Who Is On Your Ballot?
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Darling Diaz, left, talks with poll worker Jamie Williams-Rivera before voting in Flushing. Photo by Mark Lennihan courtesy of AP
By Victoria Merlino, Dylan Campbell and Jonathan Sperling
Congressional Members
Third Congressional District: Little Neck, Whitestone, Glen Oaks, and Floral Park, and parts of Long Island
Tom Suozzi (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Higher Wages for Middle Class
Lower Healthcare and Prescription Drug Prices
Fight Government Corruption
Suozzi was elected to Congress in 2016, after spending terms as mayor of his hometown, Glen Cove, and as the Nassau County Executive. He believes in fighting corruption in government, and in 2004 he created the website FixAlbany.com in order to expose misconduct in New York politics. He is vice-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of 48 members in the House that work for cooperation between parties on key issues.
Dan DeBono (R)
Platform:
Strengthen the middle class through deregulation and fostering small business
Modernize infrastructure
Protect the Constitution, like freedom of speech and the 2nd Amendment
DeBono is a former Navy SEAL that advised both Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani on their presidential campaigns. He is an institutional investor that runs an investment and advisory business, as well as serves on the Town of Huntington Republican Committee. DeBono has said that he wants to be known as a Republican that breaks up big business in order to help the middle class.
Fifth Congressional District: Broad Channel, Cambria Heights, Hollis, Jamaica, Laurelton, Queens Village, Rosedale, Saint Albans, Springfield Gardens, South Ozone Park and parts of Long Island
Gregory Meeks (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Build better relationships with foreign countries for a more stable future
Promote diversity in all fields
Revitalizating economy and transportation in the district
Meeks has been a member of Congress since 1998, and is serving his tenth term for the district. He served as a Dodd-Frank conferee, shaping legislation and financial and Wall Street Reform. His current projects include a revitalization of Jamaica and Far Rockaway, helping launch a $10 billion upgrade, and promoting diversity in all sectors of the economy. He is running unopposed.
Sixth Congressional District: Flushing, Forest Hills, Middle Village, Glendale, Kew Gardens, Bayside and Murray Hill
Grace Meng (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Protect workers’ rights and keep jobs in America
Quality public education
Affordable health care
Meng was born and raised in Queens as the daughter of immigrants. She served as a public interest lawyer before serving two terms in the State Assembly, and was elected to Congress in 2012. She is the first Asian-American member of Congress from New York, and currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee. There is no Republican running against her in the district.
Tom Hillgardener (Green Party)
Universal basic income funded by government
Single payer health care
Free public college
Hillgardener was born in Jamaica in 1958. He is a lawyer who works to defend tenants’ rights, as well as civil rights, and has defended people such as the Occupy Wall Street protesters, according to his website. He is a Democratic Socialist and was inspired to run for office by Bernie Sanders.
Seventh Congressional District: Maspeth, Ridgewood and Woodhaven, and parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn
Nydia Velazquez (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Affordable housing in NYC
Supporting small business
Supporting Puerto Rico
Velazquez was the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress when she was elected in 1993, and is currently in her 13th term. She is the top Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, and she is a supporter of greater economic opportunity for the poor and working class. There is no Republican running against her in the district.
Jeff Kurzon (Reform Party)
Platform:
Believes housing and health care are human rights
Standing up for the rights of minorities and supporting the Black Lives Matter Movement
Universal basic income funded by government
Kurzon is an attorney who has run for office in the Seventh Congressional District since 2014, losing in 2014 and 2016 to Velazquez.
Joseph Lieberman (Conservative Party) does not have any information available.
Eighth Congressional District: Ozone Park, Howard Beach and areas of Brooklyn
Hakeem Jeffries (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Greater investment in public education
Affordable housing
Criminal justice reform
Jefferies has represented the district since he was elected in 2012, and has worked for health care and criminal justice reform, as well as championed social and economic justice. He is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Budget Committee. Prior to serving in Congress, he was a member of the New York State Assembly for six years. There is no Republican running against him in the district.
Ernest Johnson (Conservative Party) and Jessica White (Reform Party) both do not have any information available.
Twelfth Congressional District: Astoria, Long Island City, Woodside and areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn
Carolyn Maloney (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Repairing New York infrastructure
Fighting for women
Supporting working families
Maloney began as a teacher and administrator for the New York City Board of Education, following with a 10-year run on the City Council. She has been in Congress since 1993, where she has worked for families affected by 9/11, consumer protection, and has worked to get infrastructure projects off the ground in her district, including the building of the Second Avenue Subway and the replacement of the Kosciuszko Bridge.
