A hint of the next NYC Council’s make-up emerges as voting ends Tuesday

The primary election that will define the New York City Council for the next two years offered up at least three contests Tuesday night that signify a shift in the make-up of the city’s lawmaking body — with one sending shockwaves through the city’s political establishment.

In what could prove to be the most surprising result, in the Democratic primary for Harlem’s 9th City Council District, Yusef Salaam led his competitors by a healthy margin, with about 97% of ballot scanners results in. As of about 11 p.m., Salaam, who’s best known for being wrongfully convicted in the Central Park Five rape case, had brought in 5,403 votes, putting him ahead of Assemblyman Al Taylor, who’d locked down 1,564, and Assemblywoman Inez Dickens, who had 2,706 votes.

As the results rolled in, Salaam declared victory late Tuesday night at his election party at Harlem Tavern on Frederick Douglass Blvd.

“What has happened on this campaign has restored my faith in knowing that I was born for this,” he said. “I am not a seasoned politician. So therefore this was not politics as usual.”

His early lead was substantial enough that it had him just above the 50% vote threshold — putting him on track to be able to claim victory without going through the ranked-choice voting process.

But it was too early to say late Tuesday whether he’d maintain his outright majority and avoid the ranked choice rounds. If the race goes to ranked-choice rounds, a victor may not be crowned for days.

In southern Brooklyn, where both Dems and Republicans vied for a seat in a recently redrawn district, Susan Zhuang, the chief of staff to Assemblyman William Colton, led the Democratic field with 2,000 votes over 1,055 garnered by Wai Yee Chan and 326 locked down by Stanley Ng.

With 95% of scanners reported in that race, on the Republic side, Ying Tan held a slight lead in her two-candidate battle with 411 votes. Her opponent, Vito LaBella, had earned 385 votes.

Those initial results don’t encompass a full accounting of all votes, and in some of the closer races the final result may very well end up telling a different story.

While the Council will almost certainly maintain a Democratic majority after this November’s general election, those two seats are definitely set to change hands because both races lack an incumbent candidate. The Harlem seat will remain in Democratic control since there’s no Republican running for the seat, but the fate of the southern Brooklyn seat will ultimately be decided in November’s general election.

There are a handful of other seats that may very well see a turnover once all the votes are counted as well.

In the Bronx’s Council District 13, with 96% of ballot scanners reporting, incumbent Democratic Councilwoman Marjorie Velazquez led her closest primary opponent, local Community Board chair Bernadette Ferrara, by 2,594 votes to 757. The race was expected to be close, but as of about 11 p.m., Velazquez had won 66% of the total vote. If she goes on to succeed in the primary, she’ll face off against the victor in the Republican primary for her district.

If she loses, the seat will go to a political newcomer, whether it be a Democrat or Republican.

In the Republican and Conservative primaries for her Morris Park seat, the contest appeared much closer. Kristy Marmorato led both ballot lines with a total of 927 votes with 96% of ballot scanners accounted for. Her closest rival, George Havranek, garnered a total of 830 votes in the too-close-to-call battle.

In Queens, at least one race appeared to be too close to call well into Tuesday night, too. In the Democratic primary for incumbent Republican Councilwoman Vicki Paladino’s seat, former Councilman and state Sen. Tony Avella led by roughly 100 votes as of 10:30 p.m. With about 98% of scanners reported, Avella had won 2,243 votes to the 2,119 garnered by his closest challenger, Christopher Bae.

And in Brooklyn, things weren’t looking too good for incumbent Councilman Charles Barron, who reps East New York. With 99% of scanners reported, he trailed challenger Chris Banks by about 7%.

Earlier in the day, Barron appeared confident, though.

“We’ve done what we’re supposed to do as a campaign. We’ve earned the right to win, and we will win,” he said. “My goal is to win by one vote. My goal is to get one more vote than my opponent.”

Aside from more than a dozen contested Council races, Tuesday’s low-turnout election also featured contested races for district attorney spots in the Bronx and Queens. But those jobs appeared likely to remain with the incumbents, Darcel Clark and Melinda Katz, respectively.

As of 10:30 p.m., Katz had secured 41,927 votes and held a commanding lead over her opponents, George Grasso and Devian Daniels, who garnered 8,506 and 8,349, respectively.

In the Bronx DA’s race, Clark appeared to be sailing to victory, garnering 19,800 votes to give her a comfortable lead over her primary challenger Tess Cohen. Cohen had locked down 7,324 votes late into Tuesday evening, with about 92% of scanners reported.

The battle for central Harlem has perhaps been the most closely watched of all the Council races. Incumbent Councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan bowed out of it months ago, leaving her seat up for grabs to her competitors — Dickens, Taylor and Salaam.

During her campaign, Dickens, a longtime fixture of Harlem politics who locked down endorsements from both the mayor and Rep. Adriano Espaillat, attacked Salaam for his lack of political experience and not living in the district for years.

“He was not here during the pandemic,” Dickens said Tuesday morning. “He was not here during the time that thousands of people died. He was not here while we had the closing of so many small businesses. And now he has returned after what, 15 years or so? So there’s been a big change.”

But Salaam countered that a “lack of experience in politics is a great thing.”

All of the contests in Tuesday’s election were characterized by low voter turnout, a reality politicos and voters attributed to the lack of a contest for citywide office, like mayor, as well as the rainy conditions.

As of Tuesday night, the Board of Elections estimated that, when accounting for votes coming in that day, through early voting and via absentee ballot, only about 165,000 people had cast ballots out of slightly more than 2.8 million people eligible to vote in this election. That number is sure to go up once all votes are counted, but it served as an early indicator that relatively few people cast ballots.

“If this was the presidential election, this place would be packed with people,” a Board of Elections coordinator told the Daily News in the early afternoon at a Harlem polling site.

“People don’t know that local elections are what really matter,” she said. “This is for your area. This is for your neighborhood and to get people to represent you, for your neighborhood, to get you what you need.”

Another factor that could play a decisive role in the election is the ranked-choice voting system.

Used for the first time in the 2021 elections, RCV, as it’s sometimes called, allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference in races where there are more than two contenders. If no one secures a simple majority of votes from the No. 1 ranks, the candidate with the least support is eliminated. The No. 2 picks on ballots cast for the eliminated candidate are then added to the mix until a single candidate nets a majority of votes and is dubbed the victor.

The convoluted tabulation system is time-consuming, and results from races where it ends up being used may take days to ascertain. Tuesday night’s initial results didn’t account for ranked choice voting in races where it might need to be applied as votes, and rankings, continue to be tallied.