Rep. Nadler Declares Victory With Thousands Of Ballots Uncounted
NEW YORK, NY — Longtime U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler claimed victory over two challengers in Tuesday's Democratic primary, despite tens of thousands of absentee ballots still uncounted in his district.
Nadler declared himself the winner less than an hour after polls closed even though, like most races Tuesday, the 10th Congressional District race could not be called as of 11 p.m. given an unprecedented number of absentee ballots submitted as the coronavirus crisis keeps at-risk New Yorkers at home.
His opponents, Lindsey Boylan and Jonathan Herzog, both had not conceded as of 11 p.m.
"The results tonight are clear," Nadler wrote on Twitter at 9:51 p.m. "...I could not be more proud to continue to represent you, and to head to November as the Democratic nominee for New York's 10th Congressional District."
Thank you #NY10! The results tonight are clear. Your confidence and support are the honor of a lifetime, and I could not be more proud to continue to represent you, and head to November as the Democratic nominee for New York's 10th Congressional District.
— (((Jerry Nadler))) (@JerryNadler) June 24, 2020
Nadler, who has served in Congress since 1992, had what experts on NY1 called a "comfortable" lead over Boylan and Herzog with more than half of the in-person votes counted Tuesday night. Just about 30,000 in-person votes for the district had been reported by 11 p.m.
Boylan, a former special advisor for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, fell in second of the three candidates and Herzog, a founding staffer on presidential candidate Andrew Yang's campaign, was in third as of 11 p.m.
I’m ready to fight for you, for the community and for our democracy
— Lindsey Boylan (@LindseyBoylan) June 24, 2020
Official results for most city, state and federal races that faced a vote Tuesday could take days to come in as the Board of Election works to count more than 700,000 absentee ballots.
In the 10th Congressional District specifically, more than 76,000 absentee ballots had been sent out to voters, only 10,000 of which had been returned as of Tuesday.
Voters had until Tuesday to postmark and mail in their ballots.
The slow results was only one of many factors that made for a chaotic day of primary races. New York City Democrats also dealt with snaking lines, broken scanners and incorrect ballots given out at their polling sites throughout the day.
Find out more about each candidate's platform in these profiles Boylan, Herzog and Nadler.
This article originally appeared on the New York City Patch
