: Change Has Come: New Faces, Minority Contestants Made Primary Night A Queens Win

For the most part, the ethnic and cultural diversity of the borough shined bright Tuesday night as the ever-changing face of the people of Queens was reflected in the voting for the City’s Democratic Primary.

The first Korean candidate to make the general election ballot in the history of the City Council will vie to represent the 19th District; if he wins he will be the first Korean American to serve elected office in New York State. The neighboring 20th District will continue to have Chinese representation, with Chinese candidates filling both Democratic and Republican slots. Two districts in Western Queens voted to send a gay man to the City Council. And throughout the rest of the borough, racial and cultural minorities garnered great response in their myriad districts.

Kevin Kim
Hundreds of supporters at Kevin Kim’s big win crowded the halls of his campaign headquarters. The crowd eagerly awaited Kevin’s appearance with U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Bayside) and Assemblywoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing) to announce his victory.

In the inner sanctum of the Kim campaign, only the top few dozen staffers, volunteers bearing poll numbers and the Queens Tribune were allowed in. “Almost win,” Kim’s mother said when there were only a few voting districts yet to be tabulated, giving a staffer a thumbs up. All inside seemed confident in a Kim win. Kim’s wife Clara was at home with their five-week old baby daughter, Beatrice.

Much of the rhetoric surrounding the primary was on race. Many thought a Korean-American candidate would not rouse enough Asian voters – particularly Chinese-Americans – to come out and vote. Many believed the two Italian-American candidates, Jerry Iannece and Paul Vallone, to be the frontrunners. Others thought Iannece and Vallone would split the Italian vote.

Kim drew Chinese voters, possibly because of his past working for Various Chinese-American organizations, and the Mandarin language skills he picked up during his time studying in China. The support of Grace Meng and other Chinese community activists may also have drawn Chinese voters to vote for Kim - who received 2,561 votes – an estimated 1,000 of which were from white voters.

Iannece came away with 2,007 votes at 24.09 percent of the total, Vallone with 1,907 and 22.89 percent, Steve Behar with 818 and 9.82 percent, Tom Cooke with 601 and 7.21 percent and Debra Markell with 437 votes and 5.25 percent.

Ackerman, who spoke at the commencement of Kim’s victory party, said it was “not a thin margin.”

Yen Chou
At 10 p.m. on Primary Night, S.J. Jung and his supporters gathered in the lower level auditorium of Macedonia AME Church for Jung’s thank you speech. Seated in a circle around Jung, attendees received praise and appreciation from the candidate in the very place his campaign began. Jung’s speech was punctuated by the crowd’s applause and “Jung” chants. Although the race was neck and neck, the mood was optimistic and celebratory.

As the crowd migrated from the church to the party at Kum Gang San Restaurant, the group’s disposition slowly soured. Although the race remained close, candidate Yen Chou pulled ahead of Jung and Sasson by 187 and 155 votes respectively.

Jung campaign consultant Doug Forand said the campaign remains hopeful about the outcome and would await the official count in the coming week.

“Right now the results are really too close to call,” Forand said. “Obviously, Yen Chou has the lead in the unofficial tally, but we’re going to wait for the official tally on Thursday off the machines and then there’s a lot of paper ballots out there.”

Echoing his Macedonia AME speech, Jung said regardless of the official tally, he is satisfied with the campaign he ran.

“It’s too close to call but no matter what happens and the final outcome I’m very proud of our campaign because we stayed out of the gutter, we really stayed positive all the way through,” Jung said.

Isaac Sasson was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Chou’s campaign manager Michael Olmeda said “the people have spoken.” He said their team remains assured that in the official tally Chou will maintain her victory.

“Three hundred votes in a five man race,” Olmeda said. “I’m pretty confident unless the Earth stops or something,”

Danny & Jimmy
No matter how you slice the victory, the night proved to be a big loss for the Queens County Democratic organization, which endorsed the main opponents of both Daniel Dromm and Jimmy Van Bramer.

As for the winners that night, the two candidates represent a new sphere of political influence in Queens. Both are openly gay and have progressive platforms; both attracted strong labor support; and both were backed by the Working Families Party, which proved itself to be more influential than ever in Queens and the City at large.

“I was somewhat disappointed not to get the county endorsement,” said Dromm sheepishly in his victory speech, before instructing the media in attendance “to put a ‘D’ next to my name, but right next that put W-F-P!”

The County endorsement went to Helen Sears (D-Jackson Heights), the eight-year incumbent that in a rare political moment, lost her seat to Dromm’s focused and tenacious campaign.

State Sen. Hiram Monserrate (D-Corona) made a brief appearance to reiterate his behind-the-scenes support for Dromm. His domestic violence trial began on Monday. The other politicos in attendance included former Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette, Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst) and Assemblyman Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights).

Soon after Van Bramer had won, two local guys in union jackets walked home happy and a bit tipsy. One of them, Steven Hayes, said he was thrilled that someone who cared about the working class had won the seat – “it’s cause he’s real.”

Van Bramer received 46 percent of the vote, with Deirdre Feerick coming in with 37 percent and Brent O’Leary finishing third with 17 percent in the 26th District.

Dromm won with almost half the votes compared to 40 percent for Sears and 11 percent for Stanley Kalathara.

Minority Report
Lynn Nunes, born to a Chinese mother and Brazilian father doesn’t reflect the face of his neighborhood. Essentially, he is a minority in their midst

On Sept. 15, Nunes and his supporters set out prove that “being honest and speaking to issues of the community,” would overcome aesthetic differences. In a race of five contenders, Nunes was the only non-black candidate.

“We focused on what the community wanted,” he said. “Black, brown, green it doesn’t make a difference.”

In his quest to bring “new ideas,” to the community Nunes is in striking distance of dethroning incumbent Councilman Tom White in the 28th Council District race. White’s lead stands at a mere six votes.

“Each and every vote counts,” Nunes said. “This race is six votes away.”

Swaranjit Singh was the first Sikh to ever run for elected office in New York. His top priority, aside from education, was “bringing diversity” to city government; he said he would have sought to bring more South-Asians aboard the council. He evoked Barack Obama’s campaign, calling himself a “fresh face” and saying that he would bring “change.”

Singh came in last, but with 21.73 percent of District 23’s votes, against 27.31 percent for Bob Friedrich, and 50.96 percent going to Assemblyman Mark Weprin.

Our Citywide Guys
One surprise in the race for Public Advocate and City Comptroller had nothing to do with any of the candidates: more people voted in the Democratic Primary for those two seats than voted for the mayoral contest between current Comptroller Bill Thompson and Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside).

Thompson handily won the contest, with some 70 percent of the roughly 310,000 votes.

In comparison, more than 350,000 people voted in the Comptroller’s race, with Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing) coming out on top with 38 percent, just shy of avoiding a run off with second place Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn).

The Public Advocate race was less dominated by a single candidate, with the remaining runoff contenders Councilman Bill de Blasio (D-Brooklyn) and Mark Green both within 2 percent of each other.

The runoff for the Democratic nominees will be held Sept. 29.