Eliot Rabin (R)
Platform:
Support small business and heal socioeconomic divisiveness
Reduce ineffective bureaucracy
Improve quality of life in New York City
A retired member of the Army and owner of a fashion brand, Rabin is running on a platform of tolerance and common sense. He has multiple clothing stores in New York City under the brand name Peter Elliot, and supports small business as a small business owner himself. One ship went bankrupt in 2017, while another shop he closed in 2012 due to rising rents. Other parts of his platform include reinstating the draft again for all citizens regardless of gender, supporting the Second Amendment and infrastructure repairs.
Scott Hutchins (Green Party)
Platform:
Affordable housing
Oppose Citizens United
Establish public banking system in New York state
Hutchins turned to political activism after a disability, an inability to find a stable job and what he perceives as failures of governmental systems left him homeless. He works with groups that sprung out of the post-Occupy Wall Street movement as an advocate for the homeless, and has gained attention for his blogging on the subject.
Fourteenth Congressional District: Astoria, College Point, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Woodside and areas of the Bronx
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D)
Platform:
Housing as a human right
Abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency
Improve and expand Medicare for all
Ocasio-Cortez defeated established, high-ranking Democratic incumbent Joseph Crowley in the Democratic primary for the seat in June. Ocasio-Cortez is an activist, and educator and a Democratic Socialist from a working class background in the Bronx. While she has never before campaigned for office, she was able to build an entirely grassroots campaign with no corporate money involved.
Anthony Pappas (R)
Against judicial immunity
Rejects socialist ideology
Pappas is an associate economics and finance professor at St. John’s University.
He is against Democratic Socialism, and is against judicial immunity, or the legal immunity judges have when deciding cases. He has been disavowed by the Republican party in Queens and the Bronx due to domestic violence allegations.
Elizabeth Perri (Conservative Party) no information available.
US Senators
Kirsten Gillibrand (D)
Background: Gillibrand was a lawyer who served on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington during the Clinton administration. She ran for Congress in 2006 on a platform for ethics reform, an end to the war in Iraq, and a Medicare-For-All proposal. She has worked for transparency, She was the first Member of Congress to post her official daily meetings, personal financial disclosures, and earmark requests online for her constituents. She wrote the STOCK Act. She has supported universal pre-K, equal pay and paid family leave.
Platform:
Increase American industry
Family policy and rights for women and immigrants
oppose any efforts to cut the Social Security and Medicare and wants to increase job opportunities for seniors and end senior fraud
Supports universal healthcare
She wants better support for service members.
Chele Farley ( R )
Background: Farley was a Industrial Engineering major at Stanford University. She worked in financial service for 25 years. She was the Co-Chair of the East Coast Advisory Board of Questbridge, which provided low-income students with scholarships.
Platform:
“Recapturing the $48 billion dollars more that New Yorkers pay in federal taxes each year than the state receives. “
Rebuilding roads and transportation system
Work for term limits in Congress
combat overprescribing of opioids, work to increase access to longer-term treatment facilities across the state and support the death penalty for heroin drug dealers
Renegotiate foreign trade policy
Support for Israel
State Senators (Legislators)
District 10
James Sanders, Jr. (D) (incumbent) no information available
District 11
John Liu (D)
Background: Liu was on the New York City Council from 2002-2009. He was the Comptroller of the City of New York from 2010 to 2013, and has one campaign for mayor under his belt. He now teaches municipal finance and public policy in Masters programs at CUNY and Columbia University. He was the first Asian American to win legislative office in New York and then the first to win citywide office. His credibility was called into question when past campaign-aide and fundraiser were found guilty of fraud.
Platform:
Preservation of the SHSAT
Tenants rights
Women’s reproductive rights
Protection for small businesses
Vickie Paladino (R)
Background: Paladino is a born-and-raised Whitestone resident. She has held leadership roles at family businesses over the years. According to her website, she decided to run because “The people in NY deserve better.” Since the beginning of her campaign, she has gained attention for berating de Blasio for leaving a NYPD funeral early to attend the G-20 protest in Germany, allowing hateful rhetoric on her social media accounts and tweeting a thank you to the hate group the Proud Boys. She does not have the support of the Republican Party
Platform:
To Keep Rikers Island Open and stop local jails
Supporting the SHSAT Test
Ending the outpatient program at Creedmoor
Fight for the “average hard-working, middle-class taxpayer”
Tony Avella (Independence Party) (incumbent)
Background: member of Queens Community Board No.7, and an aide to former New York City Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins. He served two full terms on City Council and then was elected to State Senate. He has served in that role since 2010.
