Crowley concedes borough president’s race
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Elizabeth Crowley conceded in the Democratic primary race for Queens borough president on Friday, July 16, 2021. City Council photography/Campaign photo
By Jacob Kaye
Former City Council member Elizabeth Crowley conceded in the Democratic primary for the Queens borough president’s seat Friday, effectively confirming Donovan Richards’ successful bid for reelection.
Crowley, who also finished second to Richards in the special election for the seat last year, trailed the incumbent by little over 1,000 votes following three rounds of ranked-choice tabulation, according to an unofficial tally from the Board of Elections.
“With the BOE opening and counting the final ballots yesterday, it has become clear that the numbers are just not there for us to win the democratic [sic] nomination,” Crowley said in a statement Friday. “This is not the result we were hoping for, but looking back, I feel incredibly proud of the campaign we ran.”
While the results of the election have yet to be certified, the current 0.6 percent vote differential between the candidates is just a tenth of a percentage point shy of prompting a hand recount in the race.
Crowley received nearly as many first rank votes as Richards, trailing by a little more than 100 votes after the first round of counting. However, Richards’ lead grew following the redistribution of ballots which ranked third-place candidate Jimmy Van Bramer first.
Crowley was defeated by around 12,000 votes in the 2020 special election for the seat.
Crowley’s concession came nearly two weeks after Richards declared victory in a message posted to social media that accused his competitor of racism.
“We beat your racist ass,” Richards wrote on Twitter on July 6. “[Crowley] told me she would win, because [the Black Lives Matter movement] would die? What’s good now?”
Richards defended his accusation and doubled down saying that Crowley “attempted to bully me into giving her a job within our administration with veiled threats of a divisive and dirty campaign if I did not.”
“As a Black man, I faced my own fair share of prejudice and I will not be silent when racist tactics are clearly at play,” Richards said in a statement to the Eagle earlier this month. “Since our victory in the June 2020 Democratic primary, Ms. Crowley has repeatedly insinuated that she would have won if not for the death of George Floyd and the ensuing Black Lives Matter movement across our country.”
Crowley responded to Richards’ remark the following day, saying she was “disappointed” and called his accusation “slanderous and untruthful.”
“Politics and campaigning can be tough, and I understand that some may take legitimate policy disagreements personally on the trail,” she said. “However, I’ve always believed that leadership is about taking the high road and representing the people, not Trump-like bullying on Twitter and making unfounded accusations based on no evidence whatsoever.”
Richards will face off against Republican Thomas Zmich in the general election for the seat in November. Zmich unsuccessfully ran to unseat Rep. Grace Meng last year. His campaign website and social media still list him as a candidate running for New York’s 6th Congressional District.
