After more than a month of absentee ballot counting, Bronx Councilmember Ritchie Torres emerged as the winner of the 15th Congressional District race for the June 23rd primary, according to certified election results. His victory comes as Representative Carolyn Maloney, who represents parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, was also declared the winner of her re-election bid for the 12th Congressional District, overcoming a serious challenge.
Both Torres and Maloney's camps were on hand at the Board of Elections office to see official results read.
Given the sheer number of Democrats over Republicans in New York City, the Democratic primary winner is virtually guaranteed to win the November general election.
"As a young man who has lived most of his life in poverty, raised by a single mom and growing up in public housing, I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that I would have a fighting chance of becoming a United States Congressman in the only home I have ever known—the Bronx," said Torres, a Democrat who currently represents the 15th Council District in the central Bronx, in a statement.
The New York City Board of Elections posted the final number of its certified election results on its website, showing Torres with 19,090 votes, 9,000 more votes ahead of second-place finisher, Assemblymember Michael Blake.
Should Torres win the general election, he will be the first openly gay Afro-Latino member of Congress.
Torres was among the first challengers to announce a run for the congressional seat in the South Bronx long held by Representative Jose Serrano, who plans to retire when his term expires this year. Eleven candidates also vied for the seat, including Blake, community organizer Samelys Lopez, and Councilmember Ruben Diaz Sr.
Blake, who had to relinquish his bid for reelection so he could run for Congress, called Torres to concede on Tuesday night. A spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. Blake still has a legal case against the city's Board of Elections alleging voting irregularities that include affidavit ballots that were not filled out. A judge is expected to hear the case on Thursday.
In the 12th Congressional District primary, Maloney's main challenger, Suraj Patel, has not conceded despite official results showing the incumbent ahead by nearly 3,500 votes. A lawsuit brought by Patel—urging that absentee ballots without a postmark be counted—resulted in a judge ruling on Monday night ordering the state Board of Elections count a fraction of the race's 1,200 absentee ballots that came to city BOE without a postmark by June 30th. Absentee ballots were critical this year, given the COVID-19 pandemic that forced the city's Board of Elections to mail out more than 700,000 ballots, 17 times more than the number of ballots mailed out during the 2016 presidential primary.
The Board of Elections appealed the decision, pointing out that even if all the absentee ballots were in favor of Patel, he would still lose, making the recount meaningless.
In a statement, Maloney expressed her gratitude to voters for choosing her "to return me to Congress for another term."
“This has been a historic election, with historic turnout and participation—and a historic wait time for results," said Maloney in her statement. "We’ve learned many lessons for November, and must take a number of actions to protect the safety of our vote in the general election.”
The story has been updated to include the official tallies from the city Board of Elections.