Platform:
Increase funding to New York City schools
Support small businesses so they can expand and hire new workers
Funding for seniors, veterans, and healthcare services, parks, libraries and street tree maintenance
Decrease airplane and helicopter noise
He was a member of the Independent Democratic Conference, a now-dissolved seven year coalition that shared power with Senate Republicans. It allowed the GOP to stay in charge of the upper chamber, despite being in the minority. While people criticized giving power to the Republican party, but he was able to secure more money for project in his district.
Simon Minching (Conservative Party)
Background: Minching is Queens-raised St. John’s graduate with a masters in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. He has worked in tech in product execution and growth since 2013. He is supported by the Queens GOP.
Platform:
Ethics Reform in Albany
Education Reform including early childhood programs, changes to the school application and choice process, tackle overcrowding and reforming HR
Property tax and zoning reform
District 12
Michael Gianaris (D) (incumbent) has no major party opponent.
District 13
Jessica Ramos (D)
Background: A union advocate and community organizer, Ramos is a self-described “ mother... renter... straphanger... daughter of immigrants.” She sat on Community Board 3 and served as Democratic District Leader in the 39th Assembly District from 2010 to 2014. She also served as Director of Latino Media for the City of New York.
Platform:
Fix the MTA
Strengthen rent laws for NYC and encourage affordable housing
Increase school funding
Support immigrant, women’s and small business owner’s rights
Jose Peralta (Independence Party) (incumbent)
Background: Queens College graduate, Jose Peralta served in the New York State Assembly from 2002 to 2010. In 2010, he became the first Dominican-American elected to the New York State Senate. He has served ever since.
While in office, according to his website, he has focused on rejuvenating Roosevelt Avenue, fought for public education, sponsored of gun-control legislation. He was a member of the Independent Democratic Conference, a now-dissolved seven year coalition that shared power with Senate Republicans. It allowed the GOP to stay in charge of the upper chamber, despite being in the minority. While people criticized giving power to the Republican party, but he was able to secure more money for project in his district.
District 14
Leroy Comrie (D) (incumbent)has no major party opponent.
District 15
Joseph Addabbo (D) (incumbent)
Background: Addabbo was elected to the State Senate in 2008. Before that, he served seven years in the New York City Council.
Platform:
Environmental protection
Job creation and economic growth
Tax relief
Thomas Sullivan ( R)
Background: Sullivan served in the United States Army Reserve for 25 years and currently holds the rank of colonel.25 yrs Off. U.S. Army Reserves. According to his website, he was a small business owner for 10 years and worked in finance for 23 years.
Platform:
Reduce wasteful spending
Lower property taxes
Stop over-development
District 16
Toby Ann Stavisky (D) (incumbent)
Background: Stavisky was a born and raised New Yorker. She taught Social Studies in the New York City high schools. Stavisky was first woman from Queens County elected to the Senate on November 2, 1999. From there, she became the first woman to Chair the Senate Committee on higher education. She has served eigh terms.
Platform:
While in office, Stavisky backed Paid Family Leave Law
Raise the state minimum wage to $15 per hour
She was a supporter Universal Pre-K program.
Preserving the SHSAT exam
Protect the rights of immigrants, women and the LGBTQ community
Vincent Pazienza (Reform Party) has no information available.
State Assembly (only elaborated on races with more than one major-party candidate)
District 23:
Stacey G. Pheffer Amato (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Better public transportation
Increased funding for public schools
Better quality of life
Pheffer Amato was born in Rockaway, and her mother held the assembly seat for the district before she took office. She was active in community groups, such as the Rockaway Beach Civic Association and the parent’s association at her children’s school, before she took office, and operates a pizzeria with her husband. A main issue for her is storm preparedness after Superstorm Sandy ravaged the district in 2012.
Matthew Pecorino (R)
Platform:
Property tax reform
Reductions in wasteful spending
Improve mass transit
Pecorino argues he will stand up to “big government” and is against the monetary policies of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He is a budget director City Council member Eric Ulrich.
