After special election spending surge, money trickles in Central Queens council race
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Jim Gennaro reclaimed his Council District seat in a special election to replace Rory Lancman in February. He is back on the ballot running for a full term. Photo courtesy of Gennaro campaign
By David Brand
As a February special election for an open Queens council seat approached, six contenders said they would be back in June, no matter the outcome.
But with the primary ballot now set, just two of those candidates are running again in Council District 24. Councilmember Jim Gennaro, who won the special with about 60 percent of the vote, and progressive organizer Moumita Ahmed, who finished a distant second with about 15 percent. They are joined by two other Democrats, Muhammad Uddin and Safur Khan, who did not run in the special.
The smaller field has so far generated much less money than in the run-up to the special. That contest cost taxpayers nearly $1 million in public matching funds and attracted $221,140 from a billionaire-backed SuperPAC, but drew fewer than 7,000 voters to the polls.
Candidates have so far raised a total of $62,918 in their primary campaign accounts. Only Uddin has received matching funds, taking in just under $80,000.
Expenses are way down, too. Candidates have spent a combined $11,548, according to disclosure reports, compared to $1.2 million ahead of the special.
Ahmed, for example, paid more than $95,000 to a South Carolina-based consulting firm with little New York City experience in the lead up to the Feb. 2 special election. She has spent just $47 in the primary cycle, according to her most recent campaign finance report.
She said she chose to work with the South Carolina company, Peak Performance Consulting LLC, because it is run by supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who endorsed Ahmed a day before the election.
“Peak Performance is run by a former Bernie Sanders alum, was recommended by other Bernie supporters, does everything in-house, uses union printers and creates impactful, aspirational direct mail,” she said.
She decided to run again, she said, to counter the influence of developers who financed the negative campaign against her. The Common Sense NYC SuperPAC, known as an independent expenditure in New York City, favored the moderate Gennaro.
But so did many voters, even before the SuperPAC started to get involved.
Gennaro represented the diverse district, which covers Kew Gardens Hills, Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest, Jamaica Estates, Briarwood and parts of Jamaica, from 2001 to 2012. He left office because of term limits but remained popular among constituents, particularly middle class voters, homeowners and Orthodox and Bukharian Jewish residents — often overlapping demographics.
He said he expects the next campaign filings to reflect a surge in new contributions and spending, and he said he will reach the matching funds maximum. A spokesperson for the Campaign Finance Board said Gennaro and Ahmed have both submitted filings with contributions that would qualify them for matching funds, pending an audit.
Gennaro also said he understands why the candidates who finished well behind him opted not to run.
“I think it’s hard to go to your donors and say, ‘We’re going to do this again,’” Gennaro said. “I can only presume that they thought things were going to be closer and it just didn’t work out that way. Even really good candidates, like Deepti Sharma, who I think is terrific. It just didn’t work out in terms of votes.”
Candidates interviewed for this story said the special election outcome did play a role in their decision, but added there were other factors at play.
Higher education official Dilip Nath, who finished fifth, said he wanted to avoid the divisiveness of the last election. He said the outside influences on a local district, like leftist celebrities making endorsements or fear-mongering mailers funded by Common Sense NYC, inflamed the race and further galvanized the local Orthodox Jewish community, which voted heavily for Gennaro. The five South Asian candidates in the race garnered only about 40 percent of the vote.
He said Ahmed’s past statements of support for the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement tended to dominate other local issues.
“What I’ve experienced is unfortunately the community has polarized in many ways,” Nath said. “It triggered unnecessary tension and divided the community, and the independent PAC influenced the community and sent the wrong message.”
Soma Syed, a Queens attorney, decided to instead run for a civil court judgeship, challenging the Queens County Democratic Party’s pick for a seat on the bench. Syed said she did not see a path for a South Asian candidate when voters tend to cast their ballots along racial and ethnic lines.
“I decided not to run in the primary because when you look at the voting in District 24 and see how many people are running in the same community, I realized that I have other qualifications and other ways to represent the community of Queens,” she said.
Entrepreneur Deepti Sharma, Democratic District Leader Neeta Jain, community leader Mujib Rahman and real estate agent Michael Earl Brown also decided not to run. They did not respond to requests for comment.
Sharma was appointed Monday to a seat on Community Board 8.
