With 81 percent of votes counted, Republican Kristy Marmorato, an X-ray technician, is projected to win in the 13th District of the Bronx with 53 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat incumbent Marjorie Velázquez who collected 47 percent of the vote.
“That’s a good thing but we need to break in more,” Mike Zumbluskas, a former GOP candidate for New York’s 12th Congressional District, told The Epoch Times. “Part of it is we don’t have the money or the media support that the Democrats have.”
New York Times 2023 election results show the GOP gained a seat in District 13 but the victory did not shift the balance on the City Council because redrawn boundaries in District 47 created a loss.
“We saw a lot of emerging potential future candidates that will hopefpully come back and run again in two years and if they do that and they keep building, some of these seats could flip Republican,” Robert Hornak, political consultant with Lexington Public Affairs, told The Epoch Times.
Mr. Hornak is a former deputy director in the New York City regional office of Assembly Minority Leader William Barclay’s office.
Republicans in moderate to purple districts in Brooklyn and Queens were successful in maintaining their City Council positions.
All 51 council seats were on the ballot, including Republican incumbent Vickie Paladino’s seat in the 19th District of Northeast Queens who won with 60.4 percent of the vote.
Paladino fought off allegations of white supremacy by her long-time rival Democrat Tony Avella who accused her son of being a Proud Boy. Avella gained only 39.6 percent of the vote.
Key Proud Boy leaders have been adjudicated due to their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021 rally at the U.S. Capitol.
“Calling someone a white supremacist is not going to work in that area,” said Mr. Zumbluskas. “It’s an old, tired excuse, and Vickie countered that directly. She didn’t crawl into a hole and hide.”
Although Democrat-turned-Republican Ari Kagan was an incumbent, he lost to Democrat Justin Brannan, also an incumbent.
Due to redistricting that includes Coney Island, Bay Ridge, and Bath Beach, the councilmen were pit against each other in District 47 where Mr. Kagan is believed to have fallen victim to tribal politics.
“His district was redrawn far away from his home turf in Coney Island, which is a Russian community,” Mr. Hornak said. “He was drawn up into Dyker Heights and Bay Ridge, which is an Italian district primarily, and Brannan is Italian.”
Brannan is projected to win with 58.5 percent of the vote compared to Kagan’s 41.5 percent.
Bernard Chow in Eastern Queens is among the conservative contenders who lost along with Robert Bobrick, Diane Di Stasio, Elisabeth Golluscio, and Helen Qu in Manhattan Districts 3, 6, 5, and 1, respectively.
“Bernard Chow ran a good race but he’s new to politics,” Mr. Hornak added. “He’s not really a known quantity while Linda Lee is well-liked.”
By the morning of Nov. 8, Mr. Chow garnered 36 percent of the vote compared to 64 percent for Democrat incumbent Linda Lee in District 23.
“As a member of a minority ethnic group, I’m very concerned about racial bullying,” Mr. Chow told The Epoch Times. “In my district, we have a lot of Asians from Chinese to South Asian, and we all are very concerned about that. They bully us because we are not the same kind. We look different.”
His campaign platform included his desire to balance the government. Mr. Chow plans to run again in two years.
“When one party rules, it is not far from socialist,” Chow said. “I’m from Hong Kong. I gave up my roots to fly all the way to the other side of the world because I want a different way of living. How society is changing here is not going well.”
Three Republican Councilmembers ran unopposed including David Carr in District 50 and Joseph Borelli in District 51, both of Staten Island, along with Joann Ariola in District 32 covering Ozone Park and Rockaway Park in Queens.
Ms. Ariola has been at the forefront of fighting against using national parks as camps to accommodate an influx of migrants.
“The biggest issue in the city right now is the migrant crisis because we are being overrun,” Ms. Ariola told The Epoch Times. “The one at Floyd Bennett Field is a dangerous place both for flooding, lack of proper fire hydrants in case of a fire and because it’s so remote that children do not have close access to schools.”
Republican incumbent Inna Vernikov faced competitors from the left and the right in her bid for reelection to represent District 48 in Southern Brooklyn. But she is the projected victor by a landslide with 67.5 percent of the vote compared to Democrat challenger Amber Adler who gathered 24.4 percent and 8.1 percent for Independent Igor Kazatsker.
“A lot of people in Queens and Brooklyn have come from socialist countries,” William F. B. O’Reilly, a Republican political consultant in Mount Kisko, New York, told The Epoch Times.“They’ve come from South America or Eastern Europe where they’ve seen what socialism does so, they vote Republican.”