District 24:
David Weprin (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 25:
Nily Rozic (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 26:
Edward Braunstein (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Opposes overdevelopment in district
Supports small business
Better public education for underserved communities
Braunstein is a lawyer who has served in the Assembly since 2010. He has helped criminalize “revenge porn,” provided rent relief to seniors and worked to prohibit price gouging during emergencies.
David L. Bressler (R)
Platform:
Opposes overdevelopment in district
Devoted to solving issues in the district
Bressler is the regional manager for a bakery conglomerate, and has held leadership positions at the 1000-unit apartment complex in which he lives, the Bay Club.
District 27:
Daniel Rosenthal (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 28:
Andrew D. Hevesi (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Improve quality of life in district
Assist homeless
Hevesi is a lifelong resident of the district, and was elected to the Assembly in 2005. He has worked to address homelessness in New York through a bipartisan bill that would allow for 35,000 units of supportive housing to be built. He also supported legislation for renewable energy, helping those impacted by domestic violence and children in the foster system.
Danniel Maio (R)
Platform:
Improve quality of life in district
Call district residents proactively to see if there are any issues on their minds
Educate seniors on use of smartphones
Maio is a map-maker that previously ran against Congress member Grace Meng in 2016 for her seat. He is the nominee of the Republican and Reform parties, as well as the party In Maio We Trust.
District 29:
Alicia Hyndman (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 30:
Brian Barnwell (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Tax relief for seniors and middle class
Stricter prison sentences for violent felons
Affordable housing
Barnwell is a longtime Woodside resident and was a private practice lawyer before going to work for District 22 Councilmember Costa Constantinides. He has represented District 30 since 2017 and since then has prioritized strengthening the middle class and helping veterans.
Eric Butkiewicz (R)
Platform:
Keep Rikers Island open
Improve subway and buses
Keep homeless facilities out of communities
A native of Middle Village and Maspeth, Butkiewicz has advocated against building prisons and homeless shelters in the district. He has founded multiple startups, including a news website and is a proponent of free speech.
District 31:
Michele Titus (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 32:
Vivian Cook (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 33:
Clyde Vanel (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Establishment of digital currency task force
Encourage private sector investment for job growth
Properly fund public education
Vanel was raised in Cambria Heights and currently operates a business law and intellectual property legal practice. His Cambria Heights office has been used as a community center and business incubator. Vanel was first elected to the seat in 2016.
Lalita Etwaroo (R)
Platform:
New York should not be sanctuary state for undocumented immigrants
Keep Rikers Island open
No homeless shelters/hotels in district
Etwaroo was born in Guyana, but moved to Queens when she was 11 years old. Her first exposure to politics was in 2012, when she interned at the Assembly under then-Assemblymember Robert Castelli.
District 34:
Michael DenDekker (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 35:
Jeffrion Aubry (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 36:
Aravella Simotas (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 37:
Catherine Nolan (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 38:
Michael Miller (D), Incumbent, has no major party opponents
District 39:
Ari Espinal (Women’s Equality Party/Working Families Party) Incumbent
Platform:
Protect small businesses
Expand Excelsior Scholarship and fund public schools
Abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Espinal is a Corona native and has worked as a community organizer since the age of 13. After graduating college in 2010, Espinal worked as the director of constituent services for then-Assemblymember Francisco Moya.
Catalina Cruz (D)
Platform:
Investment in public education
Affordable housing
Protect immigrants from President Donald Trump’s policies
Cruz, an attorney and tenants rights organizer, was born in Colombia, but came to Queens at the age of nine and lived as an undocumented immigrant for 10 years. As a community organizer, she has fought for tenant protections, immigration reform and workers rights.
District 40:
Ron Kim (D) Incumbent
Platform:
Support for small businesses
Economic development
Support for public schools
When he began serving as the district’s assemblymember in 2013, Kim was the first and only Korean-American elected official in New York. Kim’s ultimate goal, according to his website, is to bring the uniqueness of Flushing and Whitestone to Albany to make policy that serves everyone in the state.
John Scandalios (Reform Party)
Platform:
Lower taxes
End “pay-to-play corruption” in Albany
Less regulation for small business
Scandalios has been a Flushing resident for more than 50 years and describes himself as a fiscal conservative. A small business owner, Scandalios supports the legalization of recreational marijuana for adults, as well as sports betting to fund fixes to the MTA.
