger Maya Kornberg in one of the few races in this year\u2019s primary \u2014 dominated by the mayor\u2019s race \u2014 to make national news.<\/p>\n

She received 70% of the votes with a majority of ballots tallied.<\/p>\n

\"CouncilmemberCouncil Member Shahana Hanif (Photo by Michael M. Santiago\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

With the candidates holding similar positions on most local issues, the race has devolved into a referendum of style over substance. Hanif, the first Muslim woman on the Council and a fierce critic of Israel, became a target of a campaign<\/a> that accused her of putting performative politics over constituents services. Supporters of Hanif, in turn, have tried to paint Kornberg, a political scientist at the Brennan Center for Justice and self-described progressive<\/a>, as \u201cMAGA\u201d-aligned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis win is about people power beating corporate power,\u201d Hanif said in a statement. \u201cIt\u2019s about communities coming together across race, class, faith, age, and language\u2014refusing to be divided.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s truly the honor of my life to get to fight for the neighborhoods that raised me.\u201d<\/p>\n

For up to date results, please go to nydailynews.com\/politics\/election<\/p>\n

Originally Published: June 24, 2025 at 10:20 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As all eyes in New York were on the Democratic mayoral primary, City Council election results started taking…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1370,728,405,403,5294,5296,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-13529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-county","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114744094160394908","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}